“Epistemic Goods”

“Epistemic Goods” – A Reply to Jerry Green By Stefan Sencerz Humanities / TAMU-CC Stefan.sencerz@tamucc.edu In his very interesting paper on “Epistemic Goods”, Professor Jerry Green explores some parallels between Aristotelian virtue-ethics and neo-Aristotelian virtue epistemology. He focuses on the concept of epistemic flourishing and the role played in this concept by epistemic virtues and goods. Green argues that there are three categories of such goods (namely, metacognitive, cognitive, and evidential) and that they are broadly analogous to Aristotle’s psychological, bodily, and external goods. His project is important and interesting, and his discussion is illuminating. In my paper I will elucidate some of Green’s main points and amplify them by providing additional examples illustrating how these concept function in real life situations. My disagreements with Green are minor and concern, mostly, the issues of terminology. Virtue Ethics and Epistemic Responsibilism The interest in virtue epistemology was spurred, in part, by a very influential paper, “Raft and Pyramid”, in which Ernest Sosa pointed to some shortcomings of both foundational and coherentist accounts of epistemic justification. Sosa argued that these problems can be overcome by developing an account of epistemic virtues. Indeed, a variety of such theories have been put forth. They may be roughly divided into two competing groups – virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism (cf. Axtell 1997). Virtue reliabilists (e.g., Goldman (1991), Greco and Rebsamen (2018), and Sosa (1980, 2004) understand intellectual virtues to include faculties such as perception, intuition, and memory. Virtue responsibilists (e.g., Linda Zagzebski (1986, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2018) understand intellectual virtues to include cultivated character traits such as conscientiousness and open-mindedness. We should notice, however, that epistemic virtue theories are so different that even this rough distinction has come into question; on this topic see, for example, Fleisher (2017). Professor Green focuses on virtue responsibilism. Given that his goal is to elucidate similarities between virtue epistemology and virtue ethics, this is a good choice. The classical Aristotelian account of moral virtues define them as positive character traits that function as a mean between two extremes, each constituting a vice. For example, the virtue of courage is a mean between the vice of cowardness and another vice of rashness; the virtue of fortitude may be identified as a mean between the vice of withdrawing while facing obstacles and another vice of blindly attacking even “unmovable” barriers, etc. It seems clear that, within the context of epistemic responsibilism, moral virtues would have clear intellectual counterparts. For example, intellectual courage and open-mindedness could be treated as a mean between withdrawing from considering any hypothesis that can possibly challenge an accepted view and rushing to consider any such hypothesis no matter how far-fetched it can be. Similarly, we would display an intellectual fortitude by not giving up after the first failed test but, also, not clinging to our hypotheses in presence of abundant evidence to the contrary. Virtue Ethics and Moral Goods Moral virtues are intimately related to moral goods. In the most general sense, moral goods are objects, abilities, and conditions that are necessary for (or at least conducive to) moral flourishing. Professor Green’s account of Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia, and his account of moral goods, is grounded in several passages from Rhetoric (1360b18-29), Nicomachean Ethics (1098b12-20; 1099a31-b6; 1187a28-34) and Eudemian Ethics (1218b30-36) that lead him to adopt a three-fold taxonomy that can be roughly summarized as follows: Psychological Goods: e.g., wisdom, intelligence, virtue, pleasure, etc. Bodily Goods: e.g., health, strength, beauty, stature, fitness and athleticism, etc. (Purely) External Goods: a) social: e.g., friends (and many of them), good birth, honor, reputation, etc.; b) material: e.g., wealth, power, etc. (cf., pp. 4-5, 9) The above rendition includes two slight terminological modifications comparing to one proposed by Green. First, Aristotle uses the term “external goods” in an ambiguous way. Sometimes the term refers to what I called above “(purely) external goods”. On other occasions, however, the term is used to refer to what both of us call “bodily goods”. This is the case in contexts where Aristotle contrasts bodily goods with what is good for the soul (i.e., the “psychological goods”). The terminology I have proposed removes this ambiguity. Second, what I have characterized as “material goods” is named by Green “instrumental goods”. It seems to me, however, that (what we both call) “social goods” are, in a sense, instrumental, too. At least, they do not constitute eudaimonia-happiness but rather are conducive to achieving it. The term “material goods” seems to capture better the distinction between two kinds of purely external goods. Green notices numerous complications related to how exactly to understand Aristotelian eudaimonia (e.g., whether or not it includes practical activity or only contemplation) and the role moral goods play in flourishing. For the sake of brevity, we shall put all these qualifications to one side. Epistemic Values and Goods Green observes that the virtue epistemologists devoted some attention to the concept of epistemic flourishing: Reliablists focus on the most basic sense: epistemic success involves truth-conducive activity. Responsibilists also focus on a second feature: epistemic success involves a kind of credit or worth for the agent who reasons successfully […] structured around certain motivations, in particular conscientiousness or love of truth. (p. 6) An epistemically flourishing life “will involve possessing epistemic goods directly, as well as involve using them in the exercise of epistemic virtues” (p. 6). The adequate theory of such goods must go, however, beyond the discussion of the fundamental values like truth, justification, or knowledge. Rather, we try to identify qualities that are constitutive of epistemic virtues; i.e., the qualities in virtue of which some character traits are epistemically valuable. It may help to elucidate this distinction by an example: let us suppose that a good hammer is one that hammers the nails well (e.g., straight and without excessive use of energy and time). The quality of hammering the nails well would be a counterpart of an epistemic goal; say, knowledge. Now, a good hammer can achieve its goal when its head has a certain weight and shape, it is in a certain proportion to the hammer’s handle, and its handle is shaped in such a way that it is easy to aim it the right way and to land the hammer squarely on a nails’ head. These would be counterparts of goods involved in epistemic virtues (which are the objects of Green’s and my inquiries). I’m not sure whether or not Green would accept this example as correctly elucidation what he is trying to achieve in his paper. In a conversation at the conference, he was non-committal on this issue. Green proposes an account of epistemic goods that very closely matches the Aristotelian three-fold account of moral goods; namely (to use his terminology): Metacognitive Goods: trust, self-awareness, confidence, etc. Cognitive Goods: perception, memory, IQ, pattern recognition, etc. Evidential Goods: testimony, media, questions, peers, etc. (cf. p. 9) Again, I would suggest a few minor terminological adjustments along the following lines: Intellectual Goods: trust, confidence, seeing connections between ideas, pattern recognition, etc. (Bodily) Cognitive Goods: properly working senses, introspection, memory, IQ, etc. External Goods: a) Social: epistemic peers, media, access to information, reputation, etc. b) Material: resources to conduct investigation and/or research, material, epistemic luck, etc. It is not completely clear why some of these goods should be classified as belonging to one rather than another category. For example, should self-awareness and perception be classified as metacognitive/intellectual goods or bodily cognitive goods. I would hope to find some elucidations in a full-fledged version of Professor Green’s project. Much of Green’s discussion of specific epistemic goods is insightful and illuminating. For example, his discussion of the value of having peers is spot on. As he observes: epistemic peers count as an epistemic good because they are a valuable source of evidence: both first-order evidence about the world itself, and second-order evidence about the possible fallibility of one’s own reasoning. And epistemic peers are necessary for exercising certain epistemic virtues, such as open-mindedness (when it comes to credibly dealing with one’s own fallibility) or intellectual generosity” (p. 9). Similarly, extending his discussion, having good epistemic reputation is conducive to the exchange of information, acquiring new evidence, and the revision of currently held views. These are all epistemically good things. Green makes also insightful comments about goods belonging to other categories. For example, what he calls “cognitive goods” are clearly analogous to Aristotle’s bodily goods. As he observes, “they are only partially under our own control, and their good exercise may be admirable but not exactly praiseworthy, but they are important for engaging in excellent activity. On the view I am proposing, these traits are not literally virtues”. And, in addition, “when reliabilists think of epistemic virtues, they focus on truth-conducive processes and abilities like perception or memory” (p. 9). My final point goes slightly beyond Green’s project and concerns the issue of epistemic luck (an epistemic analog to luck involved in moral flourishing). It seems that the epistemic luck can be treated as a purely external good. Here is why. Virtue epistemology tends to treat virtuous activity as a counterpart (and perhaps elucidation of what is entailed by) epistemic justification. The traditional analysis of knowledge as a justified true belief (so called, JTB-analysis) encounters Gettier and Gettier-like examples showing that someone may have a justified true belief but not knowledge. Virtue epistemology encounters an analogous problem. That is, someone may act in an epistemically excellent way that will lead to a true belief but not knowledge. This is the case because (similarly to justification as defined by other accounts), even the most excellent or virtuous activity does not guarantee the truth. (Linda Zagzebski makes this point in one of her papers.) Typical accounts of knowledge attempt to solve the Gettier problem by adding to the traditional JTB-analysis the fourth condition, e.g., that there is no defeater to someone’s justification. But the fact that (in a given situation) there is no such defeater seems to be, to some extent, a matter of pure epistemic luck. It seems that virtue epistemology needs to avail itself to an analogous solution. Thus, it may be reasonable to incorporate epistemic luck as one of the external epistemic goods. Interestingly enough, by adding it we strengthen analogies between virtue-ethics and virtue-epistemology. Moral luck (e.g., having a body of a certain kind) may be necessary for moral flourishing. Similarly, epistemic luck seems necessary for achieving ultimate epistemic goals. In this paper I have discussed Jarred Green’s account of similarities between virtue epistemology and virtue ethics. I find this account interesting and illuminating. My few disagreements with the author concern, mostly, the issues of terminology. REFERENCES Axtell, G. (1997). “Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology”. American Philosophical Quarterly 34:410 – 430. Fleisher, Will, 2017, “Virtuous distinctions: New distinctions for reliabilism and responsibilism”, Synthese, 194(8): 2973–3003. Goldman, Alvin. (1991) “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology”, in A. Goldman. Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 155-177. Greco, J. & Reibsamen, J. (2018). “Reliabilist Virtue Epistemology”, in N. Snow (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Virtue. Green, Jerry (2019). “Epistemic Goods” (this conference / volume). Ernest Sosa, (1980). “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge”. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5:3-26. _____, (2007). A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zagzebski, Linda (1996). Virtues of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____, (2003). “The Search for the Source of Epistemic Good.” Metaphilosophy 34:12-28. _____, (2004). “Epistemic Value and the Primacy of What We Care About”. 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