Virtue Epistemology
One virtue epistemology definition of knowledge would be:
• P is true
• James believes that P
• James’s true belief that P is a result of James exercising his intellectual virtues
Intellectual virtues are traits that lead you to reliably form true beliefs. For example, good memory, accurate vision, and the ability to think rationally could be considered intellectual virtues.
But where virtue epistemology differs from reliabilism is that it specifies the true belief must be a direct result of exercising intellectual virtues. It’s not enough for the method used to form the belief to be generally reliable (as reliabilism claims) because that doesn’t rule out lucky cases such as fake barn county
The philosopher Ernest Sosa illustrates virtue epistemology with the following archery analogy: A virtuous shot in archery has the following three properties:
• Accurate, i.e. it hits the target
• Adroit, i.e. the archer is skillful and shoots the arrow well
• Apt, i.e. the arrow hit the target because it was shot well
This last condition – aptness – is the difference between reliabilism and virtue epistemology. It’s not enough for a belief to be true and for the believer to be intellectually virtuous. For something to qualify as knowledge, the belief must be true as a consequence of the believer exercising their intellectual virtues.
So, virtue epistemology could (correctly) say Henry’s belief that “there’s a barn” in fake barn county would not qualify as knowledge – despite being true and formed by a reliable method – because it is not apt. Yes, Henry’s belief is accurate (i.e. true) and adroit (i.e. Henry has good eyesight etc.), but he only formed the true belief as a result of luck, not because he used his intellectual virtues.
LINDA ZAGZEBSKI: WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?
Linda Zagzebski is another advocate of virtue epistemology. On Zagzebski’s analysis of knowledge, James knows that P if
• James believes that P
• James’s belief that P is a result of him exercising his intellectual virtues
Note that Zagzebski does not include the condition ‘true’ in her definition of knowledge. She does, elsewhere in her work, describe knowledge as “cognitive contact with reality” however.
In Zagzebski’s analysis of knowledge, the truth of the belief is kind of implied by the idea of intellectual virtues.
Firstly, virtues motivate us to pursue what is good (see Aristotle’s virtue theory in moral philosophy). Good knowledge is also true, and so another intellectual virtue would be something like: caring about having true beliefs
Secondly, virtues enable us to achieve our goals (in the same way a virtuous i.e. good knife enables you to cut) and so intellectual virtues would enable you to reliably form true beliefs.
PROBLEM: CHILDREN AND ANIMALS
As mentioned in more detail in the reliabilism section above, a potential criticism of virtue epistemology is that it appears to rule out the possibility of young children or babies possessing knowledge, despite the fact that they arguably can know many things.