FROM VICE EPISTEMOLOGY
Heather Battaly
As an applied branch of virtue epistemology, the field of intellectual character education has focused on two main topics. It has argued that facilitating intellectual virtue is a goal of education, perhaps even its primary goal, and it has offered practical guidance for educators who are interested in facilitating intellectual virtues in their classrooms.1 This chapter explores that practical guidance – i.e., the “standard approach” to facilitating intellectual virtues in classrooms (Porter 2016: 222).
Section 1 explains the key features of the standard approach, as well as some “standard” objections and replies. Section 2 brings recent work on intellectual vices and vice epistemology to bear on the standard approach.2
Whereas virtue epistemology examines the structure, etiology, and acquisition of qualities that make us good thinkers, such as open-mindedness, intellectual humility, intellectual courage, and epistemic justice, vice epistemology examines the structure, etiology, and amelioration of qualities that make us bad thinkers, such as closed-mindedness, intellectual arrogance, intellectual timidity, and epistemic injustice. This chapter uses insights from vice epistemology to draw two lessons for intellectual character education. The first is that some students are already on their way to devel- oping intellectual vices (for which they are not blameworthy) and aren’t likely to be helped by the standard approach. To help these students make progress toward intellectual virtue, the standard approach would at least need to be combined with classroom strategies for ameliorating intellectual vices. The second is that tendencies toward intellectual vices may be prevalent among our students (and ourselves) and caused by systemic factors – intellectual vice may be the rule rather than the exception. Accordingly, any progress made in the classroom, by combining the standard approach with ameliorative strategies, is likely to be ephemeral if systemic changes aren’t made.
Where does this leave the standard approach? That is an open question worthy of further ex- ploration. The conclusion suggests that priority be given to systemic changes and ameliorative strategies, and that the standard approach be reserved for later use.3 In short, vice epistemology shows us that the role of the standard approach is not as central as many of us (myself included) might have thought.
The Standard Approach and Standard Objections
Intellectual virtues are qualities that make us good thinkers. One way to be a good thinker is to have qualities that reliably produce “epistemic goods” – true beliefs, knowledge, and understanding. On the “reliabilist” analysis of intellectual virtue, any stable quality of ours that reliably produces
epistemic goods will count as an intellectual virtue. Thus, 20/20 vision will be an intellectual virtue, as will acquired skills in critical thinking (according to many standard approaches4), and acquired character traits such as open-mindedness (provided they are reliable – i.e., consistently produce epistemic goods).5 Another way to be a good thinker is to have praiseworthy character traits that express a commitment to epistemic goods and a motivation to pursue them. On this “responsibilist”
analysis, intellectual virtues must be acquired character traits (rather than hard-wired capacities or skills) that involve valuing and caring about epistemic goods.6 They are also usually reliable.7 Responsibilists count traits such as open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and epistemic justice as intellectual virtues, and take the structure of intellectual virtues to be analogous to the structure of Aristotelian moral virtues (NE II). Accordingly, they think that intellectual virtues require acquired dispositions of appropriate behavior, motivation, affect, and perception. To illustrate, we might understand the virtue of intellectual humility as a disposition to be appropriately attentive to, and appropriately own, one’s intellectual limitations (e.g., lack of knowledge, cognitive mistakes, deficits in cognitive skills) because one is motivated by epistemic goods (Whitcomb et al. 2017). Here, we see a disposition of perception in appropriate attentiveness to one’s intellectual limitations, a dis- position of behavior and affect in appropriate owning of one’s limitations, and a disposition of appropriate motivation, viz. for epistemic goods. Owning will (at least) involve behaviors, such as admitting one’s lack of knowledge about a topic, and affective responses, such as feeling dismay about one’s lack of knowledge.8 Below, I focus on responsibilist intellectual virtues, or at least intellectual virtues that involve acquired dispositions of appropriate behavior, motivation, affect, and perception.9 On the assumption that it is valuable to help our students make progress in acquiring such intellectual virtues, what can we do in our classrooms to help?
A The Standard Approach
The standard approach to intellectual character education advises a combination of: (1) formal in- struction about the intellectual virtues; (2) exposure to exemplars of virtue; (3) practice in identifying actions that exemplars would perform and in identifying motivations and emotions that exemplars would have; (4) practice in performing actions that exemplars would perform and in having moti- vations and emotions they would have; (5) practice in recognizing situations in which the virtue in question is relevant; and (6) reflection on one’s development. The standard approach thus echoes Aristotle’s idea that we develop virtues through the repeated practice of appropriate actions: “For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing, e.g., men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts” (Aristotle 1984: 1743 [NE II.1103a31–1103b1]). In other words, we develop stable patterns of appropriate action, motivation, emotion, and perception via repeated practice under the guidance of exemplars.
Accordingly, advocates of the standard approach have suggested several in-class activities and as- signments that provide students with opportunities to practice appropriate actions, motivations, emotions, and perceptions.10 For instance, they recommend in-class group activities (e.g., discussions about the ethics of vaccine distribution) that give students opportunities to perform appropriate actions, e.g., to consider alternative ideas and perspectives (to do what open-minded people would do), to admit their ignorance about a topic (to do what intellectually humble people would do), to defend a belief or claim (to do what intellectually courageous people would do), and so forth. These activities typically ask students to try to perform actions that, e.g., open-minded (or intellectually humble, etc.) people would perform, and subsequently ask them to evaluate whether they succeeded, what their motivations and emotions were, and whether they were motivated by epistemic goods or by the fact that they were assigned a group activity (6 above). These activities are transparent – they inform students that they will encounter opportunities to practice doing what, e.g., open-minded (or intellectually humble, etc.)
people would do. Thus, they don’t help students learn to recognize and notice such opportunities for themselves. Accordingly, advocates of the standard approach recommend additional assignments that give students the opportunity to practice sizing up situations for themselves and recognizing occasions to, e.g., consider alternative ideas, admit their ignorance about a topic, defend a belief, and so forth (5 above). Such assignments might ask students to monitor classroom discussions, throughout the course, for situations to perform open-minded (etc.) actions, or even to look for such situations outside of the classroom, in (e.g.,) their evaluations of the media, or in their conversations about a range of topics (e.g., political, social, scientific) on-line, at work, or with friends or family.
Importantly, the standard approach takes virtues such as open-mindedness, intellectual humility, etc.
to lie in an Aristotelian mean between “vices” of excess and “vices” of deficiency. To illustrate, it takes the virtue of intellectual humility to lie in something like a mean between “vices” of excess, such as servility, and “vices” of deficiency, such as arrogance. Whereas a virtuously humble person is appro- priately attentive to and appropriately owns their intellectual limitations, a servile person is overly at- tentive to and over-owns their limitations. They are humble to a fault – their limitations may constantly come to mind, they may obsess about them, care too much about them, and feel defeated and over- whelmed by them (Whitcomb et al. 2020). In contrast, an arrogant person will be insufficiently attentive to and under-own their limitations – they won’t be humble enough. They may be oblivious to their limitations or in denial about them, or they may not care about changing them, or may feel outraged whenever someone points them out. The key point for present purposes is that “hitting the mean” in one’s actions, as virtuous people do, requires avoiding “vices” of deficiency and “vices” of excess.
The standard approach recognizes that it will be difficult for students to practice performing actions, such as intellectually humble or open-minded ones, that “hit the mean,” unless they first know what target they are supposed to hit and what “vices” they are supposed to avoid. In short, it will be difficult for students to become more virtuous unless they know how to accurately identify virtuous actions and discriminate them from actions that aren’t virtuous. Accordingly, advocates of the standard approach recommend formal instruction about the intellectual virtues and vices, and exposure to exemplars of virtue, as methods for explaining what the virtues (of intellectual humility, or open-mindedness, etc.) are, what they aren’t, and what virtuous actions and motivations look like in a range of different situations (1 and 2 above). They note that exemplars can be especially useful in helping students home in on virtuous actions. To illustrate, though exemplars of (e.g.,) intellectual humility won’t constantly attend to, or own, every cognitive limitation they have, there will be many situations in which they attend to and own some of their cognitive limitations. Repeated exposure to exemplars of intellectual humility might thus help students learn which limitations it is appropriate to attend to and own in which situations, and in which ways, and why. Formal in- struction might likewise help students understand why it is valuable to care about truth and knowledge, and how desires to (e.g.,) look smart, win debates, and get good grades can compete with motivations for epistemic goods. To help students further improve their skills in identifying virtuous actions, motivations, and emotions, the standard approach also advises practice (3 above). It recommends classroom activities that use a range of examples11 of intellectual actions and moti- vations – some virtuous, others not – to give students practice in figuring out which intellectual actions and motivations are virtuous, which aren’t, and why.
B Standard Objections
Along with the standard approach come standard objections to it. Here, I briefly consider four. First, one might worry that the standard approach is unjustly “imposing” its views about what is virtuous on students. By way of reply, this would only be a concern if we seriously doubted the value of truth, knowledge, and understanding. Advocates of the standard approach think that intellectual virtues help us gain an appreciation for the value of truth, knowledge, and understanding (Curren 2019), in addition
to helping us gain more of these goods themselves (Battaly 2016). In short: as long as true beliefs, knowledge, and understanding are valuable, this objection lacks force.
The second objection is that by encouraging students to imitate the behavior of exemplars, the standard approach is training students to clone behavior without understanding it, to act by rote rather than acquire intellectual virtue. In response, while the standard approach does endorse (Aristotelian) “habituation,” it points out that this process is hardly one of mindless copying and repetition (Sherman 1989). Exemplars will explain their actions, motivations, and perceptions – they will explain why they perform some actions and not others, why some features of a context are especially salient, and why caring about truth matters – in an effort to help learners eventually become self-sufficient. For their part, learners won’t mindlessly parrot what exemplars do either;
instead, they will try to understand the salient features of the exemplar’s actions and context, and apply them to their own contexts. Nor will learners mechanically repeat the very same action again and again, regardless of context (Curren 2019: 478). Rather, they will try to get increasingly closer to the context-sensitive actions of exemplars, by noting the degree to which their previous attempts to do so succeeded or failed (Battaly 2015: 152). In sum, borrowing from Jason Baehr, “educating for intellectual character growth requires educating for deep understanding” (2016b: 128).
Relatedly, third, one might worry that for the standard approach to succeed, educators would themselves need to be exemplars of intellectual virtue. Advocates of the standard approach have provided two avenues of reply. First, they have argued that educators themselves need not be exemplars of intellectual virtue, since they can find exemplars elsewhere. Educators can find ex- amples of intellectually virtuous exemplars in popular fiction and film, and in a wide range of professional fields, including (e.g.,) research science, medicine, and journalism. Second, advocates of the standard approach have argued that while consistent dispositions of virtuous action and moti- vation are needed in role models, perfection isn’t needed. They thus make it easier for educators to count as role models in the first place. To put this differently, the standard approach has relaxed Aristotle’s requirements on virtue possession in two key ways. (A) Whereas Aristotle thought that virtuous people wouldn’t have competing motivations and wouldn’t struggle to perform virtuous actions, the standard approach allows virtuous people to be enkratic. Along these lines, Michel Croce (2020) has expanded the set of virtuous role models beyond “saints,” who have all of the virtues, to include “heroes,” who only have one virtue, and enkratic people, who have to overcome competing motivations in order to perform virtuous actions.12 (B) The standard approach requires consistency, but not perfection, for virtue-possession; it requires us to be “good enough” (Swanton 2003: 24), even if we aren’t intellectual saints. In short, it has moved toward a “threshold” view that allows for degrees of virtue-possession, once one has met (and exceeded) a threshold of consistency that is required for basic virtue-possession. It likewise allows room for growth in virtue and for getting closer to perfecting one’s dispositions of virtuous action and motivation.
Fourth, one might object that even if the standard approach is successful at helping students perform intellectually virtuous actions, it might fail to facilitate intellectually virtuous motivations. Responsibilist virtues involve autonomous valuing of epistemic goods – being motivated by the intrinsic value of epistemic goods. They require caring about truth, knowledge, and understanding for their own sakes, and not (merely) for the sake of extrinsic rewards. But, students might do what intellectually virtuous people do, not because they care about truth for its own sake, but because they want to get good grades (and high-paying jobs). Educational psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have argued that using external rewards or admonishments, like grades and deadlines, to facilitate student behavior succeeds in eliciting the targeted behavior, but may do so at a price. These methods don’t help students develop intrinsic motivations to engage in the targeted behavior, and can even undermine intrinsic motivations they might already have.13 If correct, their studies show that emphasizing assignments and grades will neither facilitate, nor sustain, autonomous valuing of epistemic goods. In reply to this worry, Deci and Ryan argue that educators can facilitate intrinsic motivations by supporting the autonomy of
students and acknowledging their skills. Accordingly, their Self-Determination Theory (SDT) em- phasizes methods such as: “creating time for students’ independent work, giving students an oppor- tunity to talk … . encouraging students’ effort, offering progress-enabling hints when students seemed stuck, being responsive to students’ comments and questions, and acknowledging students’ experiences and perspectives” (Ryan & Deci 2009: 184). Randall Curren (2019) likewise contends that facilitating intrinsic motivations requires supporting students’ autonomy and self-determination. He thus en- courages learning tasks that “provide students with manageable challenges that build their capabilities and confidence while allowing them to experience themselves as competent …” (2019: 476). He points out that if challenges are too difficult, students will get discouraged and won’t identify with the value of truth or adopt it as a value of their own. Curren helpfully explains SDT’s distinction between moti- vations that are “controlled” as opposed to autonomous. In his words, motivations that are “externally induced by a superior’s direct orders, threat of punishment, or offer of a reward” are “controlled”
(2019: 477).14 Whereas, to have autonomous motivations for epistemic goods, students must identify with the value of truth (etc.) and autonomously adopt that value as their own. To be clear, none of these scholars advocates abandoning grades. Rather, they advise emphasizing pedagogical methods that support students’ autonomy, in addition to, and over and above, methods that support motivations for extrinsic rewards such as grades. Curren adds that facilitating intrinsic motivations, and intellectual virtues more generally, will also require educational systems that intrinsically value epistemic goods (over and above testing). As we will see below, vice epistemology raises a similar point.
Lessons from Vice Epistemology
Vice epistemology examines the structure, etiology, and amelioration of qualities that make us bad thinkers, such as intellectual arrogance, intellectual servility, closed-mindedness, and epistemic in- justice.15 Vice epistemologists largely agree that we need not be blameworthy for coming to possess intellectual vices, since we might have unwittingly acquired them from our environments; at least, we need not be blameworthy in the traditional sense of the term, which would require having had control over their acquisition.16 This section uses etiological insights from vice epistemology to draw two lessons about the standard approach. First, if intellectual vices can be caused by localized factors, such as neglectful or abusive relationships, then we should expect some of our students to have already begun to develop them (Porter 2016: 231). These students have not been “primed” to develop intellectual virtues (Porter 2016: 226). Nor do they enter our classrooms in a “neutral” state;
i.e., without any tendencies either toward virtues or toward vices. Rather they arrive with some tendencies toward intellectual vices already in place. Part II.A. argues that on its own, the standard approach isn’t likely to help students who have already begun to develop intellectual vices make progress toward intellectual virtues. To help, it would at least need to be combined with classroom strategies for ameliorating intellectual vices. Second, if intellectual vices can be caused by systematic factors, as suggested in Part II.B., then we should expect tendencies toward vices to be widespread among our students (and ourselves). We should expect them to be the rule rather than the localized exception. Accordingly, any progress we might make in the classroom, by combining the standard approach with ameliorative strategies, is likely to be undone unless systemic changes are also made.
In short, using classroom strategies to ameliorate tendencies toward vice is one thing, eradicating systemic (and other external) causes of vice is another.17
The Need for Ameliorative Strategies
One of the insights of vice epistemology is that intellectual vices can be unwittingly acquired and can begin to develop in childhood and adolescence, when we have little control over our devel- opmental trajectories and before we are even aware of the ways that dispositions develop.18 If this is