An Epistemology for Target Centred Virtue Ethics

This chapter provides an epistemology for virtue ethics—target-centred virtue epistemology, arguing that we all need the epistemic virtues rather than relying on the wisdom of a virtuous agent. It thus contrasts target-centred virtue epistemology with qualified agent virtue epistemology. Epistemic virtues are understood in terms of their epistemic targets rather than primarily in terms of virtuous epistemic motives. The chapter argues that virtue epistemology is a branch of virtue ethics, and that epistemic virtues should be understood as not isolated from ethical virtue but are instead ‘virtues proper’. It discusses too the evidential status of “moral intuitions” in relation to target-centred virtue epistemology, and deleterious social factors in the transmission of beliefs such as the network and contagion social epistemic models, in relation to personal epistemic virtue.