Abstract
My aim in this paper is to present and discuss a novel understanding of the nature of epistemic vice. I highlight that epistemic vice such as excessive curiosity, gossip and excessive inquisitiveness do not obstruct the acquisition, transmission and retention of knowledge and are not characterized by a deficiency of epistemic desires or vicious epistemic motivations. However, I argue that such traits ought to be classified as epistemic vices because the agent who possesses them causes epistemic harm to other agents through those traits’ characteristic activities.To remedy obstructivism’s inability to account for vices that cause epistemic harm in other ways besides blocking effective epistemic inquiry, I propose an amended version of this theory. I argue that epistemic vices are character traits, attitudes, and ways of thinking that obstruct the acquisition, transmission, and retention of knowledge and/or cause other kinds of epistemic harm. In addition, I propose a modified version of motivationalism that cashes out non-obstructing, excess-motivation vices in terms of motivation simply by acknowledging, and incorporating into theory, excessive epistemic drives and the negative epistemic (and non-epistemic) consequences stemming from them.
Highlights
Vice epistemology is the study of the “nature, identity and epistemological significance of intellectual vices” (Cassam, 2016, p. 159)
Scholars working in motivationalism uphold the inversion thesis according to which vices are the exact opposite of virtues—meaning that they are characterized by imperfect epistemic motivations
My aim in this paper is to argue that neither the theory of motivationalism nor the theory of obstructivism are broad enough to account for non-obstructing, excessmotivation epistemic vices such as excessive curiosity, gossip, and excessive inquisitiveness
Summary
Vice epistemology is the study of the “nature, identity and epistemological significance of intellectual vices” (Cassam, 2016, p. 159). Scholars such as Zagzebski (1996), Montmarquet (2000) and Baehr (2010) understand intellectual vices as involving motivational defects—i.e., motivations which lack epistemic value either because they are deficient or because they are outright vicious They maintain that a closed-minded agent is characterized by her lack of epistemic desires or, in some cases, her explicit dislike of epistemic goods. My aim in this paper is to argue that neither the theory of motivationalism nor the theory of obstructivism are broad enough to account for non-obstructing, excessmotivation epistemic vices such as excessive curiosity, gossip, and excessive inquisitiveness These are traits which do not obstruct the acquisition, transmission, and retention of knowledge ( non-obstructing) nor involve deficient or vicious epistemic motivations (they are characterized by excess epistemic desires). I move on in the fourth section of this paper, to develop and propose broader versions of both the theory of obstructivism and the theory of motivationalism that retain the essential characteristics of the original theories while incorporating non-obstructing, excessmotivation epistemic vices under their conceptualization of the term of epistemic vice
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