Title

Is There A Christian Virtue Epistemology

School/Department

Talbot School of Theology

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

Given that curiosity, the desire for knowledge, is thought by many virtue theorists to play a controlling role over the other intellectual virtues, Christian concerns about proper and improper formations of curiosity should interest virtue theorists. Combine the fact that curiosity gets a different treatment in Christian thought with the claim that curiosity has a controlling function over the other intellectual virtues, and it follows there is a meaningful distinction between Christian and non-Christian virtue epistemologies. Differences include distinct understandings of individual intellectual virtues as well as a strong objection to the view that one could be intellectually virtuous without being morally virtuous. In this essay I first isolate the peculiarly Christian distinction between proper and improper curiosity, showing how humility is at the heart of the distinction. I then show how this distinction points to a virtue epistemology that differs in significant ways from prevalent contemporary virtue epistemologies.

Keywords

Curiosity; contemporary virtue epistemology

Publication Title

Res Philosophica

Volume

93

Issue

3

First Page

637

Last Page

652

DOI of Published Version

10.11612/resphil.2016.93.3.6

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