Vice Epistemology

Some of the most problematic human behaviors involve vices of the mind such as arrogance, closed-mindedness, dogmatism, gullibility, and intellectual cowardice, as well as wishful or conspiratorial thinking. What sorts of things are epistemic vices? How do we detect and mitigate them? How and why do these vices prevent us from acquiring knowledge, and what is their role in sustaining patterns of ignorance? What is their relation to implicit or unconscious bias? How do epistemic vices and systems of social oppression relate to one another? Do we unwittingly absorb such traits from the process of socialization and communities around us? Are epistemic vices traits for which we can blamed? Can there be institutional and collective epistemic vices?

This book seeks to answer these important questions about the vices of the mind and their roles in our social and epistemic lives, and is the first collection of its kind. Organized into three parts, chapters by outstanding scholars explore the nature of epistemic vices, specific examples of these vices, and case studies in applied vice epistemology, including education and politics.

Alongside these foundational questions, the volume offers sophisticated accounts of vices both new and familiar. These include epistemic arrogance and servility, epistemic injustice, epistemic snobbishness, conspiratorial thinking, procrastination, and forms of closed-mindedness.

Vice Epistemology is essential reading for students of ethics, epistemology, and virtue theory, and various areas of applied, feminist, and social philosophy. It will also be of interest to practitioners, scholars, and activists in politics, law, and education.

Introduction: from epistemic vices to vice epistemology Ian James Kidd, Heather Battaly, and Quassim Cassam Part 1: Foundational Issues 1. The structure of intellectual vices Jason Baehr 2. The metaphysical foundations of vice epistemology Quassim Cassam 3. Ignorance, arrogance, and privilege: vice epistemology and the epistemology of ignorance Alessandra Tanesini 4. Epistemic corruption and social oppression Ian James Kidd Part 2: Collectives, institutions, and networks 5. Institutional epistemic vices: the case of inferential inertia Miranda Fricker 6. Capital vices, institutional failures, and epistemic neglect in a county jail José Medina 7. Implicit bias and epistemic vice Jules Holroyd 8. Vectors of epistemic insecurity Emily Sullivan and Mark Alfano Part 3: Analyses of specific vices 9. Quitting, procrastinating, and slacking off Heather Battaly 10. Epistemic insensitivity: an insidious and consequential vice Maura Priest 11. Intellectual snobs Charlie Crerar Part 4: Applied vice epistemology 12. Teaching to the test: how schools discourse phronesisCasey Johnson 13. Vices of questioning in public discourse Lani Watson. Index

Ian James Kidd is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Heather Battaly is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, USA.

Quassim Cassam is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, UK.