applied virtue epistemology. His other books include Deep in Thought: A Practical Guide to Teaching for Intellectual Virtues (2021), Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology (2016), and The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology (2011). He is co-founder of the Intellectual Virtues Academy of Long Beach and is presently co-directing the LMU Intellectual Character Initiative, which is sponsored by a grant from the Educating Character Initiative at Wake Forest University.
Baehr applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Inquiry and Agency: A Theory of Intellectual Virtues and Vices, and reported the following:
From page 99:Visit Jason Baehr's website.In keeping with this, when thinking about the persons we aspire to be, or the qualities we desire in ourselves, our friends, partners, or children, I take it that few of us would not regard as best or most admirable the relevant harmony between action and affection. We desire, not only to think and act well, but also to enjoy thinking and acting well. One way to put the guiding principle here might be that it is good, and good in a way that is relevant to personal worth, to enjoy and delight in that which itself is good, including the good of virtuous activity (cf. Hurka 2001: Ch. 1; Sripada 2016: 1210). This applies, not just to morally virtuous activity, but also to intellectually virtuous activity.Page 99 is a representative sample of Inquiry & Agency. The book explores the nature, structure, and evaluative status of intellectual virtues and vices. It treats intellectual virtues – such as curiosity, open-mindedness, and intellectual humility – as having four primary dimensions, one of which is an affective dimension. The key idea is that to possess an intellectual virtue in its fullness, one must be disposed to experience certain fitting affections in connection with its exercise. Virtuously open-minded people, for instance, aren’t merely willing to explore alternative perspectives; as a general rule, they enjoy doing so. This disposition says something important and favorable about who they are as persons.
Often it is a matter of luck (e.g., of how we’ve been parented or our natural temperaments) whether we are constituted so as to enjoy intellectually virtuous activity or experience other intellectually virtuous affections. Might it, then, be a mistake to think of these affections as an element or dimension of intellectual virtues?
However, this feature of intellectual virtues gives rise to some difficult questions: for instance, given that we don’t have direct voluntary control over our affections, how can they reflect favorably or negatively on who we are as persons? How can they contribute to our personal worth?
These issues are representative of the book as a whole in two ways. First, while the chapter that contains page 99 explores the affective dimension of intellectual virtues, several additional chapters offer similar treatments of the other primary dimensions of an intellectual virtue: namely, competence, motivational, and judgment dimensions. Second, a recurring theme throughout the book is whether or in what sense intellectual virtues and vices – understood as qualities that necessarily contribute positively or negatively to our personal worth – can be a matter of luck. I argue that while intellectual virtues are immune to certain forms of luck (e.g. environmental luck), they are consistent with other forms (e.g. constitutive luck).
--Marshal Zeringue
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