E. Character & Social Psychology > Why Does/Doesn't the Situationist Challenge Extend to Virtue Epistemologies?
Hi Guy,
You raise a great set of questions around a difficult issue. Here's a few thoughts on the matter:
In general, I think it is a mistake to think of virtues, intellectual or purely ethical, as being global (at least on the current meaning of global). As I understand it, to call a virtue or trait global is to claim that in any situation where X is the appropriate form of action Y will do X if Y posses X virtue. This seems to me to be a very naive and idealistic view of human beings. Humans are not perfect. But, if we maintain that person Y will always do what we consider the best action in Z situations then aren't we saying Y is perfect in Z situations; however, that seems to be impossible because humans are not perfect. In other words, if Y has the global trait of being courageous, then in ALL situations where being courageous is the most desirable form of action, Y will act as such. Again, I think it is a serious mistake to consider humans infallible with regard to being courageous, or open-minded, or whatever virtue is required/desirable in a given situation in order to call that trait robust, or global, or entrenched. Rather, it seems far more conducive to human nature to say that if person Y posses trait X, there is a HIGHLY PROBABLE CHANCE they will perform X actions in Z situations.
Now, it seems to me that if the language of traits and virtues is put into probability terms the challenge posed by the situationist goes away; given that as I have claimed the situationist is attacking a false conception of what it means for a trait to be robust. Of course to establish the presence of virtues in probability terms would require a substantive longitudinal study which followed many individuals and recorded there responses to Z situations over time. However, this type of study would be extraordinarily difficult and expensive to conduct, but such is life. Nevertheless, if it where to be done, a very rough model would be to set some fairly arbitrary number, say 95%, and if person Y over the course of say 5 or 10 years performed X actions in Z situations 95% of the time then it would seem fair to me to make an empirical conclusion regarding the robustness of person Y's trait or virtue in question. If someone has done something like this and I am just ignorant of it, please point me to it. But, if no one has done anything like this, then I would like to suggest that the burden is on Doris to show us why he has not just given us more evidence that humans are not perfect, as opposed to having a lack of robust traits. In other words, I am not willing to grant that just because a person fails to act in a certain way in particular instances we should conclude they do not robustly posses a given trait.
You raise a great set of questions around a difficult issue. Here's a few thoughts on the matter:
In general, I think it is a mistake to think of virtues, intellectual or purely ethical, as being global (at least on the current meaning of global). As I understand it, to call a virtue or trait global is to claim that in any situation where X is the appropriate form of action Y will do X if Y posses X virtue. This seems to me to be a very naive and idealistic view of human beings. Humans are not perfect. But, if we maintain that person Y will always do what we consider the best action in Z situations then aren't we saying Y is perfect in Z situations; however, that seems to be impossible because humans are not perfect. In other words, if Y has the global trait of being courageous, then in ALL situations where being courageous is the most desirable form of action, Y will act as such. Again, I think it is a serious mistake to consider humans infallible with regard to being courageous, or open-minded, or whatever virtue is required/desirable in a given situation in order to call that trait robust, or global, or entrenched. Rather, it seems far more conducive to human nature to say that if person Y posses trait X, there is a HIGHLY PROBABLE CHANCE they will perform X actions in Z situations.
Now, it seems to me that if the language of traits and virtues is put into probability terms the challenge posed by the situationist goes away; given that as I have claimed the situationist is attacking a false conception of what it means for a trait to be robust. Of course to establish the presence of virtues in probability terms would require a substantive longitudinal study which followed many individuals and recorded there responses to Z situations over time. However, this type of study would be extraordinarily difficult and expensive to conduct, but such is life. Nevertheless, if it where to be done, a very rough model would be to set some fairly arbitrary number, say 95%, and if person Y over the course of say 5 or 10 years performed X actions in Z situations 95% of the time then it would seem fair to me to make an empirical conclusion regarding the robustness of person Y's trait or virtue in question. If someone has done something like this and I am just ignorant of it, please point me to it. But, if no one has done anything like this, then I would like to suggest that the burden is on Doris to show us why he has not just given us more evidence that humans are not perfect, as opposed to having a lack of robust traits. In other words, I am not willing to grant that just because a person fails to act in a certain way in particular instances we should conclude they do not robustly posses a given trait.
November 10, 2007 |
John Dell
John Dell
John, You think Doris has false conception of what it means for a trait to be robust. That thought gives me an opportunity to go a bit further into the specific aspects of Linda Z's account of intellectual virtues and their explanatory functions that Doris wants to target. I will just quote the full passage from her Virtue of the Mind (178) that Doris cites when criticizing epistemologists who "import globalist psychological theories from the ethics literature." Anyone can comment on whether the claims she makes here are sustainable or not in light of Doris' challenge:
"We saw in 2.5 that most virtues are acquired by habituation and we only consider then virtues when they are entrenched in the agent's character. Entrenchment is a necessary feature of virtues because they are often needed the most when they encounter resistance...So the motivational component of a virtue must be inculcated sufficiently to reliably withstand the influence of contrary motivations when those motivations do not themselves arise from virtues. The more that virtuous motivations and the resulting behavior become fixed virtues, the more they are able to reliably achieve the ends of the virtue in those cases in which these are contrary tendencies to be overcome...The intellectual virtues are a subset of truth-conducive traits that are entrenched and whose entrenchment aids their truth conduciveness...Most of the qualities I have been calling intellectual virtues--traits such as open-mindedness, carefulness, and perseverance--are to a great extent environment neutral, but this does not mean that there are not other intellectual virtues that are more context sensitive." (1996, 178-9)
"We saw in 2.5 that most virtues are acquired by habituation and we only consider then virtues when they are entrenched in the agent's character. Entrenchment is a necessary feature of virtues because they are often needed the most when they encounter resistance...So the motivational component of a virtue must be inculcated sufficiently to reliably withstand the influence of contrary motivations when those motivations do not themselves arise from virtues. The more that virtuous motivations and the resulting behavior become fixed virtues, the more they are able to reliably achieve the ends of the virtue in those cases in which these are contrary tendencies to be overcome...The intellectual virtues are a subset of truth-conducive traits that are entrenched and whose entrenchment aids their truth conduciveness...Most of the qualities I have been calling intellectual virtues--traits such as open-mindedness, carefulness, and perseverance--are to a great extent environment neutral, but this does not mean that there are not other intellectual virtues that are more context sensitive." (1996, 178-9)
November 16, 2007 |
Guy Axtell
Guy Axtell
Guy, I definitely think that anyone who requires a virtue to be ever-present in all situations that call for its manifestation, is at the very least asking too much. So, to the extent that Doris and others may cater to this type of requirement I would be critical. Nevertheless, I do not think I was being as clear or as fair as I should have been in my last post, but I was going from my memory (and a poor one) of *Lack of Character*, so hopefully I can be forgiven. Having gone back and taken a quick look at Doris' work, my criticism was not necessarily aimed at Doris' conception of a robust trait, but at what I take to be a hasty rejection of the consistency thesis. Turning back to my last post, what I am calling for is a substantial longitudinal study that would actually measure someone over time (years) in order to empirically label a person's trait as robust or not. When you are talking about something as complex as a person's character I think the only way to establish whether traits are "reliably manifested" is over a significant amount of time and situations.
Now to your actual question. It seems to me that the specific IV's Professor Zagzebski mentions (open-mindedness, carefulness, and perseverance) would be subject to the kinds of criticisms Doris and others raise *only* when it comes to consistency. I do not think (and I could be wrong here) that Professor Zagzebski makes any commitment to the unity of virtue, so any criticism that may be raised with respect to evaluative integration does not apply. Also, I think Doris accepts stability so he would not be critical on those grounds.
Thus, if Professor Zagzebski's view has a weakness it will be in whatever commitment she may have to consistency. The last segment of the section you posted captures this commitment nicely. Professor Zagzebski writes,
"Most of the qualities I have been calling intellectual virtues--traits such as open-mindedness, carefulness, and perseverance--are to a great extent environment neutral, but this does not mean that there are not other intellectual virtues that are more context sensitive."
I am pretty sure Doris would agree that there are IV's which are context sensitive. So, to the extent that consistency of virtues relates to their being environment neutral, I think Professor Zagzebski would at least have something to be concerned with. But, as I have at least tacitly claimed previously, in the same way situationists point out that "globalist conceptions of personality are empirically inadequate" (Doris 2002, 23), I think the *rejection* of globalist conceptions of personality-especially with respect to consistency-are also empirically inadequate. Thus, until the situationist finds a way to measure the same person's responses to a variety of situations over the course of years, I do not think Professor Zagzebski has too much to worry about.
Now to your actual question. It seems to me that the specific IV's Professor Zagzebski mentions (open-mindedness, carefulness, and perseverance) would be subject to the kinds of criticisms Doris and others raise *only* when it comes to consistency. I do not think (and I could be wrong here) that Professor Zagzebski makes any commitment to the unity of virtue, so any criticism that may be raised with respect to evaluative integration does not apply. Also, I think Doris accepts stability so he would not be critical on those grounds.
Thus, if Professor Zagzebski's view has a weakness it will be in whatever commitment she may have to consistency. The last segment of the section you posted captures this commitment nicely. Professor Zagzebski writes,
"Most of the qualities I have been calling intellectual virtues--traits such as open-mindedness, carefulness, and perseverance--are to a great extent environment neutral, but this does not mean that there are not other intellectual virtues that are more context sensitive."
I am pretty sure Doris would agree that there are IV's which are context sensitive. So, to the extent that consistency of virtues relates to their being environment neutral, I think Professor Zagzebski would at least have something to be concerned with. But, as I have at least tacitly claimed previously, in the same way situationists point out that "globalist conceptions of personality are empirically inadequate" (Doris 2002, 23), I think the *rejection* of globalist conceptions of personality-especially with respect to consistency-are also empirically inadequate. Thus, until the situationist finds a way to measure the same person's responses to a variety of situations over the course of years, I do not think Professor Zagzebski has too much to worry about.
November 17, 2007 |
John Dell
John Dell
John, I think you're right to focus on Linda's passage that claims that core reflective virtues are "environment neutral," as something Doris would most strenuously object to. The reason I doubt the strong burden of proof you place on the situationist to undermine globalist conceptions of character is that it is the virtue epistemologist who is casting these traits of character as salient factors in explanations of belief acquisition and maintenance. Thus this criticism of the "success because of virtue" claim ties in with other criticisms of motivation-based claims about truth belief "arising from" or "because of" or "due to" virtue.
This causalist construal of "because of" relationship is that which Michael Levin, for instance, terms "motive-reliabilist" and objects to on independent grounds. Moreover, by framing the reflective virtues as explainers, the responsibilist no less than the reliabilist will be subject to the well-known "generality problem" of specifying the causally-efficatious character traits and the environment in which they are typically reliable in a way that is neither too narrow nor to broad. See Jason Baehr's great paper "Character in Epistemology" for insights as to how difficult a problem that is when the types of traits in questions are those of the reflective or "character virtues," in particular.
But while longitudinal studies aren't likely available, the literature on critical thinking, for instance, abounds with empirically-grounded reservations about what you call our "consistency" as epistemic agents. Consider for example this excerpt that I often give my students when we play our first critical thinking games:
["Rationalizing Homo Sapiens.
People not only jump to conclusions, they frequently rationalize or defend whatever conclusion they jump to. Psychologist Barry Singer summarizes research findings that show just how good our rationalizing skills are. Numerous psychological experiments on problem solving and concept formation have shown that when people are given the task of selecting the right answer by being told whether particular guesses are right or wrong, they will tend to do the following:
1. They will immediately form a hypothesis and look only for examples to confirm it. They will not seek evidence to disprove their hypothesis, although this strategy would be just as effective, but will in fact try to ignore any evidence against it.
2. If the answer is secretly changed in the middle of the guessing process, they will be very slow to change the hypothesis that was once correct but has suddenly become wrong.
3. If one hypothesis fits the data fairly well, they will stick with it and not look for other hypotheses that might fit the data better.
4. If the information provided is too complex, people will cope by adopting overly simple hypotheses or strategies for solution, and by ignoring any evidence against them.
5. etc., etc.
It is not surprising that rats, pigeons, and small children are often better at solving these sorts of problems than are human adults. Pigeons and small children don't care so much whether they are always right, and they do not have such a developed capacity for convincing themselves they are right, no matter what the evidence is."]
This causalist construal of "because of" relationship is that which Michael Levin, for instance, terms "motive-reliabilist" and objects to on independent grounds. Moreover, by framing the reflective virtues as explainers, the responsibilist no less than the reliabilist will be subject to the well-known "generality problem" of specifying the causally-efficatious character traits and the environment in which they are typically reliable in a way that is neither too narrow nor to broad. See Jason Baehr's great paper "Character in Epistemology" for insights as to how difficult a problem that is when the types of traits in questions are those of the reflective or "character virtues," in particular.
But while longitudinal studies aren't likely available, the literature on critical thinking, for instance, abounds with empirically-grounded reservations about what you call our "consistency" as epistemic agents. Consider for example this excerpt that I often give my students when we play our first critical thinking games:
["Rationalizing Homo Sapiens.
People not only jump to conclusions, they frequently rationalize or defend whatever conclusion they jump to. Psychologist Barry Singer summarizes research findings that show just how good our rationalizing skills are. Numerous psychological experiments on problem solving and concept formation have shown that when people are given the task of selecting the right answer by being told whether particular guesses are right or wrong, they will tend to do the following:
1. They will immediately form a hypothesis and look only for examples to confirm it. They will not seek evidence to disprove their hypothesis, although this strategy would be just as effective, but will in fact try to ignore any evidence against it.
2. If the answer is secretly changed in the middle of the guessing process, they will be very slow to change the hypothesis that was once correct but has suddenly become wrong.
3. If one hypothesis fits the data fairly well, they will stick with it and not look for other hypotheses that might fit the data better.
4. If the information provided is too complex, people will cope by adopting overly simple hypotheses or strategies for solution, and by ignoring any evidence against them.
5. etc., etc.
It is not surprising that rats, pigeons, and small children are often better at solving these sorts of problems than are human adults. Pigeons and small children don't care so much whether they are always right, and they do not have such a developed capacity for convincing themselves they are right, no matter what the evidence is."]
November 19, 2007 |
Guy Axtell
Guy Axtell
Guy, as usual I have a lot to learn, and I hope to get a chance to spend some time on both Levin's and Baehr's work soon. Also as usual, I need to be more careful, for I fear I have painted a picture that presents the virtue epistemologist as not having much to worry about. I believe the virtue epistemologist has plenty to worry about and much for which they should be held accountable. I will try and explain my position on the empirical nature of virtues. (though you will have to be pretty charitable since I cannot go into the kind of detail I might like).
To my lights, entrenched intellectual virtues are things which extend beyond our current empirical capacity. What I mean by this is that we do not posses the means to measure people's personalities at the level required to firmly establish the presence of entrenched virtue's. However, we can certainly measure and know when a person acts in accord with virtue. But how can we possibly measure when a person is no longer acting in accord with virtue, but is acting from an entrenched virtue? This difficulty certainly does not entail that there is no such thing as an entrenched virtue (consistency). One way to think about what I am concerned with would be to consider free-will (I realize it is also debatable whether this exists). It is impossible to measure free-will. The second you place a person in an experimental design you automatically take free-will out the picture because the individual becomes bound by the fact that they are in an experiment. But for many of us, especially those of us who think some component of free-will is essential to morality, the lack of empirical support for free-will is not considered detrimental. I think the virtue epistemologist should take a similar stance with respect to consistency. That is, at least until we have the means to establish empirically that virtues do or do not fit into the consistency thesis. Remember, I do think it is longitudinally possible to measure consistency, so the analogy with free-will is not exact.
As far as rationalizing goes most adult humans work off heuristics and I think it is pretty safe to say these are fairly truth conducive (at least in the efficient sense). Lest of coarse humans would have evolved to be as successful as they are using some other tool. This is probably why children, rats, and pigeons do better in some of these experiments, because they have not developed their heuristic dependencies yet, or in the case of pigeons and rats will not. Luckily for us our goal is not to be like rats, pigeons, or small children. We might even say if it was not for heuristics we would never have evolved past the rats! Nevertheless, individuals definatly engage in the types of faulty reasoning people like Singer point out. I certainly hope the virtue epistemoligist is not guilty here, especially in regards to #1 in your examples from Singer.
To my lights, entrenched intellectual virtues are things which extend beyond our current empirical capacity. What I mean by this is that we do not posses the means to measure people's personalities at the level required to firmly establish the presence of entrenched virtue's. However, we can certainly measure and know when a person acts in accord with virtue. But how can we possibly measure when a person is no longer acting in accord with virtue, but is acting from an entrenched virtue? This difficulty certainly does not entail that there is no such thing as an entrenched virtue (consistency). One way to think about what I am concerned with would be to consider free-will (I realize it is also debatable whether this exists). It is impossible to measure free-will. The second you place a person in an experimental design you automatically take free-will out the picture because the individual becomes bound by the fact that they are in an experiment. But for many of us, especially those of us who think some component of free-will is essential to morality, the lack of empirical support for free-will is not considered detrimental. I think the virtue epistemologist should take a similar stance with respect to consistency. That is, at least until we have the means to establish empirically that virtues do or do not fit into the consistency thesis. Remember, I do think it is longitudinally possible to measure consistency, so the analogy with free-will is not exact.
As far as rationalizing goes most adult humans work off heuristics and I think it is pretty safe to say these are fairly truth conducive (at least in the efficient sense). Lest of coarse humans would have evolved to be as successful as they are using some other tool. This is probably why children, rats, and pigeons do better in some of these experiments, because they have not developed their heuristic dependencies yet, or in the case of pigeons and rats will not. Luckily for us our goal is not to be like rats, pigeons, or small children. We might even say if it was not for heuristics we would never have evolved past the rats! Nevertheless, individuals definatly engage in the types of faulty reasoning people like Singer point out. I certainly hope the virtue epistemoligist is not guilty here, especially in regards to #1 in your examples from Singer.
November 19, 2007 |
John Dell
John Dell
I think the discussion in this thread is helpful, but I'd like to add a few points.
First, while John Dell is right that virtue theory is being straw-manned if virtues aren't thought of probabilistically, there's more to it. It seems to me that virtues come in two probabilistic flavors: high-fidelity virtues (henceforth hi-fi virtues) and low-fidelity virtues (henceforth low-fi virtues). Hi-fi virtues require near-perfect consistency, whereas low-fi virtues require merely better (or maybe much better) consistency than one would expect without the virtues. Off the top of my head, hi-fi moral virtues include chastity, fairness, fidelity, honesty, justice, and trustworthiness. If someone acts in accordance with chastity in 80% of the opportunities he has for cheating on his spouse, that hardly makes him chaste. If someone doesn't steal in 70% of the cases where she could, that doesn't make her honest. By contrast, low-fi moral virtues include charity, diligence, friendliness, generosity, industry, magnanimity, mercy, tact, and tenacity. (These lists aren't meant to be comprehensive or uncontroversial, but I hope they at least point in the right direction.) If someone gives to charity 20% of the time (assuming the sums are sufficient), that could count as charitable. If someone shows mercy even occasionally, that might qualify him as merciful. While it's more difficult to argue against the low-fi moral virtues using the sorts of psychological studies we currently have, it's not nearly so difficult to argue against the hi-fi moral virtues. This raises the question whether the intellectual virtues are hi-fi or low-fi. It seems necessary to introduce distinctions here as well. I'll speak only of the responsibilist virtues for now, but I think similar things could be said of the reliabilist virtues. My intuition is that we again find a split. Among the hi-fi responsibilist virtues, we find curiosity, open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, intellectual humility, thoroughness, and intellectual carefulness. Among the low-fi responsibilist virtues, we find perseverance, insightfulness, and originality. Again, then, it may be more difficult to argue against the low-fi intellectual virtues using non-longitudinal studies, but it shouldn't be so difficult to argue against the hi-fi ones.
Second, I think that a virtue epistemologists should look to the empirical sciences with hope because they might help to solve the generality problem. James Beebe has proposed that the solution to this problem is to see how scientists individuate intellectual dispositions and not (or not just) to reflect on the problem from the armchair.
Third, unfortunately, I also think that that hope is not going to be fully satisfied, because my reading of the psych literature is that the generality problem is solved at the cost of introducing a situationist challenge. Regarding which empirical data are relevant, I would say that cognitive psychology is more relevant to reliabilism whereas social psychology is more relevant to responsibilism.
Researchers such as Kahnemann and Tversky have been working for decades on cognitive heuristics that govern inference. Their findings suggest that people use things like availability (ease of recall) and representativeness (how well a token represents a type) as indices of frequency and probability. This isn't necessarily that bad, as availability usually is correlated with frequency, if only weakly. We tend to think that birds fly because the first birds that come to mind are finches and robins, not penguins and ostriches. Fortunately for us, most birds do fly. However, such heuristics are extremely robust. People will accept arguments based on them even when those arguments are provably invalid. K&T have done a lot of work on how these heuristics lead to fallacies like the conjunction fallacy. For instance, if you tell someone that Linda went to Berkeley, takes yoga classes, and campaigns against nuclear weapons, they'll be inclined to say that it's more likely that Linda is a feminist bank-teller than a bank-teller. If you point out to them that all feminist-bank-tellers are bank-tellers but not all bank-tellers are feminist bank-tellers, they'll still say it's more likely that she's a feminist bank-teller than a bank-teller.
With respect to responsibilism, as I said, social psychology seems more relevant. In particular, research on social pressure on opinion-formation and -expression (Asch paradigm) suggests that most people don't have intellectual courage. They'll go along with an obviously wrong but unanimous opinion much of the time. And work by Alice Isen and her colleagues suggests that the extent to which people reason creatively and curiously is heavily influenced by their fleeting moods. In particular, when experimenters induce positive affect by giving subjects cookies, telling them they won a prize, or showing them a funny movie, the subjects go on to solve problems in more creative ways and to exhibit more curiosity about a variety of topics. If creativity and curiosity are entrenched dispositions, this shouldn't happen.
I am therefore inclined to frame the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology as an inconsistent triad: (non-skepticism) most people know a lot; (virtue epistemology) knowledge is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; (epistemic situationism) most people do not possess the intellectual virtues. At most two of these can be true, and I'm inclined to say that virtue epistemology is the odd man out.
First, while John Dell is right that virtue theory is being straw-manned if virtues aren't thought of probabilistically, there's more to it. It seems to me that virtues come in two probabilistic flavors: high-fidelity virtues (henceforth hi-fi virtues) and low-fidelity virtues (henceforth low-fi virtues). Hi-fi virtues require near-perfect consistency, whereas low-fi virtues require merely better (or maybe much better) consistency than one would expect without the virtues. Off the top of my head, hi-fi moral virtues include chastity, fairness, fidelity, honesty, justice, and trustworthiness. If someone acts in accordance with chastity in 80% of the opportunities he has for cheating on his spouse, that hardly makes him chaste. If someone doesn't steal in 70% of the cases where she could, that doesn't make her honest. By contrast, low-fi moral virtues include charity, diligence, friendliness, generosity, industry, magnanimity, mercy, tact, and tenacity. (These lists aren't meant to be comprehensive or uncontroversial, but I hope they at least point in the right direction.) If someone gives to charity 20% of the time (assuming the sums are sufficient), that could count as charitable. If someone shows mercy even occasionally, that might qualify him as merciful. While it's more difficult to argue against the low-fi moral virtues using the sorts of psychological studies we currently have, it's not nearly so difficult to argue against the hi-fi moral virtues. This raises the question whether the intellectual virtues are hi-fi or low-fi. It seems necessary to introduce distinctions here as well. I'll speak only of the responsibilist virtues for now, but I think similar things could be said of the reliabilist virtues. My intuition is that we again find a split. Among the hi-fi responsibilist virtues, we find curiosity, open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, intellectual humility, thoroughness, and intellectual carefulness. Among the low-fi responsibilist virtues, we find perseverance, insightfulness, and originality. Again, then, it may be more difficult to argue against the low-fi intellectual virtues using non-longitudinal studies, but it shouldn't be so difficult to argue against the hi-fi ones.
Second, I think that a virtue epistemologists should look to the empirical sciences with hope because they might help to solve the generality problem. James Beebe has proposed that the solution to this problem is to see how scientists individuate intellectual dispositions and not (or not just) to reflect on the problem from the armchair.
Third, unfortunately, I also think that that hope is not going to be fully satisfied, because my reading of the psych literature is that the generality problem is solved at the cost of introducing a situationist challenge. Regarding which empirical data are relevant, I would say that cognitive psychology is more relevant to reliabilism whereas social psychology is more relevant to responsibilism.
Researchers such as Kahnemann and Tversky have been working for decades on cognitive heuristics that govern inference. Their findings suggest that people use things like availability (ease of recall) and representativeness (how well a token represents a type) as indices of frequency and probability. This isn't necessarily that bad, as availability usually is correlated with frequency, if only weakly. We tend to think that birds fly because the first birds that come to mind are finches and robins, not penguins and ostriches. Fortunately for us, most birds do fly. However, such heuristics are extremely robust. People will accept arguments based on them even when those arguments are provably invalid. K&T have done a lot of work on how these heuristics lead to fallacies like the conjunction fallacy. For instance, if you tell someone that Linda went to Berkeley, takes yoga classes, and campaigns against nuclear weapons, they'll be inclined to say that it's more likely that Linda is a feminist bank-teller than a bank-teller. If you point out to them that all feminist-bank-tellers are bank-tellers but not all bank-tellers are feminist bank-tellers, they'll still say it's more likely that she's a feminist bank-teller than a bank-teller.
With respect to responsibilism, as I said, social psychology seems more relevant. In particular, research on social pressure on opinion-formation and -expression (Asch paradigm) suggests that most people don't have intellectual courage. They'll go along with an obviously wrong but unanimous opinion much of the time. And work by Alice Isen and her colleagues suggests that the extent to which people reason creatively and curiously is heavily influenced by their fleeting moods. In particular, when experimenters induce positive affect by giving subjects cookies, telling them they won a prize, or showing them a funny movie, the subjects go on to solve problems in more creative ways and to exhibit more curiosity about a variety of topics. If creativity and curiosity are entrenched dispositions, this shouldn't happen.
I am therefore inclined to frame the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology as an inconsistent triad: (non-skepticism) most people know a lot; (virtue epistemology) knowledge is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; (epistemic situationism) most people do not possess the intellectual virtues. At most two of these can be true, and I'm inclined to say that virtue epistemology is the odd man out.
July 18, 2011 |
Mark Alfano
Mark Alfano
Mark, I have owed you a reply for a very long time, and regret that I still need to get back and read your two papers together, to give an adequate reply, but have lacked the time to do so.
I like the way you set up an aporia:
1. non-skeptical thesis
2. Areteic condition on knowledge acquisition and retention thesis
3. Epistemic Situationist thesis
Virtue epistemologists have held that their approach is quite advantageous in diagnosing and avoiding skepticism, so few if any would hold 1. I might take issue with you over the specific interpretation of 2, and want to qualify it somewhat, but its a strenght of your paper that you recognize differences between different versions of a VE account of knowing, and treat the reliabilist, character epistemologist, etc. separately. But of course the obvious reply is certainly to reject 3. Let me state a first worry about 3.
That worry is that 3 (epistemic situationism) is really a modal claim--you often use the language that the agent "cannot" know through intellectual virtues, from your empirical or descriptive premises (do not). Am I right to think you are presupposing an ought-implies-can principle, such that the areteic condition lacks is too strong a condition of knowing because people "can't" have the intellectual habits or dispositions that the theory posits. So I worry about an equivovation in the supporting argument given for 3, epistemic situationism, and additionally that the ought implies can principle, if its is implict in your reasoning, might apply differently in epistemology and ethics. But this broader next point seems simply to be this: Knowing involves grounding or doxastic justification, (which is a primary insight of externalism and itself a large part of the . Satisfying the modal requirements on knowing that an account of doxastic justification makes evident leads us, not away from, but *towards* the centrality of agent-focused evaluations. This distinct advantage that virtue epistemologies have over both generic causal or reliabilist accounts of doxastic justification, and internalist or evidentialist accounts, is indeed the thesis of John Greco's *Achieving Knowledge,* and his arguments on that count seem quite sound. I think his book shows this well, and that its not implausible that knowing implies abilities, and achievements out of those abilities.
That's the best I can do at present, though again, I'll have to look closer at the text to flesh out these worries about your understanding of the epistemic situationist thesis. Cheers, Guy
I like the way you set up an aporia:
1. non-skeptical thesis
2. Areteic condition on knowledge acquisition and retention thesis
3. Epistemic Situationist thesis
Virtue epistemologists have held that their approach is quite advantageous in diagnosing and avoiding skepticism, so few if any would hold 1. I might take issue with you over the specific interpretation of 2, and want to qualify it somewhat, but its a strenght of your paper that you recognize differences between different versions of a VE account of knowing, and treat the reliabilist, character epistemologist, etc. separately. But of course the obvious reply is certainly to reject 3. Let me state a first worry about 3.
That worry is that 3 (epistemic situationism) is really a modal claim--you often use the language that the agent "cannot" know through intellectual virtues, from your empirical or descriptive premises (do not). Am I right to think you are presupposing an ought-implies-can principle, such that the areteic condition lacks is too strong a condition of knowing because people "can't" have the intellectual habits or dispositions that the theory posits. So I worry about an equivovation in the supporting argument given for 3, epistemic situationism, and additionally that the ought implies can principle, if its is implict in your reasoning, might apply differently in epistemology and ethics. But this broader next point seems simply to be this: Knowing involves grounding or doxastic justification, (which is a primary insight of externalism and itself a large part of the . Satisfying the modal requirements on knowing that an account of doxastic justification makes evident leads us, not away from, but *towards* the centrality of agent-focused evaluations. This distinct advantage that virtue epistemologies have over both generic causal or reliabilist accounts of doxastic justification, and internalist or evidentialist accounts, is indeed the thesis of John Greco's *Achieving Knowledge,* and his arguments on that count seem quite sound. I think his book shows this well, and that its not implausible that knowing implies abilities, and achievements out of those abilities.
That's the best I can do at present, though again, I'll have to look closer at the text to flesh out these worries about your understanding of the epistemic situationist thesis. Cheers, Guy
August 27, 2011 |
Guy Axtell
Guy Axtell
Kate Elgin says something interesting in her review of a book by R. Foley. She writes, “ Intellectual trust is vulnerable, not only to skeptical challenges, but also
to empirically based ones. Studies have shown that human beings have an
alarming propensity for defective reasoning. We ignore base rates, commit
the gambler’s fallacy, assign conjunctions higher probabilities than their conjuncts,
overrate the evidence derived from interviews, exhibit confidence-bias,
and so forth. Even without the machinations of malevolent demons there
seems to be plenty of reason to doubt that our reasoning faculties are reliable….
If we thought that psychologists had identified all the widespread defects in
reasoning, then learning and regularly deploying the relevant strategies might
put me in a position where I could justifiably trust my beliefs. But of course
no one thinks that the studies are exhaustive. So the general question arises:
If we regularly reason poorly in these cases, where else are we going wrong?”
This seems to be a counterpoint to Farrelly's optimism in the quote I recently posted on the value of acquiring deliberative virtues, though both quotes show I think an engagement with and regard for empirical studies. The issue of the studies and the deficiencies is one thing, but the situationist *interpretation* of them (epistemic situationism) still seems to me quite another.
to empirically based ones. Studies have shown that human beings have an
alarming propensity for defective reasoning. We ignore base rates, commit
the gambler’s fallacy, assign conjunctions higher probabilities than their conjuncts,
overrate the evidence derived from interviews, exhibit confidence-bias,
and so forth. Even without the machinations of malevolent demons there
seems to be plenty of reason to doubt that our reasoning faculties are reliable….
If we thought that psychologists had identified all the widespread defects in
reasoning, then learning and regularly deploying the relevant strategies might
put me in a position where I could justifiably trust my beliefs. But of course
no one thinks that the studies are exhaustive. So the general question arises:
If we regularly reason poorly in these cases, where else are we going wrong?”
This seems to be a counterpoint to Farrelly's optimism in the quote I recently posted on the value of acquiring deliberative virtues, though both quotes show I think an engagement with and regard for empirical studies. The issue of the studies and the deficiencies is one thing, but the situationist *interpretation* of them (epistemic situationism) still seems to me quite another.
September 6, 2011 |
Guy Axtell
Guy Axtell
As an update, Mark Alfani's paper "EXPANDING THE SITUATIONIST CHALLENGE TO RESPONSIBILIST VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY" is now published in Philosophical Quarterly and available in its final form at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00016.x/pdf
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00016.x
Abstract. The last few decades have witnessed the birth and growth of both virtue epistemology and the situationist challenge to virtue ethics. It seems only natural that eventually we would see the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. This article articulates one aspect of that new challenge by spelling out an argument against the responsibilist brand of virtue epistemology. The trouble can be framed as an inconsistent triad: (non-skepticism) many people know quite a bit; (responsibilism) knowledge is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; (epistemic situationism) most people do not possess the intellectual virtues countenanced by responsibilism. Non-skepticism is a Moorean platitude we should aim to preserve at most if not all costs. I muster evidence from cognitive and social psychology to argue for epistemic situationism. If my argument is correct, responsibilism must be
revised or rejected, and reliabilists should avoid incorporating responsibilist components into their theories.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00016.x/pdf
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00016.x
Abstract. The last few decades have witnessed the birth and growth of both virtue epistemology and the situationist challenge to virtue ethics. It seems only natural that eventually we would see the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. This article articulates one aspect of that new challenge by spelling out an argument against the responsibilist brand of virtue epistemology. The trouble can be framed as an inconsistent triad: (non-skepticism) many people know quite a bit; (responsibilism) knowledge is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; (epistemic situationism) most people do not possess the intellectual virtues countenanced by responsibilism. Non-skepticism is a Moorean platitude we should aim to preserve at most if not all costs. I muster evidence from cognitive and social psychology to argue for epistemic situationism. If my argument is correct, responsibilism must be
revised or rejected, and reliabilists should avoid incorporating responsibilist components into their theories.
December 19, 2011 |
Guy Axtell
Guy Axtell
Here is news about the upcoming Panel Session at the NCSP on this topic in February:
“DOES SITUATIONISM THREATEN VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY?”
ORGANIZER: Mark Alfano (Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study)
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:
MARK ALFANO & MICHAEL SECHMAN (Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study; U. of Colorado, Boulder)
Expanding the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
JOHN DORIS & LAUREN OLIN (Washington University in Saint Louis)
Vicious minds: Virtue epistemology, cognition, and skepticism
ABROL FAIRWEATHER (San Francisco State University)
Epistemic CAPS traits and the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
GUY AXTELL (Radford University)
Ethical and intellectual responsibility, defended
ABSTRACTS:
MARK ALFANO & MICHAEL SECHMAN, Expanding the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
The last few decades have witnessed the birth and growth of both virtue epistemology and the situationist challenge to virtue ethics. It seems only natural that eventually we would see the convergence of the twain: the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. Virtue epistemologists divide into three camps: reliabilists, for whom the intellectual virtues are cognitive capacities, processes, or dispositions; responsibilists, for whom the intellectual virtues are conative traits of intellectual character related to the love of truth and aversion to error; and mixed theorists, who countenance the virtues of both reliabilism and responsibilism. For all three, justification and knowledge are analyzed in terms of intellectual character: someone is justified in believing that p just in case her belief was acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue, and she knows that p just in case her justified belief that p is true. Empirical research on cognitive dispositions spells trouble for both reliabilist and responsibilist accounts of justification and knowledge. The trouble can be framed as an inconsistent triad: (non-skepticism) many people know lots of things; (virtue epistemology) knowledge is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; (epistemic situationism) most people do not possess the intellectual virtues recognized by reliabilism or responsibilism. Non-skepticism is an unrevisable Moorean platitude. I muster evidence from cognitive and social psychology to argue for epistemic situationism. If my argument is correct, then virtue epistemology must be rejected.
JOHN DORIS & LAUREN OLIN, Vicious minds: Virtue epistemology, cognition, and skepticism
Given the ascendancy of contemporary virtue ethics, it is unsurprising that a program of virtue epistemology now flourishes. While there is now considerable anxiety drawn from the social and cognitive sciences about whether the psychological theory presupposed by virtue ethics is empirically sustainable, analogous empirical issues have not received attention in the literature on virtue epistemology. This paper argues that, when examined in empirical light, virtue epistemology encounters challenges reminiscent of those recently encountered by virtue ethics: just as seemingly trivial variation in circumstance provokes unsettling variation in patterns of moral behavior, minimal changes in context elicit unsettling variation in patterns of cognitive functioning. Insofar as reliability is a condition on epistemic virtue, then, we have reason to doubt that human organisms possess the cognitive materials required for epistemic virtue, and thereby reason to think that virtue epistemology is threatened by skepticism. Voluntarist and Reliablist renderings of virtue epistemology boast different conceptions of epistemic virtue, and so possess different resources for addressing this skeptical threat. However, we argue that Voluntarist renderings cannot meet the empirical challenge, and that Reliablist renderings can do so only in a way that constitutes an abdication of the virtue tradition.
ABROL FAIRWEATHER, Epistemic CAPS traits and the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
While philosophical situationists have exclusively targeted virtue ethics, another thriving area of philosophy relies on the assumption that people have stable, enduring dispositions that are exhibited across a range of objectively distinct situations, namely virtue epistemology. If virtue epistemology is character- or trait-based, then it too will be threatened by philosophical situationism. Extending moral situationism to epistemology requires a close look at the many forms of virtue epistemology now available. Different forms of virtue epistemology have different metaphysics and therefore different accounts of the epistemic psychology of knowers. Situationism essentially challenges the characterological metaphysics of virtue ethics. However, metaphysical commitments will vary between responsibilist and reliabilist forms of virtue epistemology, and between theories that ground intellectual character in moral character and those that analyze epistemic character as independent of moral character. Since some forms of virtue epistemology will likely be more directly threatened than others, epistemic situationism will have to be established case by case. Here I consider the problems and prospects of using an influential response to moral situationism, the CAPS analysis of traits, as a response to epistemic situationism.
GUY AXTELL, Ethical and intellectual responsibility, defended
The ‘fragility of character’ and our human susceptibility to motivational and cognitive biases are well-recognized by psychologically-inclined philosophers, and concerns with ethical maturation and critical thinking competencies that lessen our susceptibility to them are a large part of what motivates the virtue-theoretic turn away from traditional preoccupations with evaluating actions and beliefs, to evaluating agents themselves. In this paper the different normative/causal functions of attributions of responsibility are examined as a major source of misunderstanding in the debate between virtue theorists and their situationist critics. This talk distinguishes forms of virtue theory that are more and less susceptible to worries about empirical inadequacy, and elaborates on why judgments of responsibility often turn on “occurrent” attributions, rather than on the “dispositional” attributions that the situationist critic of virtue theories assumes. The failure of both situationists and virtue theorists to clearly identify “thresholds” for the presence or absence of character-traits is another worry about miscommunication that the paper examines.
“DOES SITUATIONISM THREATEN VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY?”
ORGANIZER: Mark Alfano (Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study)
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:
MARK ALFANO & MICHAEL SECHMAN (Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study; U. of Colorado, Boulder)
Expanding the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
JOHN DORIS & LAUREN OLIN (Washington University in Saint Louis)
Vicious minds: Virtue epistemology, cognition, and skepticism
ABROL FAIRWEATHER (San Francisco State University)
Epistemic CAPS traits and the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
GUY AXTELL (Radford University)
Ethical and intellectual responsibility, defended
ABSTRACTS:
MARK ALFANO & MICHAEL SECHMAN, Expanding the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
The last few decades have witnessed the birth and growth of both virtue epistemology and the situationist challenge to virtue ethics. It seems only natural that eventually we would see the convergence of the twain: the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. Virtue epistemologists divide into three camps: reliabilists, for whom the intellectual virtues are cognitive capacities, processes, or dispositions; responsibilists, for whom the intellectual virtues are conative traits of intellectual character related to the love of truth and aversion to error; and mixed theorists, who countenance the virtues of both reliabilism and responsibilism. For all three, justification and knowledge are analyzed in terms of intellectual character: someone is justified in believing that p just in case her belief was acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue, and she knows that p just in case her justified belief that p is true. Empirical research on cognitive dispositions spells trouble for both reliabilist and responsibilist accounts of justification and knowledge. The trouble can be framed as an inconsistent triad: (non-skepticism) many people know lots of things; (virtue epistemology) knowledge is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; (epistemic situationism) most people do not possess the intellectual virtues recognized by reliabilism or responsibilism. Non-skepticism is an unrevisable Moorean platitude. I muster evidence from cognitive and social psychology to argue for epistemic situationism. If my argument is correct, then virtue epistemology must be rejected.
JOHN DORIS & LAUREN OLIN, Vicious minds: Virtue epistemology, cognition, and skepticism
Given the ascendancy of contemporary virtue ethics, it is unsurprising that a program of virtue epistemology now flourishes. While there is now considerable anxiety drawn from the social and cognitive sciences about whether the psychological theory presupposed by virtue ethics is empirically sustainable, analogous empirical issues have not received attention in the literature on virtue epistemology. This paper argues that, when examined in empirical light, virtue epistemology encounters challenges reminiscent of those recently encountered by virtue ethics: just as seemingly trivial variation in circumstance provokes unsettling variation in patterns of moral behavior, minimal changes in context elicit unsettling variation in patterns of cognitive functioning. Insofar as reliability is a condition on epistemic virtue, then, we have reason to doubt that human organisms possess the cognitive materials required for epistemic virtue, and thereby reason to think that virtue epistemology is threatened by skepticism. Voluntarist and Reliablist renderings of virtue epistemology boast different conceptions of epistemic virtue, and so possess different resources for addressing this skeptical threat. However, we argue that Voluntarist renderings cannot meet the empirical challenge, and that Reliablist renderings can do so only in a way that constitutes an abdication of the virtue tradition.
ABROL FAIRWEATHER, Epistemic CAPS traits and the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology
While philosophical situationists have exclusively targeted virtue ethics, another thriving area of philosophy relies on the assumption that people have stable, enduring dispositions that are exhibited across a range of objectively distinct situations, namely virtue epistemology. If virtue epistemology is character- or trait-based, then it too will be threatened by philosophical situationism. Extending moral situationism to epistemology requires a close look at the many forms of virtue epistemology now available. Different forms of virtue epistemology have different metaphysics and therefore different accounts of the epistemic psychology of knowers. Situationism essentially challenges the characterological metaphysics of virtue ethics. However, metaphysical commitments will vary between responsibilist and reliabilist forms of virtue epistemology, and between theories that ground intellectual character in moral character and those that analyze epistemic character as independent of moral character. Since some forms of virtue epistemology will likely be more directly threatened than others, epistemic situationism will have to be established case by case. Here I consider the problems and prospects of using an influential response to moral situationism, the CAPS analysis of traits, as a response to epistemic situationism.
GUY AXTELL, Ethical and intellectual responsibility, defended
The ‘fragility of character’ and our human susceptibility to motivational and cognitive biases are well-recognized by psychologically-inclined philosophers, and concerns with ethical maturation and critical thinking competencies that lessen our susceptibility to them are a large part of what motivates the virtue-theoretic turn away from traditional preoccupations with evaluating actions and beliefs, to evaluating agents themselves. In this paper the different normative/causal functions of attributions of responsibility are examined as a major source of misunderstanding in the debate between virtue theorists and their situationist critics. This talk distinguishes forms of virtue theory that are more and less susceptible to worries about empirical inadequacy, and elaborates on why judgments of responsibility often turn on “occurrent” attributions, rather than on the “dispositional” attributions that the situationist critic of virtue theories assumes. The failure of both situationists and virtue theorists to clearly identify “thresholds” for the presence or absence of character-traits is another worry about miscommunication that the paper examines.
December 20, 2011 |
Guy Axtell
Guy Axtell
"...the contextual variability of cognitive functioning may problematize globalist, highly general, accounts of intelligence. A wealth of empirical work indicates that people experience remarkable difficulty 'transferring' cognitive skills across even closely related domains; they may perform well in one context and poorly in other, seemingly very similar situations, rather like the case of moral behavior. If the 'contextualism' about cognitive ability this empirical work inspires is right (see Ceci 1996), it would be a nuisance, not only for conceptions of practical reasoning emphasizing reliable flexibility but also for recent 'virtue epistemologies,' that import globalist psychological theories from the ethics literature in an attempt to elucidate central epistemic notions (e.g., Zagzebski 1996; esp. 178)."
This raises to me a set of questions, including:
--Is the situationist (here 'contextualist') challenge likely greater or weaker to virtue epistemologies in contrast to virtue ethics, and why?
--Is that challenge greater in respect to virtue epistemologies of particular sorts, i.e., agent reliabilist (Sosa), virtue perspectivist (Sosa), neo-Aristotelian (phronomic) (Zagzebski) or Deweyan (zetetic) (Hookway; Axtell), and why or why not?
--What does it mean to say that some/all virtue epistemologies import "globalist psychological theories"? Or on (overly) "robust" conceptions of intellectual habits and dispositions?
--Are epistemic (and more broadly intellectual) virtues more or less likely to be deemed "robust" traits than moral virtues, and why? How do we compare them on this score?
--What kind of empirical studies/literature do virtue epistemologists need to directly concern themselves with in order to evaluate and respond to Doris's charge? What particular cases/studies bear on this, analogous to those studies (Milgram, Seminary, Prison, etc.) that Doris makes us of in building his challenge to virtue ethics?
--How does all this relate to issues in social epistemology?
--How does all this relate to issues about agent-focused evaluation?
--How does all this relate to issues about credit theories of knowing, or coming to hold truth belief 'because' of virtue?