Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic

Virtues and vices matter in both ethics and epistemology – it matters whether an agent has moral and intellectual virtues or moral and intellectual vices. In fact, this is the veritable rallying cry of both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology. But do analogies between virtues and vices across these two philosophical fields even succeed? If so, how much do virtues and vices really matter? Are they – or are exemplars – at the foundation of moral and epistemic theory? And if virtues and vices do matter, what exactly are they?

Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic presents a series of thought provoking essays that delve deeply into the role of virtue and vice that cut across the fields of ethics and epistemology. Featuring the voices of both virtue ethicists and epistemologists, readings offer competing accounts of the foundation of moral theory while exploring the connections between virtue and emotion, and virtue and contextualism. Other essays analyze universal love, open–mindedness, epistemic malevolence, and epistemic self–indulgence. Written by leading or upcoming figures in ethics and epistemology this book offers provocative insights into the most cutting edge thinking concerning the application of the intellect into virtue theory – an important development in the contemporary analytic tradition.

Notes on Contributors vii

1 Introduction: Virtue and Vice 1
HEATHER BATTALY

Part 1: The Structure of Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology

2 Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology 21
ROGER CRISP

3 Exemplarist Virtue Theory 39
LINDA ZAGZEBSKI

4 Right Act, Virtuous Motive 57
THOMAS HURKA

Part 2: Virtue and Context

5 Agency Ascriptions in Ethics and Epistemology: Or, Navigating Intersections, Narrow and Broad 73
GUY AXTELL

6 Virtues, Social Roles, and Contextualism 95
SARAH WRIGHT

Part 3: Virtue and Emotion

7 Virtue, Emotion, and Attention 115
MICHAEL S. BRADY

8 Feeling Without Thinking: Lessons from the Ancients on Emotion and Virtue–Acquisition 133
AMY COPLAN

Part 4: Virtues and Vices

9 A Challenge to Intellectual Virtue from Moral Virtue: The Case of Universal Love 153
CHRISTINE SWANTON

10 Open–Mindedness 173
WAYNE RIGGS

11 Epistemic Malevolence 189
JASON BAEHR

12 Epistemic Self–Indulgence 215
HEATHER BATTALY

Index 237

Heather Battaly is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University Fullerton. Her primary areas of research are epistemology, ethics, and virtue theory. She has published articles on the intellectual virtues in Philosophical Papers, Philosophy Compass, and Teaching Philosophy; and is co–editor of Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston. She is currently writing a book on the moral and intellectual virtues.

"Recommended. Upper–level undergraduates through faculty/researchers." (Choice, 1 May 2011)