Intellectual Character Education: Some Lessons from Vice Epistemology

Abstract

As an applied branch of virtue epistemology, the field of intellectual character education has offered practical guidance for educators who are interested in facilitating intellectual virtues in their classrooms. This chapter explores that practical guidance – i.e., the “standard approach” to facilitating intellectual virtues in classrooms. Section 1 explains the key features of the standard approach. Section 2 uses insights from vice epistemology to draw two lessons for the standard approach. First, since some students are already on their way to developing intellectual vices, they aren’t likely to be helped by the standard approach. Second, tendencies toward intellectual vices may be prevalent among our students and caused by systemic factors. Accordingly, any progress made in the classroom is likely to be ephemeral, if systemic changes aren’t made.