Epistemic Virtues and Epistemic Values: A Skeptical Critique1

Epistemic virtues or epistemic values, we are told, play a major role in our assessments of the bearing of evidence in science. There is something quite right about this notion; and there is something quite wrong about it. My goal in the chapter is to explain each. In brief, what is right about the notion of epistemic virtue or value is that criteria such as simplicity and explanatory power do indeed figure overtly in the evidential assessments made by scientists. Any comprehensive account of inductive inference must have a place for them. A material theory of induction accommodates them by treating them as surrogates for further background facts that ultimately do the epistemic work. What is wrong about the notion is the words used to express it. The problem is simple enough to be described here fully at the outset. The terms “virtue” and “value” have prior meanings and rich connotations. These prior meanings conflict with the idea that the criteria they label are successful epistemically, that is, that they do guide us closer to the truth. Unless we erase these prior meanings and connotations, we tacitly adopt a form of skeptical relativism about inductive inference. More specifically, when we use the terms in this context, we place the criteria on the wrong side of two distinctions, that is, on the sides that indicate that the criteria do not serve their epistemic purpose.