https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2310-3232
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ABSTRACT
Many virtue epistemologists conceive of epistemic competence on the model of skill—such as archery, playing baseball, or chess. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake: epistemic competences and skills are crucially and relevantly different kinds of capacities. This, I suggest, undermines the popular attempt to understand epistemic normativity as a mere special case of the sort of normativity familiar from skilful action. In fact, as I argue further, epistemic competences resemble virtues rather than skills—a claim that is based on an important, but often overlooked, difference between virtue and skill. The upshot is that virtue epistemology should indeed be based on virtue, not on skill.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Sosa’s term for the sort of normativity familiar from skilful action is ‘performance normativity’. On his view, epistemic normativity is just a ‘special case’ of performance normativity (see Sosa [Citation2011: 1] and many other places). Similarly, Greco [Citation2010: 7] claims that ‘[e]pistemic normativity is an instance of a more general, familiar kind’—one whose paradigm examples come from the realm of skill (see, e.g., Greco [Citation2010: 77–8, 86–9]).
2 Aside from Sosa and Greco, the appeal to examples of skill as a model for epistemic competences can be found in Turri [Citation2010], Miracchi [Citation2015], Kern [Citation2017], Kelp [Citation2017, Citation2019], and many others.
3 Reliance on the skill-model is most prominent among proponents of the reliabilist tradition in virtue epistemology; in section 2, I clarify how my view relates to the responsibilist tradition.
4 See Aristotle’s discussion in II.4 and VI.5 of the Nicomachean Ethics.
5 Compare II.4 and VI.5 of the Nicomachean Ethics. For discussion, see, e.g., Foot [Citation1978: 7–8], Zagzebski [Citation1996: 106–16], and Angier [Citation2010: ch. 2].
6 Aristotle mentions several features distinguishing virtue from skill (see II.4 of the Nicomachean Ethics). It’s beyond the scope of this paper to consider the exact relation among the distinguishing features. I would argue, however, that what I shall call ‘unconditional responsiveness’ is in fact a fundamental characteristic of virtue, in that many of the other distinguishing features can be seen to derive from it (see Horst Citation[ms]).
7 The qualification ‘decisive’ is important: a genuinely kind person is unconditionally disposed to act kindly in situations where kindness is actually called for, not where considerations of kindness are overridden by the demands of other virtues (e.g. demands of fairness). This is what distinguishes kindness as a genuine virtue from what Aristotle calls ‘natural virtue’—e.g. a natural inclination to be nice to others, which might exist in a person who remains completely unmoved by demands of fairness. The same goes for the other virtues (see VI.13 of the Nicomachean Ethics). For a defence of this view, see, e.g., McDowell [Citation1979] and Müller [Citation2004].
8 I take this objection from Dougherty [Citation2020: 83]. I discuss Stichter’s and Dougherty’s defence of the skill analogy in more detail elsewhere [Horst Citationms].
9 A case in point: arguably, there has never been a soccer player more skilled than Diego Maradona, yet his commitment to the demands of his sport was famously erratic. By contrast, it would make little sense to consider someone the world’s most virtuous person, while acknowledging that they often lacked the motivation to live up to the demands of virtue.
10 Thanks to an anonymous referee for urging me to address Stichter’s view here.
11 For relevant discussion, see, e.g., Sosa [Citation2015: 94–106].
12 Reliabilists who adopt some sort of ‘no defeater’ condition for justified belief would seem to accept that (see, e.g., Goldman [Citation1986]). EC, I take it, is also compatible with Sosa’s view [Citation2015: 77–83] on full competence on the human level.
13 See Sylvan [Citation2016] and Archer [Citation2017] for objections to intrapersonal permissivism.
14 ‘Evidential internalists’ include BonJour [Citation1999] and Audi [Citation2001], ‘evidential externalists’ include McDowell [Citation1995] and Williamson [Citation2000]. The terminology is due to Silins [Citation2005].
15 For relevant discussion, compare the vast literature on the so-called ‘new evil demon problem’ (originally from Cohen [Citation1984]).
16 Compare the examples from Baehr [Citation2011: 17–22].
17 Here I agree with Sosa [Citation2015: ch. 2].
18 I don’t mean to suggest that this is the only way in which the notion of rationality is used in epistemology. But tying rationality to evidence-responsiveness is certainly the orthodox view (see Kelly [Citation2016]). A dissenting voice is Rinard [Citation2017].
19 Norms of orthography are arguably constitutive for a language. However, this doesn’t mean that they cannot be violated. It means that, for something to be a token of that language, it must be assessable as correct/incorrect in light of these norms. Thanks to an anonymous referee for asking me to clarify this.
20 Thanks to Luca Ferrero, Thomas Grundmann, Matthias Haase, David Hunter, Chris Kelp, Benjamin Kiesewetter, Karl Schafer, Rogério Severo, Sergio Tenenbaum, Josh Thorpe, and two anonymous referees for their feedback on the material presented in this paper. Thanks also to audiences at the universities of Warwick, Vienna, Leipzig, Köln, Campinas, and Porto Alegre for very helpful discussion.