Metacognition and Intellectual Virtue

Virtue Theories of Argument

“…One solution to the last issue is to subordinate all other virtues to one central virtue. Multiple candidates have been proposed, including intellectual flourishing (Aberdein 2020b); intellectual humility (Aberdein 2016b(Aberdein , 2020cAgnew 2018;Scott 2014); metacognition (Lepock 2014;Maynes 2015Maynes , 2017Green 2019); phronesis (De Caro et al 2018;Ferkany 2020;Aberdein 2021b); skilful reflection Ryan 2016, 2020); thoughtfulness (Schrag 1988); the willingness to inquire (Hamby 2015); and the willingness to be rationally persuaded (Baumtrog 2016). Determining the plausibility of this approach and adjudicating the competing merits of the candidate cardinal virtues (and how much they overlap rather than compete) remain open questions.…”

Metacognition as an Epistemic Virtue

“…5 motivational tendencies and metacognitive beliefs." 6 Hence we are going further than Lepock (2014), who argues that metacognition is a component of epistemic virtue that distinguishes it from a mere reliable process. 7 Strictly speaking, Baehr's approach is to look at paradigm cases of intellectual virtue, allowing that these four features may be neither necessary nor 8 See Zagzebski (2003;2004) on how love of truth is connected to our others aims and values.…”

(Social) Metacognition and (Self-)Trust

“…I assume that epistemically acceptable belief-formation requires a high level of reliability. MEF also makes room for other epistemic desiderata, especially power and speed (drawing inspiration from Goldman 1992; Cummins et al 2004;Lepock 2007), incorporating these into a broadly virtue-reliabilist framework (Sosa 2007). The core idea is that an appropriate balance of reliability, power, and speed, where the appropriate balance is determined by the function of the relevant cognitive system together with the agent's current context, including such factors as the relative importance of forming true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs, is required for virtuous beliefformation.…”