Epistemic Subjectivism in the Theory of Character

Abstract

Several contributors to the burgeoning literature on individual character traits have recently given their attention to a contrast between so-called objective and subjective accounts of salient features of these traits. In this paper, I tease apart two different kinds of subjectivism which have not clearly been distinguished from one another thus far in the literature: doxastic subjectivism and epistemic subjectivism. I then argue that epistemic subjectivism marks an attractivemiddle position between objectivism and doxastic subjectivism, as it is less vulnerable to some of the most significant objections facing each of these alternative approaches. On this basis, I recommend that virtue theorists consider adopting epistemically subjective accounts of the features of character traits they theorize about.