There seem to be several, apparently competing candidates for a kind of 'executor' (or controlling; administrating) intellectual virtue discussed in papers on virtue epistemology. Here's a brief list, and please add more, or give us your arguments in favor of one or the other, or on the whole issue of a single controlling virtue.

1. Conscientiousness (Montmarquet and others)

2. Curiosity (Miscevic and others)

3. Caring (Zagzebski, Dalmiya and others, really a trans-ethical virtue related to moral sensitivity, and thus closest to phronesis as Aristotle held it to be, a moral virtue that administers to the intellectual realm).

Certainly "open-mindedness" is currently receiving a lot of attention among thickies in recent works as well, though I'm not sure if it is being considered as such an executor-type virtue, or simple one central intellectual virtue among others.

Add "love of truth" (Roberts/Wood) and phronesis (Zagzebski) to the list of candidates.

I think whether there is an "executor" virtue and how it's structurally related to other virtues are excellent questions Guy.

I suggest steadfastness, or intellectual courage. This would be continuing to hold a position though there may be much pressure to withold it or rescind for reasons not relevant to the reasons supporting the position, eg., its unpopularity.

We have surveyed the candidates for an executor intellectual virtue, but have not considered by what desiderata the various authors we've cited claim an executor virtue should fill. Miscevic's rationale for choosing "curiosity" may be little different than those who choose "love of truth," though he offers an interesting argument for it. Miscevic seeks a "'strong' virtue epistemology," one based upon virtue instead of only taking interest in it. He argues that while the virtue reliabilist/responsibilist opposition is real and is serious. But

"[I] argue both that the main tension within it [VE] can be overcome, and that it makes sense to try to work on VE thatwould be atthe same time *virtue-based* and *truth-centered*, thus first taking the best from both camps, and then building up the role of virtue in the resulting picture to its full strength, sufficient to ground the epistemological project. I also think that Sosa-style appeal to virtues-capacities [faculty virtues] in the narrow task of defining knowledge is strictly right. The secret of obtaining a virtue-based account lies first in picking up the only motiviating trait that has to do with truth, namely inquisitiveness or curiosity, and second, in promoting it to the status of the central motivating epistemic virtue." (2007, 240-241)

So here in brief is Miscevic's argument for curiosity as an executor intellectual virtue, and for an "integrated virtue-based view" on the basis of it. Curiosity is not itself a thin disposition or faculty, but a "motivating" character trait (as moral virtues generally are). There are other motivating intellectual virtues, intellectual courage, integrity, and humility, for example. But curiosity also fills another key epistemic desiderata besides its motivating quality. It is furthermore the only one among the motivating character traits that is truth-centered, thus helping to supply the reliabilist connection that is important in traditional concerns such as that of conceptual analysis of knowing (and conceding that "an appeal to motivating virtues is not necessary for defining knowledge" (244). Thus, Miscevic is quintessentially what I call an "epistemic compatibilist," his own version of compatibilism being found in his claim that, "This preserves both primacy of truth-goal and the traditional and ordinary understanding of virtue as a motivating feature" (244)

Additional strength for the proposal comes from the manner in which Miscevic thinks his account is able to show that virtue grounds value, 'and that the value of truth is consequently attitude or response-dependent." Moreover, despite its attempt to satisfy reliabilist intuitions, Miscevic is clear about the differences between "strong" virtue epistemology and virtue reliaiilism. Since "in Sosa's work virtues (-capacities) play a role in the very definition of knowledge, but they are not seen as motivating and orienting cognizer's epistemic activity, nor as dictating what the values and goals are; their role is purely executive, in performing 'the good work' of attaining the truth. Such a theory is not virtue-based but merely virtue-focused" (243). So "Now is you combine my proposal for grounding the value of knowledge in the motivating epistemic virtues(s), with the Sosa-style strategy for offering the strict definition of knowledge by appeal to executive virtues-capacities, you will obtain a full-blooded, 'strong' VE that includes both an analysis of knowledge and reflections about value." (245)

So how do you all evaluative the plausibility of Miscevic's argument? Should virtue epistemologists accept his reasons for taking "curiosity" to be the central or what we've called "executive" epistemic virtue?