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Prcis of Virtues of the MindVirtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations ofKnowledge by Linda ZagzebskiReview by: Linda ZagzebskiPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 169-177Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2653437.

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Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVol. LX, No. 1, January 2000

Precis of Virtuesof the Mind*LINDA ZAGZEBSKILoyola Marymount University

Part IThe Methodology of EpistemologyPlato told us that to be deprived of knowledge is the only true evil[Protagoras 345b], and philosophershave sought the nature of knowledgeever since. Even skepticshonor it by devoting so muchattentionto doubtingits existence. Investigation nto knowledgehas never been limited to any par-ticular school or period of philosophy, althoughmany epistemic concepts arelimited in these ways, most especially the concept of justification,the centralfocus of most Americanepistemologyin the last half-century.Justification san idea that takes centerstage in periodsof philosophical history dominatedby skepticism. Thatis because we aim to be justified in order to defend ourrightto be sure. If skepticismis on the decline (andI'm not convinced that itis), justification goes with it. Hence, the so-called Death of Epistemology isreally the death of justification.But even if skepticismhasn't died and takenjustification with it, the concept of justification is collapsing from internalpressures within contemporaryepistemology itself. For one thing, threedecades of debate over Gettierproblemshave failed to producea consensusonhow a justified belief is connected with knowledge. What is even moreserious, some epistemologistshave arguedthat the concept of justificationissystematically ambiguous,and the disputebetween internalistsandexternal-ists has reached an impasse.'Theirargument s over the issue of whether theproperty hatconvertstrue belief into knowledge (which may or may not beidentified with justification)must be consciously accessible to the believer.In brief, internalists say yes and externalists say no. It is illuminating tonotice that externalists take as their central cases of knowledge instances ofperceptualormemory knowledge.In contrast, nternalists ake as theircentral

LindaZagzebski,Virtuesof theMind: An Inquiry nto theNatureof Virtueand the EthicalFoundationsof Knowledge(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996).See William P. Alston, "Epistemic Desiderata," Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch 53, #3 (Sept., 1993), 527-51; and Alvin Plantinga, Warrtant:The CurrentDebate (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1993), Chapter1.

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cases those in which conscious reflectiveness s required-usually, whereevi-dence needs to be gatheredand weighed. One of the things this differenceindicates,I believe, is thatepistemologistscannotmake up theirminds aboutthe sense in which knowledge is good. Externaliststhink of knowledge as anaturalgood, like good eyesight, whereasinternalists hinkof knowledge assimilar to a moral good. They say it must be justified, which means thattheknowermust be in a position to explain and defend it. To be unableto do sois a personal failure akin to a moral failure. Responsible epistemic agentsought to be able to justify their beliefs, so when this responsibility is asso-ciated with the normativity of knowledge, it leads to internalism aboutknowledge. These two ways of looking at the normativityof knowledge, thenaturalisticway and the moralway, form the deep backgroundout of whicharisethe conceptsof justificationandthe normativeaspectof knowledge. Mydiagnosis of the internalism externalismdispute, then, is that it stems frominsufficient attention to normative theory and the way the normativity ofepistemicstatesshouldbe handled n such a theory.

So the concept of justification is in trouble, and part of the problem isunclarity or indecision about the kind of normativity we associate withknowledge.Furthermore,ince justification s a propertyof individualbelief-states of individual persons, the preoccupationwith justification has led toneglect of the social dimension of epistemicstates,as well as neglect of epis-temic values that n other eraswere consideredmuchmore important,particu-larlyunderstanding ndwisdom.

In Virtuesof the Mind I proposedthat these problemsmight be resolvedorbypassed by carefullyattending o the normativeconceptsand theories thatprovide the backdropfor normative epistemology. Knowledge is an evalua-tively positive state;thatmuch is indisputable.Knowledgeis good, and thereare othergood and badepistemicstates as well, whetheror not theirgoodnessor badness is identified with being justified or unjustified. If I am evenroughly right about this, epistemologists ought to take more than a passinglook at ethics. For some time I have been attractedby the many ways inwhich epistemology parallelsethics, and I am stronglyinclined to thinkthatthe former can benefit from the latter. The way the concept of a justifiedbelief functions in epistemology is strikingly parallelto the way the conceptof a right act functions in ethics. Once that is seen many things becomeclearer.A rightact makesno sense outside a networkof ethicalconcepts thatconstituteits theoreticalbackground. have arguedthatthe same can be saidfor normativeepistemic concepts. A justifiedbelief, like a right act, gets itsmeaningagainsta conceptualbackground. n so faras thatbackground anbearticulatedat all, it is almost always the parallel of an ethical theory. Thatmay or may not be noticed-usually not. But it is no accident that the twomost popular epistemological theories are the analogues of the two mostcommon ethical theories: deontological epistemology is the parallel of170 LINDAZAGZEBSKI



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deontological ethics, and reliabilism is the parallel of consequentialism. InVirtues of the Mind I argued that reliabilism and epistemic deontologisminherit some of the same problems as the parallel theories in ethics, and thatthe advantages of a virtue ethics would also be advantages of a virtueepistemology. So one set of motives for modeling epistemology on virtueethics comes fromthe side of ethics.

I also arguedthat a virtuemodel is the best hope for addressingthe prob-lems in epistemology I have mentioned: the impasse over the nature ofjustification,the neglect of the social dimension of epistemic states, and theneglect of the values of understanding nd wisdom. The concept of virtue is asocial concept.Aristotle used it primarilyas a way of identifying those quali-ties that humanbeings need to live well in communities. The same can besaid for epistemic communitiessince acquiringknowledge is almost never asolo enterprise.2 n addition,attentionto understandingand wisdom is muchmore likely within a virtue framework since both are either virtues them-selves or closely connected to virtues. Finally, I propose that the best hopefor resolving the variousdisputesoverjustification s to set aside the conceptof justification while attendingto its theoretical background. If I am rightthat a justifiedbelief is the counterpart f a right act, then since virtue ethicstreatsa rightact as derivativefrom the deeper concept of a moralvirtue, myidea was that an epistemology modeled on virtue ethics might be able todisambiguatejustificationand to resolve problems about its normativity bymakingajustifiedbelief derivativefrom intellectualvirtue. One consequenceof a virtue approach s thatjustificationbecomes less importantthan it hasbeen in recent epistemology, and I think that is the way it should be. Thetraits of epistemic agentsare of the firstimportance;nonetheless,virtueepis-temology is powerful enoughto handle the evaluationof beliefs.

In short, my motives for turningto virtuetheorycome both from the sideof ethics and from the side of epistemology. In addition,there was the factthatno one had triedit before.

Part IIA Theoryof Virtueand ViceI proposethat we make the concept of intellectualvirtue the focus of norma-tive epistemology, andthat we treat it as a componentof a general theoryofvirtue. Unfortunately, intellectual virtue has fallen into the gap betweenethics and epistemology. Neither field has much to say about it. Virtue ethi-cists discuss phronesis, or practicalwisdom, but they are interestedin thatvirtue mostly because Aristotleclosely connectedphronesis with the distinc-tively moral virtues. Such intellectual virtues as open-mindedness and2 See, for example, EdwardCraig, Knowledge and the State of Nature (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1990); andC.A.J.Coady, Testimony Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1992).

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intellectual fairness, autonomy,trustworthiness,courage, perseverance, andattentiveness are almost totally ignored. On the side of epistemology, theterm "intellectualvirtue" has been in vogue since Ernest Sosa introduced tinto the contemporary iterature,3 ut almost no effort has been made, eitherby Sosa or by others,to connect it to the sense of virtue used in ethics, muchless to integrate it into a general theory of virtue. In many cases what anepistemologist calls an intellectual virtue is a virtueonly by courtesy. Thatmeant that the concept of intellectual virtue needed some work before itsvalue to epistemology could be appreciated.

My purposein Part II of Virtuesof the Mind was to outline a pure virtuetheorythat is rich enough to include an account of intellectual virtues withinthe sametheoryas moralvirtues,and to show how such a theorycan generatea way to handle both epistemic evaluationandmoral evaluation. In fact, thetwo types of evaluationare parallel.When pushed far enough, I believe wefind that the fairly vague boundariesof the moral ought to be extended toinclude the type of normativitywe use in evaluating persons for their intel-lectual virtues and vices andbeliefs for their ustifiednessandotherepistemi-cally evaluative properties.Intellectualvirtuesare a subset of moral virtuesandjustificationis notjust a normativeproperty; t is a moralone.

In a pure virtue theory the concept of a right act is derivative from theconcept of a moral virtue. Similarly, I propose that in a pure virtue epis-temology the conceptof ajustifiedbelief is derivativefrom the conceptof anintellectual virtue. A virtue, I claim, is a deep and enduring acquiredexcel-lence of the humanpersonthat includes botha motivationalcomponentandacomponentof reliable success in bringingabout the end of the motivationalcomponent.A motivation is an emotion-dispositionthat initiates and directsaction towards an end. The motivational component is distinctive of theparticularvirtue,but a completetaxonomyof the virtues will probablyrevealthat the immediate ends of the particularvirtues are not ultimate, but thatseveral virtueshave the same ultimateend. Forexample, generosity,compas-sion, kindness, and charity ultimatelyaim at the well-being of others, eventhougheach of themhas a more immediateend-in the case of compassionitis relief of the suffering of others;in the case of generosity it is increasingour neighbors'possession of the goods of life. Intellectual virtuesultimatelyaim at the truth,but each also has a moreimmediate end such as distinguish-ing reliable from unreliable authority,or gathering a sufficient amount ofrelevant vidence.4

Intellectualvirtues do not differ frommoral virtuesin any importantway.Both areacquiredby imitatingvirtuouspersonsanddeveloping habits aimed3 ErnestSosa, "TheRaft and the Pyramid,"Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 5 (Studiesin Epistemology), Notre Dame Press, 1980.4 There may be a few intellectualvirtuessuch as intellectualcreativityand originalitythat

ultimatelyaim at somethingotherthantruth.

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at controllingemotions and developing the cognitive andperceptualabilitiesnecessaryto know how to applythe virtues in the appropriate ircumstances.Both differ from skills. Both are sufficientlyvoluntaryto be within the realmof praiseand blame, andthereare logical and causalconnectionsbetweenandamong the virtues of both types. Furthermore, f it turns out that the ulti-mate end of truth and the ultimateends of the moral virtues are all compo-nents of a life of eudaimonia, then the moral and intellectual virtues do noteven differin their ultimateultimateends.

Conceptsof act andbelief evaluationcan be definedin terms of moralandintellectualvirtue.Since modernethics is act-basedandcontemporary piste-mology is belief-based, it is no surprisethat these concepts have been givenmore attentionthan I thinkthey deserve. Nonetheless, the evaluationof actsand beliefs is somethingwe wantto do, anda virtue theory has the resourcesto do it. I suggest the following definitionsof these concepts:

A right (permissible)act is an act a virtuouspersonmight do in like cir-cumstances.Thatis, it is not the case thatshe characteristicallywould not doit. A wrong act is an act a virtuous personcharacteristicallywould not do inlike circumstances.A moraldutyis an act a virtuouspersoncharacteristicallywould do in like circumstances.5A justifiedbelief, the counterpartof a rightact, is what an intellectually virtuousperson might believe in like circum-stances. It is not the case thatshe characteristicallywould not believe it. Anunjustifiedbelief is a belief an intellectuallyvirtuouspersoncharacteristicallywould not believe in like circumstances. An epistemic duty is a belief anintellectuallyvirtuouspersoncharacteristicallywould believe in like circum-stances. In determiningwhat a virtuous person might or would believe ingiven circumstances we need to incorporate any background beliefs thevirtuouspersonwould bringto the situationthat affect the descriptionof thecircumstances.A belief is to be evaluated n the circumstancesas they wouldbe takenby the virtuousperson.

Vicious persons characteristicallyperformwrong acts, but so do personswho are neithervicious nor virtuous, and virtuous personsalso may performwrongacts, but uncharacteristically.An act can be righteven thoughit is notvirtuouslymotivated.For example, a personhas done the right thing in giv-ing the correct amount in a monetaryexchange even when he is not at allmotivatedby moralconcerns. Similarly,there is a sense of justified in whichwe say a personhas ajustifiedbelief in believing thatthe earth s roundevenif he caresnothingfor the evidence and has not madethe reasonsforbelievingit his own. Rightand ustifiedaretherefore he weakestconcepts of actlbeliefevaluation.5 The definitionsof right, wrong, anddutyhave been slightly modified from the ones I give

in Virtuesof the Mind. ThereI define each in terms of what a virtuousperson might do,would do, or would not do. Here I have added the word "characteristically."The sameappliesto the definitionsofjustified,unjustified, ndepistemicduty.

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We can define stronger concepts as well. An importantway to evaluatebeliefs and acts includesthe factor of the agent's motivation.An act or beliefthatis virtuouslymotivated deserves credit,althoughwe almost always qual-ify it if it does not also involve doing/believing what virtuous persons char-acteristicallydo. I suggest that a person is praiseworthy for performinganact/havinga belief just in case the act/beliefis what a virtuousperson wouldcharacteristically o/havein the circumstancesandit is virtuouslymotivated.6

We may defineyet strongerconceptionsof a morally good act since an actmay be evaluatedpositively on groundsof motive as well as on what is done,and still not have everythingwe wantmorallyin an act. So even when an actis motivatedproperlyand is what a virtuouspersonwould characteristicallydo in the circumstances, t may fail in the aim of the act. When this happensthe act lacks something morally desirable.Moral success is evaluatedposi-tively even thoughthat is to some extent out of the hands of the agent. It isone of the ways in which we are victims of moral luck. So, for example, aperson might be motivatedby generosity and act in a way characteristicofgenerous personsin some particular ircumstances, say by giving money toa beggar on the street,but if it turns out thatthe beggar is really rich and isplaying the partof a beggarto win a bet, we would think thatthere is some-thing morally lacking in the act. I am not, of course, suggesting that wewould withholdpraiseof the agent,but her act would not merit the degreeofpraise due it if the beggar really were deserving. The same point applies tointellectualacts. A person may be motivatedby intellectual virtues andact ina way intellectually virtuouspersons characteristicallyact in attemptingtoget knowledge, but if she fails to get the truth,her epistemic state is lackingsomething praiseworthy.This means thereis a kind of epistemic luck analo-gous to moral luck.

In addition,mere success in reachingthe end of the virtuousmotive in theparticularcase is not sufficientfor the highest praiseof an act or belief evenif it also has the other praiseworthyfeaturesjust identified. It is importantthat success in reachingthe end be due to the otherpraiseworthy eatures ofthe act. In the morally best act, the end is reached because of these otherfeatures. So we especially value an act when one good aspect explainsanother.This leads to a way of definingan act that is good in every respect:

An act is an act of virtueA just in case it arises from the motiva-tional component of A, is something a person with virtue A wouldcharacteristically o in the circumstances,andis successful in bring-ing aboutthe end of virtueA because of these featuresof the act.

6 In Virtuesof the Mind I define praiseworthiness or an act or belief in terms of what thevirtuous person would probably do. Here I have substituted "characteristically"for"probably."

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What I mean by the end of virtue A includes the ultimateend of virtueA aswell as the proximateend.

The term "act of virtue" as I am using it is to some extent a term of art,but only to some extent. I believe that the concept I am trying to pick out isan importantone for ethical theory.It is importantbothfor the evaluationofacts and for the evaluation of epistemic states that result from such acts.There areacts of moral virtue andacts of intellectualvirtue. The lattercan bedefinedas follows:

An act is an act of intellectualvirtueI just in case it arises from themotivational component of I, is something a person with I wouldcharacteristicallydo in the circumstances,and is successful in lead-ing to the immediate end of I and to the truth because of thesefeaturesof the act.

Ultimately, it is the behavior of persons with phronesis, or practicalwisdom, that determinesrightacting and justifiedbelieving, as well as one'smoral and intellectual duty and the other evaluative propertiesof acts andbeliefs. For the sake of the unity of the self, it is importantthat there beforms of all these concepts that apply to what a person ought or ought notdo/believe all things considered. The virtue of practicalwisdom is, amongotherthings, the virtuethatpermitsa personto mediatebetween and amongall the particular onsiderationsof value in any given situation,and to act ina way that gives each its proper weight. Another set of definitions ofact/belief evaluation, then, can be given that replaces "a virtuous person"with "personwithphronesis"in each of the above definitions.So, for exam-ple, an act is rightall thingsconsideredjust in case it is an act a personwithphronesis mightdo in the circumstances.Paralleldefinitionscan be given fora belief that is justified all things considered, and for the definitions of apraiseworthyact. The definitionof an act of virtue also can be amended toinclude whata personwithphronesis would characteristicallydo, althoughIdid not proposethatin the book.

Part IIIThe Natureof KnowledgeThis projectbegan with a passion to understandknowledge, and that led meto investigate ethics. As I showed in PartII, many of the concepts of epis-temic evaluation have ethical counterparts. ronically,knowledge, the mostimportantepistemic concept of all, does not. Still, knowledge is importantlygrounded n the conceptof intellectualvirtue. In the last quarterof the book Iproposeda definitionof knowledge that not only connects it to the conceptsanalyzedin Part II,but that has a numberof desirablefeaturesin a definition,

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and which has assimilated the moralof Gettier problems.It also has a num-berof advantagesoverotherrecenttheories.

The definitionis as follows:Knowledge is state of belief arisingfrom acts of intellectual virtue.

An alternativedefinitionthatdoes not restrict t to individual states of beliefwith the presumptionof a propositionalobject, is as follows:

Knowledge is a state of cognitive contact with reality arising fromacts of intellectualvirtue.

I have arguedthat Gettierproblemsoccur for any definitionaccordingtowhich knowledge is true belief + x, wherex and truthareclosely connected,butx does not entail truth.7The recipe for generatingcounterexamples s asfollows: Since by hypothesisthereis a gap between anx belief and the truth,find a belief in the gap-a false x belief, and then amend the descriptionofthe situation so that the belief comes out true after all for reasons thathaveno bearingon the fact that the belief has propertyx or the degree to which ithas x. The result will be a situation in which a belief is true and is x in adegree the theory specifies is sufficient for knowledge,but is not knowledge.To avoid this problemwe must close the gap between the componentx andtruth.Given the fact that the goodness of knowledgeexceeds the goodness ofgetting the truth,componentx must be normative.So the moral of Gettierproblems is that the normativecomponentof knowledge (other than truth)mustentail truth.But it has to do so in a way thatis notad hoc. The conceptof an act of intellectual virtuedoes that. It is normative,it entails truth,andit is not ad hoc as long as I am right that the concept of an act of virtue issomethingwe would want in an ethicaltheoryanyway.The concept of an actof intellectualvirtue is just a special case of thatconcept.

This definition of knowledge is compatible with a much wider range ofkinds of knowledge thanits competitorssince it applies both to the cases ofknowledge favored by internalists and to those favored by externalists; itavoids Gettierproblems,unlike almost all of its competitors;and it inheritsthe theoreticalpowerandpracticalusefulness of the background irtuetheory.It is also very simple.

ConclusionNaturalized epistemology is often thought to be in conflict with normativeepistemology. But while the varieties of reliabilismarein conflict with evi-dentialism, thatis not because one is naturalisticand the other is normative.7 This argumentwas first publishedin "The Inescapabilityof GettierProblems,"Philosoph-

ical Quarterly44, #174 (Jan. 1994), 65-73.

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As I mentioned at the beginning of this paper,that conflict is between twotypes of normativity,notbetween normativityand the lack of it. The theoryIhave outlined in this book is clearly normative,but it is also naturalistic nthe way thatvirtue ethics is naturalistic.In virtue theory the normativityofhuman behavioris imbeddedin a rich descriptionof human nature.It is notan analysis of normativeconcepts subsequentlyapplied to empiricalfacts. Ibelieve thatunderstandinghe forms of normativityandthe relation betweennormativityof any kind andthe world of non-normative act is not only oneof the deepest issues in meta-ethics, it is one of the deepest issues in episte-mology. I also suspect that mistakes in answering this question may haveserious consequencesfor the methodologyof epistemology. If so, epistemol-ogists ought to benefit from a study of meta-ethics as well as of normativeethics.

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