Heather Battaly

Quassim Cassam (2022a) and Paul Katsafanas (2019) have argued that fanaticism and extremism are morally and epistemically vicious. I suggest an alternative approach that: (i) explains what makes fanaticism and extremism vicious in the very many cases in which they are; but also (ii) allows for cases in which fanaticism and extremism aren't liberatory-vices and may even be liberatory-virtues. My hope is that this approach might serve as a resource for those in liberatory struggles.

Fanatics are often viciously closed-minded. As Paul Katsafanas and Quassim Cassam have argued, fanatical members of ISIS, the Taliban, the KKK, and the Nazi party are paradigms of vicious closed-mindedness. But, must fanatics be closed-minded, as Katsafanas and Cassam suggest, or could they be open-minded? And, even if fanaticism entails closed-mindedness, must the fanatic's closed-mindedness be epistemically vicious, or could it be epistemically virtuous? This chapter argues that fanatics needn't be closed-minded, and may even be open-minded. In so doing, it proposes an alternative analysis of fanaticism that is broader in scope than those of Katsafanas and Cassam. It also contends that even if fanaticism does entail closed-mindedness, the closed-mindedness it entails needn't be epistemically vicious. Case in point: insofar as the Garrisonian Abolitionists were closed-minded fanatics, their closed-mindedness was epistemically virtuous, not vicious.

Forthcoming (Dec 2022) Synthese. This is the pre-publication version.
John Greco’s The Transmission of Knowledge (2021) argues that for a speaker to successfully transmit knowledge to a hearer, the speaker and hearer must act jointly, trust each other, and occupy a reliable information channel. I argue that Greco’s analysis of knowledge transmission is too strong. Knowledge transmission does require reliable information channels, but it doesn’t require joint action or trust. I focus on cases where speakers deliberately obstruct the flow of information and deny access to a group of would-be hearers—cases where neither joint action nor trust are present. I argue that in such cases, knowledge transmission to would-be hearers occurs when the epistemic obstructions that block reliable channels are bypassed or dissolved. For instance, it occurs when journalists and lawyers gain access to the private information channels of speakers and their co-conspirators, and in so doing, gain access to the knowledge in those channels—e.g., knowledge that members of the clergy had committed sexual assault, or knowledge that smoking low tar cigarettes is still harmful. It likewise occurs when socially marginalized hearers gain access to educational systems from which they have been excluded, and in so doing, gain access to the knowledge in them. In sum, I sketch a picture of knowledge transmission that objects to joint action and trust as necessary conditions, but preserves Greco’s insight that reliable information channels are needed.

This article evaluates Alessandra Tanesini's analyses of the intellectual virtues and vices of self-assessment, as characterized in her book The Mismeasure of the Self (2021). Section 1 explains Tanesini's rich accounts of the virtues of intellectual humility and pride. Contra Tanesini, section 2 suggests an alternative account according to which the intellectual virtues of humility and pride require reliability about one's limitations and strengths. This is an externalist version of the limitations-owning analysis, which takes the virtues of intellectual humility and pride to consist in (roughly): dispositions to appropriately attend to and own one's limitations and strengths (Whitcomb et al. 2017). I also explore whether the intellectual vices of self-assessment require unreliability about one's limitations and strengths. In so doing, I raise a question about Tanesini's analysis of self-abasement.

Some of the students in our classrooms doubt their intellectual strengths-their knowledge, abilities, and skills. They may be unaware of the intellectual strengths that they have, or they may ignore, lack confidence in, or underestimate them. They may even incorrectly judge themselves to be intellectually inferior to their peers. Students who do such things consistently are deficient in the virtue of intellectual pride-in appropriately 'owning' their intellectual strengths (Whitcomb et al. 2017)-and are on their way to developing a form of intellectual servility. Can the 'standard approach' to intellectual character education help these students make progress toward intellectual pride? This article argues that there are two limitations in its ability to help. First, the standard approach isn't likely to help unless it is combined with classroom strategies for ameliorating servility. Second, even when it is combined with ameliorative strategies, any progress it might make in the classroom is likely to be fleeting, when a student's servility is caused by systemic epistemic injustice. This article suggests that rather than prioritize the standard approach, we prioritize strategies that aim at systemic change and amelioration.

Michael Brady's Suffering and Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2018) is a wonderfully rich, important, and meaningful book. Brady's detailed case study of suffering provides a specific and much-needed illustration of the significance of feelings and emotions for virtue and moral and intellectual life more generally. This paper evaluates Brady’s arguments, focusing on: (1) the desire account of suffering (Chapters 1 and 2); (2) the role of suffering in virtue-development (Chapter 4); (3) whether suffering is required for evaluative knowledge (Chapter 5); (4) heroism and selflessness (Chapter 6), and (5) the need to reduce suffering (Chapter 5).

As an applied branch of virtue epistemology, the field of intellectual character education has offered practical guidance for educators who are interested in facilitating intellectual virtues in their classrooms. This chapter explores that practical guidance—i.e., the ‘standard approach’ to facilitating intellectual virtues in classrooms. Section 1 explains the key features of the standard approach. Section 2 uses insights from vice epistemology to draw two lessons for the standard approach. First, since some students are already on their way to developing intellectual vices, they aren’t likely to be helped by the standard approach. Second, tendencies toward intellectual vices may be prevalent among our students and caused by systemic factors. Accordingly, any progress made in the classroom is likely to be ephemeral, if systemic changes aren’t made.

Forthcoming in M. Alfano, J. de Ridder, and C. Klein (eds.) Social Virtue Epistemology (Routledge). This is the pre-publication version. In their 2016 analysis of "Collective Virtue," Ryan Byerly and Meghan Byerly argue that some virtues are distinctively collective and suggest that solidarity is such a virtue. As they see it, a distinctively collective virtue is a virtue of a collective (or group) for which there is no individual analogue; i.e., there is no corresponding virtue V of individuals, from which the collective version of V could be derived. In proposing the virtue of solidarity as a paradigm case, Byerly and Byerly recognize that: "an account of collective solidarity cannot be derived from an account of individual solidarity…since there simply is no such thing as individual solidarity" (2016: 49). They rightly point out that: "an individual has no members that can empathize with and unite themselves to each other" (2016: 49). Sally Scholz likewise confirms, in Political Solidarity, that: "one cannot be in solidarity with oneself" (2008: 19). Here, I use Byerly and Byerly's suggestion as a springboard for exploring the virtue of solidarity, and thereby hope to contribute to the broader project of examining a virtue that is distinctively collective. This chapter is exploratory in spirit. It brings virtue theory to bear on some key accounts of political solidarity, flagging several points of controversy along the way. My hope is that shining a spotlight on the virtue of solidarity will contribute to discussions at the intersection of social epistemology, virtue and vice epistemology, and political philosophy.

This is the penultimate version. The final version will appear in J. Matheson and K. Lougheed (eds.) Essays on Epistemic Autonomy, Routledge. Abstract: This chapter argues that the traits of intellectual autonomy and interdependence need not be intellectual virtues. It offers sketches of the traits of intellectual autonomy and intellectual interdependence as dispositions to think for oneself, and to think with others, respectively. It argues that these traits won't be intellectual virtues when they are had to excess-when agents are intellectually autonomous or interdependent to a fault. To be intellectual virtues, agents must rein in such excesses, but without over-correcting. This, arguably, requires good judgment. Even so, the resulting dispositions to think for oneself appropriately, and to think with others appropriately, can still fail to be intellectual virtues. For these dispositions to be intellectual virtues, they must also be grounded in motivations for epistemic goods. Along the way, the chapter argues for dividing this territory into two virtues-one of intellectual autonomy, another of intellectual interdependence-rather than combining these into a single virtue. It also draws a distinction between modest and strong versions of normative contextualism. Compare two sets of people, all of whose members are in the process of acquiring beliefs and conducting intellectual inquiries. Those in the first set tend to make up their own minds and rely on their own cognitive faculties and reasoning. They want to see things for themselves, and tend to marshal their own evidence and evaluate it for themselves. They have the trait of intellectual autonomy. Those in the second set tend to consult and collaborate with other people and/or digital sources. They tend to rely on the cognitive faculties and reasoning of other sources, and to defer to the views and evaluations of those sources. They have the trait of intellectual interdependence. Are these traits of autonomy and interdependence intellectual virtues? This chapter argues that these traits can be, but are not always, intellectual virtues. For starters, they won't be intellectual virtues when agents have these traits to excess-when they are intellectually autonomous or intellectually interdependent to a fault. As scholars have pointed out, excessive autonomy can take the form of "extreme epistemic egoism" 1 and lead to cognitive isolation (Carter 2020: 239), while excessive interdependence can take the form of "blind deference" (Ahlstrom-Vij 2019: 216) and lead to gullibility (Fricker 1994: 145). For the traits of autonomy and interdependence to be intellectual virtues, our agents must at least regulate them, reining in such excesses, but without over-correcting. To do this, our agents arguably need the virtue of good judgment. But, their resulting dispositions-to think for themselves appropriately, and to think with others appropriately-can still fail to be intellectual virtues. Agents who think for themselves (or with others) appropriately, but only do so for selfish reasons-e.g., they might want their name(s) to be associated with an important discovery in perpetuity-don't have intellectual virtues. To be intellectual virtues, their dispositions to think appropriately will also need to be grounded in motivations for epistemic goods, including motivations for truth, knowledge and understanding. For this general framework, I am indebted to Whitcomb et al.'s (2021) distinction between the trait and virtue of humility.

Forthcoming in Midwest Studies in Philosophy. This is the pre-publication version. Abstract: This paper argues that an interlocutor's deference and open-mindedness can indicate servility rather than virtuous humility. Section 1 evaluates an influential philosophical analysis of the virtue of humility and two psychological measures, all of which emphasize the contrast between humility and arrogance. Section 2 develops a philosophical analysis of servility, building on the limitations-owning view. It argues that servility is an unwillingness or inability to be attentive to or own one's strengths, and a disposition to be overly attentive to or over-own one's limitations. Section 3 sketches a picture of servility in political discourse, suggesting that we can expect servility to be positively correlated with deferring to others, open-mindedness, and belief-revision, and negatively correlated with anger. Section 4 sketches a picture of countering servility in political discourse through the virtues of pride and humility. By comparison with servility, we can expect virtuously proud and virtuously humble people to exhibit higher correlations with refusals to defer, to be open, to engage, and to revise beliefs. It points us toward psychological measures that aim to distinguish the virtue of humility from the vice of servility.

Rewind to June 2020. Most of your interactions are on-line due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and protests against systemic racism are occurring in cities across the United States. Imagine that racist claims about crime, and fake news about COVID-19, appear in your social media feeds. You know the claims in question are false, and you care about truth. What should you do? Should you engage in some way? If so, with what or whom should you engage, and how should you engage? Should you engage open-mindedly or closed-mindedly? This chapter argues that we should engage closed-mindedly. We should dismiss and report false posts, advocate for structural reform of content algorithms, and flood the epistemic environment with truths and critical thinking. We should also be alive to opportunities where closed-minded engagement with people who believe the posts can produce good epistemic effects overall.

Forthcoming in Alessandra Tanesini and Michael P. Lynch (eds.) Polarisation, Arrogance, and Dogmatism: Philosophical Perspectives (Routledge) Let's begin with a quote from the President of the United States: "CNN's Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television, insinuated last night while asking a debate "question" that I was a racist, when in fact I am "the least racist person in the world."" This appeared on Donald Trump's twitter account on July 31, 2019, the morning after a televised debate in which Don Lemon, one of the few black anchors on CNN, asked the Democratic presidential candidates to address Trump's bigotry and growing racial divisions in the U.S. My project here is not to diagnose Trump, nor is it to argue that he is a racist, though I think both of those projects are worthwhile. On this occasion, my goal is to explore the relationship between closed-mindedness and arrogance. The quote above simultaneously exhibits both. Trump closed-mindedly dismisses Lemon as a source of relevant questions and views, and arrogantly claims to be the least racist person in the world. Here, and elsewhere, closed-mindedness and arrogance go hand-in-hand. Indeed, they are so often conjoined that we expect to find them together. Does this mean that closed-mindedness and arrogance are the same thing? Or, are they different things that are usually found together but sometimes come apart? If they come apart, what does that look like? My task is to try to answer this set of questions, and shed some light on the relationship between closed-mindedness and arrogance. I intend this project to be a contribution to the developing field of 'vice epistemology,' which focuses on dispositions, attitudes, and character traits that make us bad thinkers. The industry-term for these qualities is intellectual vices. The foundational goals of vice epistemology include determining which qualities are intellectual vices, and providing analyses of those qualities. Here, I propose analyses of closed-mindedness and arrogance that allow us to distinguish between them, while also explaining why they are so often found together. If this is on the right track, closed-mindedness and arrogance are correlated, but they are not the same. By way of preview, section I identifies closed-mindedness with being unwilling to engage seriously with intellectual options or unwilling to revise one's beliefs. Section II identifies arrogance with under-owning one's cognitive shortcomings and over-owning one's cognitive strengths. These analyses of closed-mindedness and arrogance allow for cases where they come apart. Section III focuses on a subset of such cases in which agents are closed-minded but not arrogant. Real world illustrations include academics, who engage with flat-earthers, and activists, who engage with white supremacists, while being unwilling to revise their own beliefs that the earth is round and that people are people. The final section explains why we should nevertheless expect closed-mindedness and arrogance to be found together. I. Closed-mindedness What is it to be closed-minded? Below, I propose an analysis of the trait of closed-mindedness. I don't assume that the trait of closed-mindedness is always vicious. Rather, I treat the analysis of the trait, and its status as an intellectual vice, as separate questions. Though closed-mindedness is usually vicious, I will be suggesting that is isn't always vicious, and might even be virtuous. Let's begin with a paradigm case of a closed-minded speech act.

This is the penultimate version. The final version is forthcoming in Philosophical Issues. Abstract: Vice epistemology is in the business of defining epistemic vice. One of the proposed requirements of epistemic vices is that they are reprehensible-blameworthy in a non-voluntarist way. Our problem, as vice epistemologists, is giving an analysis of non-voluntarist responsibility that will count just the right qualities, no more and no less, as epistemic vices. If our analysis of non-voluntarist responsibility ends up being too narrow, then it risks excluding some qualities that we want to count as epistemic vices, such as implicit biases. Whereas, if it ends up being too broad, it risks including qualities that we do not want to count as epistemic vices, such as impaired vision. I recommend a three-step program for vice epistemologists: 1. admit that we have a responsibility problem; 2. strive to define the responsibility problem; 3. work together with specialists in non-voluntarist responsibility to solve the responsibility problem. Vice epistemology aims to answer three sets of questions. First, what qualities count as epistemic vices and why? What features of a quality make it an epistemic vice? Second, how are epistemic vices connected to epistemic goods like knowledge? Must epistemic vices impede knowledge? And, third, how can we rehabilitate or ameliorate epistemic vices? What is the role of the individual and the environment in curbing epistemic vice? 1 My project here falls under the first set of questions. It focuses on the claim that epistemic vices require the agent who possesses them to be responsible for them. Vice epistemologists have largely embraced the thesis that it is possible for an agent to have epistemic vices that are 'out of her control.' To explicate, there is growing consensus among vice epistemologists that an agent can possess epistemic vices over whose initial acquisition she lacked control. 2 This happens when, for instance, indoctrination causes closed-mindedness, and social oppression causes intellectual servility. 3 More controversial, but also in play, is the thesis that an agent may never gain control over her continued possession of an epistemic vice. This happens when her initial possession of the vice prevents her from developing the ability to change direction. 4 Either way, if we lack control over the possession of some of our epistemic vices, then we won't be responsible for those vices in the traditional sense; that is, we won't be "accountable" for them (Watson 2004). This invites the astute objection that vice epistemologists are letting the

Humility is an unlikely candidate for liberatory virtue. It seems to be the last thing that could help an oppressed person, since humility in interacting with one's oppressors arguably sustains, rather than subverts, one's oppression. My chief aim is to explore whether this view is correct. The chapter argues that humility can be a liberatory virtue for oppressed persons. The first section uses feminist virtue theory to sketch an analysis of liberatory virtues as traits that contribute to resisting social oppression, achieving liberation, and making flourishing more possible for all persons. Section two endorses the notion of humility as limitations-owning, distinguishing the virtue of humility from the virtue of pride and both of these from servility and arrogance (Whitcomb et al 2017). It then explores what is needed to convert this notion of humility into a liberatory virtue. It argues that the virtue of liberatory humility consists in a motivation to pursue liberatory ends, and a disposition to be appropriately attentive to and own one's liberatory limitations. Section three evaluates the trail-blazing arguments of Vrinda Dalmiya (2016) and Robin Dillon (in press). Both warn against treating humility as a virtue for the oppressed in interactions with oppressors. I explore whether there might, nevertheless, be a role for such humility.

What is humility, and is it a virtue? This entry provides an overview of contemporary analyses of general humility and intellectual humility. Following the Aristotelian tradition in virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, it understands humility through the lens of character traits and their components. Aristotle argues that virtues are character traits, and character traits are dispositions or habits of: cognition, action, motivation, and affect. Accordingly, this entry divides analyses of humility into those that highlight one, or another, of these four kinds of dispositions. It raises objections to the key analyses in this debate, and identifies areas that warrant further exploration.

What is closed-mindedness, and if it is an intellectual vice, what makes it so? This is the second in a series of three papers on closed-mindedness. It adopts a working analysis of closed-mindedness as an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options. It distinguishes between three different kinds of intellectual vice—effects vice, responsibilist vice, and personalist vice—and argues that closed-mindedness can take each of these forms.

Is closed-mindedness always an intellectual vice? Are there conditions in which it might be an intellectual virtue? This paper adopts a working analysis of closed-mindedness as an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options. In standard cases, closed-mindedness will be an intellectual vice. But, in epistemically hostile environments, closed-mindedness will be an intellectual virtue.

This is the penultimate version. The final version will appear in Episteme. This is the first of a series of three papers on Closed-mindedness. Abstract: The primary goal of this paper is to propose a working analysis of the disposition of closed-mindedness. I argue that closed-mindedness (CM) is an unwillingness or inability to engage (seriously) with relevant intellectual options. Dogmatism (DG) is one kind of closed-mindedness: it is an unwillingness to engage seriously with relevant alternatives to the beliefs one already holds. I do not assume that the disposition of closed-mindedness is always an intellectual vice; rather I treat the analysis of the disposition, and its status as an intellectual vice, as separate questions. The concluding section develops a framework for determining the conditions under which closed-mindedness will be an intellectual vice.

Intellectual virtues are qualities that make one an excellent thinker. The contemporary literature offers two different analyses of intellectual virtues: Virtue-Reliabilism and Virtue-Responsibilism. Virtue-Reliabilism argues that intellectual virtues are stable dispositions that reliably produce true beliefs. For Reliabilists, any stable reliable disposition will do. Hard-wired faculties like reliable vision, acquired skills like the ability to identify bird species, and acquired character traits like open-mindedness all count as intellectual virtues. In contrast, Responsibilists restrict intellectual virtues to acquired character traits, like open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and intellectual courage, over which the agent has some control and for which she is to some degree responsible. What can these analyses of intellectual virtue do for us? Reliabilists and Responsibilists have used their respective analyses of intellectual virtue to ground new accounts of knowledge. Though the details of their accounts differ, both camps define knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues. They take intellectual virtues, which are evaluations of agents, to be more theoretically fundamental than knowledge and justification, which are evaluations of beliefs. It is an open question as to whether their accounts of knowledge succeed. But even if they fail, their virtue theoretic approach to knowledge has already had a significant impact on analytic epistemology— it has put active knowledge back on the map. Responsibilists have also begun to apply their analysis of intellectual virtue to classroom education and curricula. They argue that virtues like intellectual humility, intellectual perseverance, and open-mindedness are developed over time, via practice and the imitation of role models. There are several educational projects underway that aim to facilitate the development of these virtues in students.

Compare two sets of inquirers. Members of the first set tend to abandon their intellectual projects when the going gets tough. They drop a class after failing the first homework assignment, or quit a research project upon receiving criticism from a referee, or forsake an important but boring line of inquiry for the pleasures of on-line surfing. At the first sign of a challenge, these folks capitulate. In contrast, members of the second set manage to withstand challenges and stick with their intellectual projects. Unlike their counterparts, they stay in class and work harder to understand the material. They incorporate the referee's objections into a revised version of the project. They drag themselves away from Twitter and Facebook to continue the boring but important line of inquiry. These folks persevere. Educational psychologists have recently argued that the trait exhibited by the second set—roughly, the trait of intellectual perseverance—is correlated with higher levels of education, higher GPA's in college students, increased intrinsic motivation, and increased studying. 1 Over the last decade, psychologists have been hard at work trying to measure and facilitate this trait in students, while philosophers have been slow to catch on. Save Nathan King's excellent analysis of perseverance as an intellectual virtue (2014), virtue theorists have had relatively little to say about this seemingly beneficial trait. 2 The goal of this essay is to make progress in filling this lacuna. My hope is that shining a spotlight on the trait of intellectual perseverance will encourage other virtue theorists to explore it. In this vein, I offer a working analysis of the trait of intellectual perseverance. I argue that it is a disposition to overcome obstacles, so as to continue to perform intellectual actions, in pursuit of one's intellectual goals. Accordingly, I contend that the trait of intellectual perseverance is not always an intellectual virtue. I provide a pluralist analysis of what makes it an intellectual virtue, when it is one. Along the way, I argue that the virtue of intellectual perseverance can be contrasted with both a vice of deficiency (capitulation) and a vice of excess (recalcitrance). I also suggest that the virtues of intellectual courage and intellectual self-control are types of intellectual perseverance. The essay ends with several open questions about the virtue of intellectual perseverance. My hope is that this essay will stimulate further interest in, and analysis of, this important intellectual trait.

Virtue epistemology defines knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues. Virtue-Reliabilists, led by Ernest Sosa, argue that intellectual virtues are reliable dispositions. Virtue-Responsibilists, led by Linda Zagzebski, argue that they are acquired character traits for which the agent is (partly) responsible. This chapter contends that Sosa's definition of knowledge, in terms of Reliabilist virtue, is better-suited to analyze passive knowledge, while Zagzebski's definition, in terms of Responsibilist virtue, is better-suited to analyze active knowledge. It also argues that virtue epistemology has already begun to expand the way we analyze knowledge. Breaking with mid-and late-twentieth century analytic epistemology, it puts active knowledge back on the epistemological map, and encourages us to explore probabilistic connections between active knowledge and intellectual virtue.

1: What are the Virtues?
2: Ends Matter: Virtues Attain Good Ends or Effects
3: Motives Matter: Virtues Require Good Motives
4: Vice and Failures of Virtue
5: Virtue, Right Action, and Knowledge
6: Virtue and Living Well
7: How Can We Acquire the Virtues?

Christian Miller's Honesty (2021) argues that honesty is always a virtue: it is the virtue of being disposed to not intentionally distort the facts as one sees them. I argue that honesty is not always a virtue: it is first and foremost a normatively neutral trait, which can be a virtue, but need not be a virtue and in some contexts may even be a vice. I provisionally suggest that the trait of honesty is a normatively neutral disposition to state what the agent takes to be relevant truths and avoid deliberately stating what the agent takes to be relevant falsehoods. I likewise suggest that the virtue of honesty is a disposition to state what one appropriately takes to be relevant truths and to avoid deliberately stating what one appropriately takes to be relevant falsehoods, and to do so because one is motivated by moral and/or epistemic goods. I argue that the trait of honesty won't be a virtue in hostile and oppressive contexts in which the prevailing norms are radically wrong. Nor will it be a virtue in contexts where the prevailing norms are correct, but the trait is excessive.