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Frank Hofmann
Virtue epistemologists such as Ernest Sosa and John Greco propose an account
of the surplus value of knowledge that is both comprehensive and elegant,
thus providing an answer to Plato’s Menon problem. In a nutshell, the account
is simply that knowledge is ‘success from virtue’ and has value as such. When-
ever one reaches success by the exercise of a virtue, one establishes a value
over and above the value of the success. The way in which the success has been
reached is relevant and makes a difference to the evaluation. This is generally
the case—not just for the doxastic case of true belief and knowledge. In the
theory of knowledge, we consider truth as success in belief formation.1 And
therein we acquire knowledge as the case of true belief from epistemic virtue.
But there are many other cases of ‘surplus value’ outside the theory of knowl-
edge. In the arts and sports, for example, we can also reach a certain kind of
success by exercising virtues or skills. The skilled archer—to take Ernest Sosa’s
favorite example—hits the target because of his or her skill. The lay archer,
lacking the relevant skill, only hits it accidentally. In all cases of success from
virtue, we are dealing with a corresponding surplus value. So hitting the target
by skill—in virtue of virtue—is better than hitting it accidentally.
In the following I present and discuss in detail the account offered by
John Greco in his book Achieving Knowledge. I focus on his version as it
Epistemic Value and Virtues 121
is particularly succinct and clear and brings out the crucial ingredients in
a transparent way. But I assume that the account is essentially the same in
Sosa’s work, at least as far as the account of the surplus value is concerned.2
And the problems and questions I point out are generic ones and not just
problems for Greco’s version.
Plato’s Menon problem can be taken as the following problem of surplus
value:
(M) Why is knowledge better than (mere) true belief that is not knowledge?
(To speak of ‘mere true belief’ here means that the belief is not knowledge—
it may be justified or not. Therefore, one can simply drop the ‘mere’ in (M).)
We want to understand the value that knowledge has in comparison to true
belief that is not knowledge. This is by definition the surplus value of knowl-
edge. (One can compare knowledge to other states, such as justified true
belief or rational belief. This yields analogous problems. But here we shall
focus on the comparison to true belief that is not knowledge.)3
Greco (2010) states a master argument that is meant to establish the
surplus value of knowledge. He does not present it explicitly in the form
of numbered premises and conclusion. Rather, he presents it informally in
two sections, one at the beginning of the book and one in the chapter on the
value of knowledge. Here are the two passages.
Thus,
Thus,
(5) Knowledge has surplus value in comparison to true belief that is not
knowledge.
and omitted premise (2), we would have to face the difficulty that this prem-
ise (4’) is not plausible. Only for success from virtue might it be the case that
surplus value is established, but not for success from ability (which need not
be virtue).
The point possibly becomes clearer if we explicitly disambiguate talk of
‘abilities.’ One might speak of ‘abilities’ and mean virtues. This is not what
Epistemic Value and Virtues 123
can be presupposed in premise (1). The understanding of ‘ability,’ which we
can uncontroversially assume in the first premise, is simply something like
‘disposition’ (‘dispositional structure’) or ‘source.’ We can uncontroversially
assume that in the case of knowledge, true belief was reached by (the exer-
cising of) dispositions or sources (even though this is not obvious either).
But whether these dispositions or sources count as virtues—abilities in this
normative, stronger sense—is exactly one of the nontrivial and interesting
questions.4
Please note that it is not enough to assume that (epistemic or intellectual)
virtues are abilities (as Greco notes in the first passage quoted above). The
other direction is needed: The relevant abilities are virtues. In general, it does
not seem true to say that any ability is a virtue. There are many plausible
candidates for abilities that are not virtues, inside and outside of epistemol-
ogy. Take, for example, the ability to torture babies, or the ability to be
pedantic, or the ability to remember everything, or the ability to ignore all
evidence and/or counterevidence. These and many other cases of abilities are
either not clearly virtues or clearly not virtues at all. So it seems undeniable
that an ability need not be a virtue.5 Its being a virtue is nontrivial. And this
is as it should be, since being a virtue is supposed to help establish some sur-
plus value—as premise (4) says. This poses the question of why we should
think that the abilities relevant in the case of forming beliefs that are knowl-
edge are virtues. This is a crucial question for Greco’s master argument. And
of course a lot depends on what is meant by ‘virtue’ here. What is the force
of calling an ability a ‘virtue’? This is the reason I investigate virtues in the
next section extensively.
Fourth, premise (4) is meant to be a general principle. I will not question
it here.6 Whether it is true is, of course, an important question. (I will come
back to this point in the last section.) For the sake of argument, I will pro-
ceed on the assumption that premise (4) is indeed true.7
Fifth, a rather substantial question concerning the entire argument is the
question of what the ‘because’ or ‘from’ means, in formulations like ‘success
from virtue.’ Both Greco and Sosa hold that this ‘because’ indicates some-
thing like salient explanation. The success is supposed to be explained by the
exercise of the virtue. Consequently, it is ‘attributable’ to the virtue. Greco
calls the explanation “causal explanation,” but presumably he assumes a
rather wide understanding of ‘causal.’8
Now, one might find what it means to explain the truth of a belief not
entirely clear. In one sense, a rather constitutive sense, the corresponding
fact may be said to explain the truth of a belief—assuming a certain realistic
understanding of truth. This cannot be the relevant sense for the purposes
of the master argument, however. Rather, the explanation must be a causal
explanation, at least in a wide sense of ‘causal.’ It is an explanation of why
a true belief (with a specific content) has been formed. And the explanation
is supposed to cover precisely this aspect of the belief: its being true rather
than untrue.9 Both Greco and Sosa emphasize this point, and rightly so.
124 Frank Hofmann
The virtue is supposed to account for, or explain, why a true belief has been
reached.
This raises various other questions. Is this kind of explanation supposed to
be contrastive, and if so, what are the relevant contrasts? What exactly does it
take for something to be a cause of success in this sense? How much does such
an explanation presuppose a certain background? To what extent is it contex-
tual?10 But I will not elaborate on them in the following. I shall proceed on the
assumption that a viable understanding of ‘causal explanation’ can be worked
out. If not, the entire approach is doomed to failure from the very beginning.
We can summarize the argument in the following way: Knowledge is the
result of exercising abilities that are virtues, and in the case of knowledge,
the truth of the resulting belief is due to the exercising of the relevant virtue.
This is the general structure of success from virtue. And since success from
virtue has value over and above the value of the success (truth), knowledge
exhibits a value over and above the value of true belief. This is the sought
for surplus value of knowledge.
One final remark: Following the lead of Geach, Foot, and Thomson, one
could object against Greco’s argument as outlined above on the ground that
it assumes that there is something like being good (or having value, or more
value than something). One could hold that there is no such thing, but only
something like being good in way so-and-so (or being better in way so-and-
so). So one might reject the argument as resting on a false conception of
value. I will not go into this kind of objection here. I am just noting before
putting it to one side. It would require too much of an investigation into the
nature of value to be pursued here. And the issue is, of course, one of the big
and highly controversial ones.11 So I will grant to the defender of the argu-
ment that this kind of objection can be dealt with, and my criticism will not
rely on this objection or anything similar.
ACCOUNTS OF VIRTUE
In this section I present three critical questions for the master argument
and its virtue-theoretical framework. These are the truth question, the
explanatory question, and the location question. I do not discuss the truth
question, but simply put it on record. But I do discuss the second and the
Epistemic Value and Virtues 133
third questions to some degree. The result will be that these two questions
point to certain shortcomings or limitations of the virtue-theoretical account
as presented so far. Something is still missing in the account, namely, a con-
vincing explanation of why knowledge has surplus value. And the virtue
epistemologist might have to correct or modify the initial intuition of sur-
plus value in a certain way. It is not clear whether this is a serious problem,
but it is worth mentioning it and keeping it in mind.
For a start, three questions can be asked about the account presented so
far. The first and major question concerns the truth of the general premise (4).
Are we to accept this claim merely on the basis of direct intuition? Are there
any independent reasons for accepting it? These are of course salient ques-
tions, and a lot would have to be said to arrive at a reasonable judgment.
But I do not have the space to enter into this investigation here. I can only
note that there is a big question. It concerns the truth of premise (4). So let
us call it the ‘truth question.’ In the following I do not elaborate on this truth
question, but for the sake of argument concede to the virtue epistemologist
that it can be answered positively. Instead, I will focus on two other critical
questions.
For the sake of argument, let us suppose that the general principle of sur-
plus value from virtue, as expressed by (4), is true. Then a second question
immediately arises, namely, the explanatory question: What is the explana-
tion of the surplus value at hand? In thesis (4) we have a statement of the
existence of the surplus value, on a general level. But a (true) existence state-
ment is not an explanation. In itself, claim (4) does not explain how the
surplus value arises, or of what it is constituted. Somehow it does not seem
entirely clear why there is such a surplus value. On intuition, it calls out for
an explanation. So what is the explanation? This is the explanatory question.
In my view, the virtue epistemologist has not yet given any such explana-
tion. An explanatory account is still missing. It might be true that all success
from virtue generates, or is, a surplus value. But why? How can the explana-
tion of success by reference to virtue give rise to, or constitute, an additional
value? This question has yet to be answered.
One may say that the original question, Menon’s problem, has been
answered by the master argument. An answer has been given to the ques-
tion of why knowledge is better than true belief that is not knowledge. But
the question has only been shifted to the general level. What we would really
like to know is why success from virtue is better than success that is not suc-
cess from virtue. It is the same question, only on a more general level. And
this is exactly where a further explanation seems to be required.
And it seems difficult to provide such an explanation. If a true belief
was formed by exercising a virtue (under its manifestation conditions), we
134 Frank Hofmann
can explain the success by reference to the virtue. This is an explanation of
the truth of the belief. But it is not an answer to the question of why there
is an additional value over and above the value of truth. Or are we sup-
posed to think that exercising a virtue successfully (under its manifestation
conditions) is obviously something so valuable that no further explanation
is needed? That does not seem plausible to me at all. After all, if a virtue
is exercised in a Gettier case, there is no such surplus value, and the suc-
cess is not attributable to the agent’s exercising a virtue. But why does this
attributability of success to the exercising of virtue make a difference to the
existence of a certain value? This is not at all clear to me, and I suspect that
there is a big problem here. I would like to conclude, therefore, that the
virtue-theoretical account still owes us an explanation of the surplus value,
and that it is hard to see how such an explanation could be given. (Please
remember that all of this has been argued on the assumption that the truth
question has been answered positively.) In any case, it is definitely true that
the master argument in itself does not provide such an explanation, since it
‘merely’ establishes the existence of the surplus value.
A further, third question arises. This is the ‘location question,’ as I call it.
This question addresses the aspect of bearership. In a nutshell, the question
is: What exactly is it that has, or possesses, the surplus value? Several candi-
dates might come into mind. A first candidate is the belief that is the result
of exercising virtue and is the piece of knowledge. This is the mental state. At
least one further candidate comes to mind, however. This is the entire struc-
ture or process of forming the belief by exercising the virtue. One may hold
different views about what ontological kind or category this entity belongs
to. This, however, is not the real problem that I wish to discuss. For the sake
of argument, I simply assume that, ontologically speaking, it is a structure,
that is, a complex entity comprising both the exercising of the virtue and the
result: the belief state. The real problem is to decide whether it is the belief
state that has the surplus value or the structure—whatever ontological view
one might hold about what kind or category of entity to which the structure
belongs. My claim here is that the structure is the far better candidate than
the belief.33
One might wonder about the significance of the location question. Why
is it important to decide what exactly the surplus value has? Indeed, the
question is important, since we have to make up our minds about whether
the basic, initial intuition concerning surplus value has really been respected.
The intuition, as standardly stated, locates the surplus value within the belief
that is knowledge. It is usually articulated by saying something like ‘know-
ing is better than merely truly believing.’ So the intuition seems to locate the
surplus value within the belief that is knowledge—in contrast to the belief
that is not knowledge. But now it turns out—as I argue—that according to
the virtue-theoretic account, it is not the state of knowledge that possesses
the surplus value but the entire structure. To me, this sounds like a certain
limitation of the virtue-theoretic account. Only in a qualified sense can it
Epistemic Value and Virtues 135
preserve the initial intuition about surplus value. It has to be reformulated
or reinterpreted in a certain way, in order for it to be captured. The initial
intuition is not captured fully.
Perhaps this is a big problem, perhaps not. This is not so clear. But in any
case, it is important to notice that there is a certain divergence between the
initial intuition and what can be reproduced or captured by the theoretical
account. Sometimes, intuitions can be modified in certain ways without any
serious harm. But sometimes such a modification can be taken as an indica-
tion of ultimate failure. It is not easy to decide which one of the alternatives
is realized in our case. And I will not say anything more about it now. Here
the point is, rather, to put the question on the agenda and to make clear that
the virtue epistemologist is not immediately in a favorable position.
Now, why is it that virtue epistemology and the master argument attri-
bute the surplus value to the entire structure and not to the outcome belief
state? Expressions such as ‘performance’ or ‘belief acquisition’ might mean
the resulting state or the entire structure. The term ‘success from virtue’ is
equally ambiguous. It might be taken as referring to the state that is success-
ful and successful because of virtue. But it can also be taken as referring to the
entire structure of virtuously forming the belief in such a way that a success
results because of virtue. Then it refers to the success-from-virtue. (Let us
take this technical term, ‘success-from-virtue,’ to refer to the structure.) Once
we recognize this ambiguity, however, it seems rather clear that the second
reading is the right one. What has surplus value, according to the general
surplus value principle (4), is the success-from-virtue, the entire structure, the
performance as a whole process—and not merely the outcome state.
If this is not yet entirely clear intuitively, the following consideration could
be added. According to the virtue-theoretic account, what distinguishes
knowledge from mere justified true belief, as it occurs in Gettier cases, is
the fact that the success is explained by the virtuous performance. So it is a
relation between the generating activity and a feature of the resulting belief
state (its truth), which is crucial for knowledge. Therefore, the crucial dif-
ference is a difference between the two structures—the structure of virtuous
act plus true result (Gettier case) and the structure of true result because of
virtuous act (knowledge). This ‘because of’ relation is always the crucial
ingredient with which the surplus value correlates, both in the epistemic case
and in other, nonepistemic cases. But then it is overwhelmingly plausible, if
not mandatory, to think that it is (primarily) the knowledge structure that
has the relevant surplus value.
We could, of course, hold that the resulting state has surplus value in
a secondary, derived sense. But then it could only have such a secondary,
derived value in virtue of the entire structure’s having a primary, nonderived
surplus value. In other words, the result is better because, and only because,
it is part of a structure having surplus value. So this does not provide us with
a way around the assumption that the structure has the surplus value in a
primary, nonderived sense.
136 Frank Hofmann
NOTES
1. Or, perhaps, we take the double-faced aim of reaching truth and avoiding
falsity as success.
2. Cf. Sosa (2007). One major difference between Sosa and Greco is that Greco
explicitly accepts a contextualist dimension that Sosa does not endorse,
namely the contextualist dimension of causal explanation. (Cf. Greco [2010,
ch. 7].) This difference, however, does not matter to the basic idea of how
to explain knowledge’s surplus value. Another difference is that Sosa distin-
guishes between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge, and the for-
mula ‘accurate because adroit’ only applies to animal knowledge directly.
(Cf., for example, Sosa [2007, 24]). I will not be concerned with reflective
knowledge here, only with knowledge.
3. Cf. Greco (2010, ch. 6), in which Greco distinguishes various surplus value
questions.
4. Greco might use the term ‘ability’ sometimes or even always in this stronger
sense. His official account of abilities makes abilities the stronger, virtuous
dispositions or sources. (Cf. Greco [2010, 77].)
5. And this is so not only in the sense of its being not a moral virtue, as the case
of the ability to ignore all (counter)evidence shows. To be able to ignore all
(counter)evidence is not an epistemic virtue, even though it is an epistemic
ability.
6. I suppose that it is meant as a kind of pro tanto principle. Success from vir-
tue is better than success that is not success from virtue (that is, ‘lucky suc-
cess’)—leaving aside other aspects that may contribute further values. So we
deal with at least two values: (a) the value of the success, and (b) the surplus
value of success from virtue.
7. A question concerning the exact content of premise (4) is: What does the
qualification ‘in general’ mean? Does it mean strict universality (without
exceptions), or does it mean ‘It is the rule’ (allowing for exceptions)? I will
not discuss this question here. I will simply assume that whatever the exact
meaning is, the premise is supposed to cover at least much more than just
the case of epistemic virtues and, thus, has a certain kind of generality. My
arguments will not depend on any stronger reading than that.
8. Cf. Sosa (2007, 95–97), for example; cf. Greco (2010, 71), for example.
9. Cf. Sosa (2007, 95–96); cf. Greco (2010, 75), for example, in which Greco
states that the relevant kind of causal explanation is “poorly and only par-
tially understood.”
10. As already mentioned, Greco explicitly endorses the contextuality of the rel-
evant kind of causal explanation that he has in mind.
11. Superficially, the answer to the objection might be: The relevant value is an
epistemic value (not a pragmatic or moral one). But this provokes the further
question: What is this: an ‘epistemic’ value? And here we land ourselves with
rather grave problems.
12. In the following, I will always be concerned with epistemic justification and
speak of ‘justification’ simply.
13. Cf., for example, Greco (2010, 99 f).
14. Cf. Sosa (2007, 42 f). Sosa adds that aptness, accuracy, and adroitness are
matters of degree. Cf. Sosa (2007, 22); Sosa (2010, fn. 1).
15. Sosa explicitly says so: “The Gettier phenomenon thus generalizes beyond
the case of belief. A performance of whatever sort is gettiered if it is both
accurate and adroit without being apt” (Sosa 2010, 467). Sosa, however,
also states that in some Gettier cases the subject has knowledge, or ‘animal
Epistemic Value and Virtues 137
knowledge,’ as he calls it: “In some Gettier cases the protagonist lacks reflec-
tive knowledge but has animal knowledge” (Sosa 2010, 474). This would
complicate things significantly. And I take this statement to be rather unfor-
tunate. What Sosa seems to mean is that in some alleged Gettier cases—like
the case of Barney in Goldman’s fake barn country—the subject has (ani-
mal) knowledge, but they are not really Gettier cases. I will proceed on the
assumption that this is the correct, charitable interpretation.
16. Cf., for example, Bird (2007, ch. 2); Mumford (1998).
17. One can partition the manifestation conditions in various ways. One can,
for example, distinguish between rather standing and fleeting conditions or
factors. This is what Greco does by partitioning the manifestation conditions
into ‘conditions’ and ‘environments.’ (Cf. Greco [2010, 77].) Or one can dis-
tinguish between rather internal and external conditions. This is what Sosa
does by talking of ‘conditions’ and ‘situations.’ (Cf. Sosa [2010, 465].) For the
following it will not matter which partitioning one favors, if any. In addition,
Sosa introduces the ‘seat’ of the skill, calling it ‘constitution’ (cf. Sosa 2010,
465). It is not so clear whether this is harmless and unproblematic. Talking of
a ‘constitution’ very much sounds like introducing a distinction between the
disposition and its realizer or basis. Whether all dispositions have such a basis
is controversial. Prior, Pargetter, and Jackson (1982) have claimed so. But
other philosophers, like Jennifer McKitrick (2003), for example, have argued
against this claim. I want to leave it open, and therefore I will avoid speaking
of anything like the ‘basis’ or ‘constitution’ of a disposition—but just speak
of the disposition. No more seems necessary (here).
18. Sosa writes, “Competences are dispositions of an agent to perform well”
(2010, 465). He also speaks of “competences to perform in favored ways”
and of “perform[ing] well” (2010, 466–467). This can be read as an articu-
lation of the simple dispositionalist account. But maybe Sosa would prefer
to embrace the fifth account, described below: the refined dispositionalist
account. The issue is unclear, since Sosa states nowhere what exactly the
manifestation of the relevant dispositions is. ‘Performing well’ in the doxas-
tic case sounds like an indication of true belief. Concerning Greco, it is also
unclear what he takes to be the exact manifestation of epistemic virtues. His
general characterization of abilities leaves it open, since it is not specified
what the “result R” is referring to, in the doxastic case (Greco 2010, 77).
But it does often sound as if he has true belief in mind. If so, he counts as a
proponent of the simple dispositionalist account. What else could having a
“high rate of success in achieving R” mean (Greco 2010, 77)?
19. One might try to develop a notion of justification that does entail truth. But
this is not what Greco nor Sosa want. They accept that justification does not
entail truth, and so do I in this chapter.
20. According to Sosa, belief formation is a performance “with no more con-
scious or intentional an aim than that of a heartbeat” (Sosa 2007, 23).
21. Epistemic motivation plays an important role for responsibilist virtue epis-
temologists like Zagzebski and Fairweather. Cf., for example, Zagzebski
(1996) and Fairweather (2001). Perhaps, epistemic motivation can account
for something like blamelessness, even for the reliabilist virtue epistemolo-
gist. But blamelessness is not the same as justification or knowledge.
22. An idea of Peter Graham’s may seem to help as reparation. One might dis-
tinguish, following Graham (2012), between two kinds of functioning: func-
tioning normally and fulfilling one’s function. Functioning normally does not
require that the function be fulfilled, according to Graham. But functioning
normally still smacks of a certain kind of fulfillment, since the system is still
138 Frank Hofmann
operating the way it is supposed to operate (that is, ‘normally’). And for
present purposes functioning thus normally also counts as a fulfillment (of a
second function).
23. Cf. Thomson (1997, especially section 3).
24. In particular, I am not relying on Thomson’s distinction between first-order
ways of being good and second-order ways of being good.
25. That is the case about which Thomson speaks mostly. Perhaps she even
assumes that this is always so. Then I shall depart from her account on this
point.
26. This is a nontrivial claim, I admit. Good arguments could be given for it. But
I do not have the space to do so here. I believe, however, that Greco and Sosa
would agree at least for the sake of argument.
27. So perhaps there is room for something like social knowledge. It would have
to be explainable by the exercising of social epistemic virtues. This is work
for the future. Of course, issues of testimony become important here. I think
that Sosa’s treatment of testimony goes in this direction. Cf. Sosa (2007,
93–97).
28. Philip Pettit accepts attributions of belief-like states to groups. Cf. Pettit
(2003).
29. Sosa holds that the probability need not be very high in order to be suffi-
ciently high. He cites skills in sport to support this claim. A skillful batter in
baseball need not have more than a 15 percent chance of hitting, but this is
still good enough for him to count as adroit. Cf. Sosa (2011, 54).
30. One could also hold the alternative view that knowledge has final epistemic
value and thus that there are at least two final epistemic values: knowledge
and truth. This seems to be Greco’s view, since he maintains that “both suc-
cess from ability and human flourishing have ‘final’ value, or value as ends
in themselves, independently of any instrumental value that they might also
have” (Greco 2010, 99). Sosa seems to hold the same view, namely, that
“the value of apt belief is no less epistemically fundamental than that of true
belief” (Sosa 2007, 87 f). The important point, however, is that whether one
accepts truth monism or pluralism about final epistemic values is a further,
independent issue.
31. Greco seems to hold that we have to introduce agency into the picture. Oth-
erwise, he suggests, we cannot deal with certain problems like ‘the problem
of strange and fleeting processes.’ (Cf. Greco [2010, ch. 9].) The relevant
dispositions must be “part of character, and character is constitutive of the
agent“ (ibid, 150). I cannot discuss this claim in detail here, for lack of space.
It seems to me to be an independent claim of Greco’s. And it is problematic
since it does not seem right to say that basic perceptual abilities are ‘part of
character.’ They consist in reliable doxastic dispositions that are not under
voluntary control. It is rather doubtful to me that they involve any interesting
kind of agency. Our ability to question—on reflection—our own perceptual
beliefs (supposing for the moment that we have such an ability) does not
show that exercising the relevant perceptual ability involves an interesting
kind of agency. And, in any case, agency cannot account for the surplus
value, as I have already argued.
32. Things are not so clear exegetically. Sosa holds on to a principle, ‘premise
(C)’ (Sosa 2007, 33), which seems to amount to a certain kind of safety,
namely, safety of the exercise of the relevant virtue. If so, there is still a cer-
tain truth guarantee in his account, even though Sosa rejects ‘outright safety’
(ibid, 26). In another passage he says that the exercise of the competence
must “in appropriately normal conditions ensure (or make highly likely) the
success” of the performance, but all of this is said under the introductory
Epistemic Value and Virtues 139
term ‘perhaps’ (Sosa 2007, 29). The hedging clause in brackets makes it
sound as though not even basis-relative safety is strictly necessary. And/or it
sounds as if what is guaranteed is only high probability of truth but not truth.
33. Perhaps, the two alternatives are the usual ones that arise whenever one has
the so-called process–product ambiguity.
REFERENCES