Vice Epistemology

A 2009 poll of 2,303 Americans revealed that 23% believed in the existence of witches, 32% in UFOs, and 42% in ghosts. In 2008, a global poll of over 16,000 people found that fewer than half believed that al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, with a significant number attributing the collapse of the World Trade Centre towers to a controlled demolition by the government. We live in a world in which bizarre conspiracy theories and other questionable beliefs abound, often with dire social and political consequences. How are such beliefs to be explained? Why, as Michael Shermer asks, do people believe weird things?

In philosophy, belief explanation is often seen as a form of rationalizing explanation: you explain why someone believes that, say, the 9/11 attacks were an inside job by identifying his reasons for believing that. Furthermore, it is widely assumed that if you want to know a person's reasons for believing something the best way of finding out is to ask the person himself. On this account, people are authoritative about what they believe and why they believe it.

Yet in the case of many questionable beliefs, there is a clear sense in which you haven't fully or adequately explained the target belief without taking account of factors other than the subject's own reasons. Another mode of explanation is in terms of intellectual character traits like gullibility, naivety, prejudice, carelessness and closed-mindedness. So, for example, a conspiracy theorist might be said to believe a particular conspiracy theory because he is gullible, naïve, or careless. These are all examples of intellectual vices, that is, intellectual character traits whose influence impedes effective and responsible inquiry. The proposed explanation of the conspiracy theorist's belief is a character-based explanation.

Vice epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature, identity and epistemological significance of intellectual vices. This way of putting things might appear to imply that vice epistemology is an established field of research. It is not. Intellectual vices have rarely received the attention of philosophers, and this project aims to put that right. Vice epistemology is a new and original research programme which I will lead.

The key questions for vice epistemology include:

1 How should the notion of an intellectual vice be understood?
2 Do intellectual vices even exist?
3 Are intellectual vices global or local? Do they affect all of a person's thinking or is it possible for genuine intellectual vices to be context-bound and subject-specific?
4 Even if intellectual vices exist, does vice epistemology exaggerate their significance?
5 What is the specifically epistemological significance of intellectual vices? What are the epistemological questions which reference to intellectual vices might help us to answer?
6 What harm do intellectual vices do us? How and to what extent can intellectual vices be overcome?
7 What is the relationship between intellectual and moral vices?

Rationalizing explanations of our beliefs aren't the only alternative to character-based explanations. As well as cultural and historical factors, social psychologists have argued that 'many questionable beliefs ... can be traced to imperfections in our capacities to process information and draw conclusions' (Gilovich). Only cross-disciplinary research can reveal how character explanations relate to other explanations of questionable beliefs.

Vice epistemology isn't just of academic interest. Historically, epistemology has been seen as having a regulative function. Regulative epistemology tries to improve our epistemic conduct and sees epistemology as 'practical and social, rather than just an interesting theoretical challenge for philosophy professors and smart students' (Roberts & Wood). Improving our epistemic performance requires a proper understanding of the ways in which our inquiries are affected by our intellectual vices.

Understanding the nature and influence of intellectual vices is not just of academic interest. I take intellectual vices to be character traits which impede responsible and effective inquiry, obstruct innovation and the mobilization of knowledge, and worsen the quality of public discourse. A key objective of this research is to understand and thereby reduce the impact on society and the economy of intellectual vices. The nature of the impact of this research will be both societal and economic, and the types of impact will include: (i) improvements in intellectual capital, (ii) informing developments in professional practice and public policy, and (iii) increasing the effectiveness of public services and policy.

Here are three illustrations of these types of impact:

(a) Impact on innovation and adoption in professional practice and public services:

As noted in section (c) of my statement on Academic Beneficiaries, a major challenge facing clinical and other human services is the gap between research and practice. Scientists and other experts undertake research on best practice, on what works, but the results of their research are not always adopted and implemented by practitioners on the ground. Knowledge is, in this sense, not 'mobilized', and the result is that public services are less effective than they could be. This problem has been highlighted by the World Health Organization in a recent Draft Statement on Advancing Implementation Research and Delivery Science (IRDS).

What impact can vice epistemology have on attempts to understand and bridge the gap between research and practice? My conception of this impact is as follows: (a) among the factors which might help to explain the reluctance or unwillingness of practitioners to adopt research-led innovation is the influence of intellectual vices such as conformity, rigidity, prejudice, and closed-mindedness; (b) the impact of such factors has not been widely recognized by funders, policy makers, research producers and research users; (c) I will collaborate with specialists in IRDS to develop and disseminate a better understanding of the impact of intellectual vices on the adoption of research-led innovation; (d) the dissemination of such an understanding will enable and the development of concrete measures (e.g. in the form of training programmes) designed to counteract the influence of intellectual vices and promote thinking styles that are conducive to research-led innovation.

(b) Impact on public policy in respect of extremism and radicalisation:

An important question which continues to exercise policy makers is this: how and why do some individuals become radicalised in ways that make them potential recruits for extremist organizations? Some individuals are vulnerable to radicalisation while others are resistant. Understanding the factors which account for this difference is a priority for policy makers. See the 2011 Home Office paper 'Al Qa'ida Influenced Radicalisation: A rapid evidence assessment guided by Situational Action Theory'.

This research would benefit from consideration of the role of character traits, including intellectual vices, in explaining vulnerability to radicalisation. The vice epistemology project will aim to influence public policy in respect of radicalisation and assist policy makers to think creatively about steps which might prove effective in counteracting radicalisation.

(c) Impact on public policy in respect of education:

Given the malign influence of intellectual vices, the cultivation of intellectual virtues like open-mindedness should be a priority for our educational system. There is already a philosophical literature on teaching intellectual virtues in the classroom. The vice epistemology project will aim to influence the development of teaching practices with a view to promoting what has been called 'educating for intellectual virtues' (Baehr) and thereby improving our intellectual capital.