Epistemic virtue


The epistemic virtues, as identified by virtue epistemologists, reflect their contention that belief is an ethical process, and thus susceptible to the intellectual virtue or vice of one's own life and personal experiences. Some epistemic virtues have been identified by W. Jay Wood, based on research into the medieval tradition.

Overview

Being an epistemically virtuous person is often equated with being a critical thinker and focuses on the human agent and the kind of practices that make it possible to arrive at the best accessible approximation of the truth.
Epistemic virtues include conscientiousness as well as the following:
These can be contrasted to the epistemic vices such as:
Note that in this context curiosity bears the medieval connotation of attraction to unwholesome things, in contrast to the positive studious.