A Central Role for Epistemic Virtues in Evidentialism

Abstract

Evidentialism and virtue epistemology might be taken to present two competing theories of epistemic justification. However, Jason Baehr has recently argued that evidentialism gives its best account of justification when it is grounded in the epistemic virtues. Baehr is thus arguing that epistemic virtues are an important adjunct to evidentialism. I push this connection further by arguing that epistemic virtues play an essential role in a plausible account of the evidential relation. Thus, epistemic virtues are essential to the very heart of evidentialism.