Epistemic Vices in Public Debate: The Case of ‘New Atheism’

Abstract

Critics often complain that the 'new atheists' are arrogant, dogmatic, closed-minded and so on. Those terms denote 'epistemic (or intellectual) vices', or vices of the mind, so we can call those criticisms 'vice charges'. Although they are very common, it is unclear whether they are merely rhetorical or whether they are substantive criticisms. The aim of this chapter is therefore to offer a framework for articulating and assessing these charges. I offer such a framework and consider two specific vices-arrogance and dogmatism-and ask, in each case, whether new atheists are vulnerable to a charge of vice. My conclusions are that: vice-charges are far more complex than critics appreciate; that critics can, at the least, say that certain new atheists may well be vulnerable to certain charges of epistemic vice; and that much more work needs to be done before one can charge new atheists with vices in a fair and robust way. Keywords Arrogance • Dogmatism • Epistemic vice • New atheism • Virtue epistemologyThe cluster of writers known as the 'New Atheists' have been subjected to many different forms of criticism during their relatively brief history. These range from the adequacy of their historical understanding to the poverty of their conception of a religious life: for instance, of their 'profound unfamiliarity with the traditions, beliefs, and culture … richness and complexity [and] historical context' of the religious traditions that they engage with (Dickson 2010, 53). There is now a vibrant publishing industry devoted to the articulation and assessment of these various critical charges-including, of course, this volume-and the issues are also rehearsed in radio and television shows, blogs and other online fora, and elsewhere.

Virtue Theories of Argument

“…For example, the distinction between reliabilist (broadly externalist) and responsibilist (broadly internalist) conceptions of virtue has been found a ready application (Gascón 2018b). Some epistemologists have recently proposed a shift of focus from virtues to vices; vice epistemology also has a counterpart in the study of argument (Aberdein 2016a;Kidd 2017Kidd , 2020Tanesini 2018Tanesini , 2019Tanesini , 2020Tanesini , 2021. More esoteric developments in virtue epistemology have also found application in treatments of argument, including the role of exemplars (Amaya 2013;Sato 2015;Terrill 2016;Casey and Cohen 2020) and human flourishing, or eudaimonia, as a grounding for intellectual virtues (Aberdein 2020b).…”

Global Sceptical Publics

“…Atheist identity can in such cases be understood to be deployed in order to signal a set of antagonistic presuppositions about religion -as inherently fundamentalist and a threat to science -which in turn is thought to empower atheists in their disbelief Lüchau 2010). Other characteristics include scientism, epistemic dogmatism, a reduction of religion to the status of a primitive science and a general disdain for both fundamentalist and moderate religious practitioners (Asad 1993Gorski 1990;Kaden and Schmidt-Lux 2016;Kidd 2017;Lundmark and LeDrew 2018;Olson 2008;Stenmark 1997;Zenk 2014).…”

Unorganized atheism and the secular movement: reddit as a site for studying ‘lived atheism’

“…Scientism in this view is an attempt to apply the methods, theories, and concepts of the natural sciences to the study of human society and culture (Gorski, 1990; Olson, 2008). The New Atheists’ rigid attachment to scientism – that is, science as the only legitimate form of knowledge in virtually any realm of inquiry – is indicative of an ‘epistemic dogmatism’ (Kidd, 2017) that leaves them incapable of sincerely engaging with critics who advance sociological, philosophical, or theological arguments. The result is that, while claiming to be proponents of freethinking and open inquiry, the New Atheists’ ideological commitment to scientism is actually a ‘disingenuous form of closed-mindedness’ (Cotter, 2017: 45).…”