A Happy Triumvirate: Virtue Epistemology, Contextualism and the Safety Principle (Draft)

I'm currently at work on a paper defending a virtue responsibilist account of knowledge designed to accomodate two anti-luck concerns: (i) if S knows some contingent proposition p, then S couldn't have easily been wrong about p; (ii) S's knowing some contingent proposition p amounts to an achievement for S such that S is creditworthy for knowing p.

I call (i) and (ii) "anti-luck" concerns because, if a belief is true in some relevant way because of (veritic) luck, neither (i) nor (ii) will be met.

My proposal incorporates a safety condition to meet (i), and outlines a way to preserve (ii) by requiring that creditworthiness depend in part on whether an agent’s exhibition of intellectual virtue is an explanatorily salient feature of her forming a safe belief, a matter that will itself depend on features of context in particular cases of inquiry.

Below is a link:


http://staff.stir.ac.uk/adam.carter/documents/HAPPYTRIUMVIRATEdraft.pdf

Please note: I'm wide open for advice (as this paper is currently only a rough manuscript); I'd prefer you don't quote unless checking with me, given that its current state is far from polished.

Feel free to send comments, criticisms, rants of ad hominem vitriol, etc. to: j.a.carter@stir.ac.uk

Cheers--Adam