Epistemičko opravdanje, epistemička odgovornost i intelektualne vrline

Abstract

I examine the prospects for a virtue epistemology by analyzing the normative dimension of epistemic justification and the epistemic usage of deontological concepts such as permissibility, blamelessness and blameworthiness. The principles and intuitions which lie behind our epistemic and deontological appraisals of beliefs are presented and illustrated with some quotidian situations. Following this, I expose the most influential, Zagzebski's account of intellectual virtue and point out that her version of virtue epistemology is unable to explain the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic responsibility. There are three alternative ways in which epistemic justification can be defined in terms of intellectual virtue that I sketch, each failing to accommodate our intuitions about the nature of epistemic permissibility, blamelessness and blameworthiness. Finally, after providing a few counterexamples to the main virtue epistemology thesis concerning the connection between epistemic justification and intellectual virtues, I conclude that being produced by an intellectual virtue is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for a belief to be epistemically permissible.