What are Epistemic Vices?

To be effective inquirers, we need to be aware of what goes wrong when we (individually and collectively) fail to reason effectively. None of us are flawless or ideal epistemic agents, so it makes sense to develop a robust account of ways of thinking that can deleteriously impact our epistemic capacities. ‘Vice’ derives from the Latin word vitium, which is a fault or defect. Epistemic vices have been framed as intellectual character failings, vicious attitudes and/or corrupted ways of thinking which systematically get in the way of knowledge (Cassam Reference Cassam2016). Since character traits often explain what people do, epistemic vices may then explain, at least to some extent, why people fail properly to think, reason, reflect, inquire, evaluate relevant evidence and stress-test the strength of competing claims, assumptions, reasons and inferences.

Vices of Consequence

Here are two examples of epistemic vices particularly worthy of attention: closed-mindedness and insouciance.

Closed-minded individuals systematically think in ways which are inflexible, insular, blinkered, irrationally defensive and unreceptive or hostile to any and all evidence which contravenes or threatens their pre-existing views. We can see examples of this vice in anti-vaxxer groups. Heather Battaly (Reference Battaly2018), an American philosopher, frames it as, ‘an unwillingness or inability to engage, or engage seriously, with relevant intellectual options’ (p. 262). Despite the temptation to think otherwise, being closed-minded does not necessitate having already made-up one’s mind about the topic at hand. A person can be closed-minded by way of the manner through which they arrive at their beliefs. The same applies for how they conduct inquiries. A similar point can be made about marshalling and interpreting evidence, some of which can be seen in terms of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. Epistemic bubbles are social epistemic structures in which salient discordant or heterogeneous voices have been omitted, often inadvertently. Echo chambers, on the other hand, are social epistemic structures from which other voices have been actively excluded, interpretatively silenced and discredited. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard because they are not at the table; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined even though they are at the table. In the former, ‘if you’re not at the table you’re on the menu’; in the latter, ‘you’re at the table but you’re still on the menu’.

Viewed this way, closed-mindedness is not restricted to ideas and evidence. Being closed-minded can result in showing preferential treatment for particular sources and impact the types of questions one asks, how they are asked, and of whom. Not all CM need amount to reductionist examples of dismissing intellectual options. More subtle procedural tactics exist: instead of dismissing an option outright, one might overinflate the valency of other options or throw shade on options one would rather avoid, not to dismiss them per se outright, but to cast enough doubt so that others start to worry about their merits. In the same way, CM need not just be about failing to engage with other valid options. One might interpretatively silence others, fail to seek them out, flatly ignore them or be oblivious to them. Finally, CM does not require an unwillingness to engage seriously with intellectual options. Again, as before, there are situations where corrupted interpersonal dynamics might lead to the ‘spirit being willing but the flesh weak’, or vice versa, so to speak. On this basis, one might be willing, but unable, to engage seriously with intellectual options, and still be closed-minded on those grounds.

A second epistemic vice is insouciance, a term coined by the philosopher Quassim Cassam. This vice involves a casual lack of concern about whether one’s beliefs have any basis in reality or are sufficiently supported by the best available evidence. This is in many respects one of the most pervasive vices in public discourse. ‘Bullshit’, in Harry Frankfurt’s sense of the term, is the primary product of insouciance (Frankfurt Reference Frankfurt2005). What’s most pernicious about the ‘bullshitter’ is that they do not care about evidence, facts, truth, rationality, or falsity. Rather than reject the authority of truth per se, they simply pay no attention to it at all. They are indifferent. As an affective, involuntary posture, this pernicious casual indifference (an epistemic apathy of sorts) to the truth, along with a lack of concern, vis-à-vis the obligation to ground one’s views in relevant facts, reasons or evidence, is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing educators in our time.

When is Vice-Charging a Good Thing and When is it Bad?

As you can imagine, playing the ‘blame game’ in epistemology takes up quite a bit of ink. We call out spurious claims, defective inquiries, mistaken probabilities, bad inferences, untrustworthy epistemic sources, and/or consciously or misinterpreted evidence. But while this is intellectually satisfying, we sometime miss out on the suboptimal social dimensions of how we inquire and engage with others. More often than not, we work together to seek answers to questions. As epistemic co-dependents, sometimes there are occasions where (to misquote Augustine) ‘the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’. At times we find it hard to get out of our own way. Polluted attitudinal and interpersonal dynamics can hinder a person’s epistemic agency – that is, their capacity to acquire, share, question, and meaningfully contribute to sense-making activities, to knowledge production, dissemination and understanding (see Tanesini Reference Tanesini2021). Some of this is fixable. For that which is fixable, I think vice-charging can be a good thing, especially in high stakes scenarios, where knowing enhances well-being, broadly understood. For that which isn’t, we’ve got to closely look at cost-benefit metrics. Either way, any determination of when it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to engage in vice-charging is, I think, largely context-dependent.

For epistemic vice-charging to be in principle considered ‘good’, however, I think it needs to meet a few conditions broadly aligned with those found in regulative epistemology (a form of quality assurance):

• • ‘The shoe must fit’: the charge must be accurate, clear, well-informed, considered and grounded in fact;

• • potentially lead to an epistemic improvement for the agent, and by extension other inquirers, in the sense that they shed false beliefs and acquire more true ones, and if possible, reach greater understandings;

• • bring the person a step closer to being a more competent and trustworthy epistemic citizen, the culmination of which is an admirable epistemic agent of sorts – a responsible and effective inquirer;

• • give appropriate weight to the context-specific ecology of each agent’s epistemic environment, which might impede inquiry and get in the way of knowledge. It’s unfair to charge someone with an epistemic crime that was, all-things-considered, out of their hands, or one in which they had a limited form of agency due to environmental factors adversely affecting free inquiry and the robust interpretation of salient evidence;

• • accurately diagnose and offer ameliorative strategies on vices that lead to suboptimal cognitive and intellectual performance. For instance: inattentiveness, distorted, fragmented and unreliable recall, inadequate concentration spans, unregulated confirmation biases, and so on. In short, any impediment to reliable, truth-directed cognitive dispositions which help in our quest to acquire and share knowledge successfully. The same principle also applies to failing to live up to what is expected in terms of intellectual character excellences – virtues such as curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and tenacity, integrity, fair-mindedness and humility – all of which, both individually and collectively maximize the chances of avoiding falsehood and successfully acquiring knowledge;

• • tactfully and empathically explain in a rational and respectful manner – an educative exchange where ‘truth’ trumps ego or my-side bias. This of course requires a certain degree of sensitivity and tact.

The Issue of Vice-Charging

At times the practice of vice-charging is unhelpful. No matter how sensitively or tactfully the attribution is levelled, there is always a risk that the person targeted interprets what is being said, and what is at stake, uncharitably. Polarized perspectives promote vice-charging. Where there is discord, there is often epistemic blame. Where there is blame, there is the question of responsibility. Where there is responsibility, there is the matter of determining degrees. None of this is easy. That said, so long as there are conflicting views of what we ought to believe, accept or do, there will be vice-charging.

If the aim is to help the accused person become a better epistemic agent, then there is a certain educative burden on the person hosting the intervention to tactfully show the fly the way out of the fly bottle. We do not live in a sterile epistemic world, where people acquire knowledge under laboratory conditions and easily change their minds based on fresh and more compelling evidence. On the contrary, many of us hold entrenched views, tree-trunk beliefs that are hard to shake, and at times, betray a strong resistance to contradictory evidence. Epistemology is not about just the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. It’s about the complex interplay between humans engaging in this pursuit, both individually and collectively, and in a more regulative sense, about how we be can become better, more responsible epistemic agents who show others how to acquire and share knowledge and avoid falsehoods.