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Philos Stud (2009) 142:4354 DOI 10.1007/s11098-008-9305-2
Reliability as a virtue
Robert Audi
Published online: 10 December 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract This paper explores what constitutes reliability in persons, particularly intellectual reliability. It considers global reliability, the overall reliability of persons, encompassing both the theoretical and practical realms; sectorial reliability, that of a person in a subject-matter (or behavioral) domain; and focal reliability, that of a particular element, such as a belief. The paper compares reliability with predictability of the kind most akin to it and distinguishes reliability as an intellectual virtue from reliability as an intellectual power. The paper also connects reliability with insight, reasoning, knowledge, and trust. It is argued that insofar as reliability is an intellectual virtue, it must meet both external standards of correctitude and internal standards of justication.
Keywords Epistemic power Character traits Intellectual virtue
Justication Knowledge Objectivity Predictability Reasons-responsiveness
Trust Virtue
The concept of reliability is both central in contemporary epistemology and important for the moral assessment of persons. In epistemology it has been treated mainly as a characteristic of belief-grounding processes, such as perception; in ethics, it has apparently not so far been systematically explored by philosophers. Given the resurgence of virtue ethics and, more recently, the appearance of virtue epistemology,1 one would expect more analysis of reliability as a trait of persons. There is some question whether, as a trait, reliability in cognitive matters should be conceived as a virtue rather than as some other kind of good characteristic. In
R. Audi (&)
Philosophy Department, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA e-mail: [email protected]
1 See Sosa (1991, 2007); Zagzebski (1996); and Greco (2000, 2004).
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exploring that question, I will develop and appraise a case for treating such reliability as an intellectual virtue. My main concern will be intellectual reliability; but I take this to be signicantly related to reliability as a global characteristic of persons, and I shall begin with general considerations applicable to the trait so conceived.
1 Reliability and its close cousins
Reliable persons, as ordinarily conceived, are people we can count on, where can has roughly the sense of may reasonably. It is convenient to call reliable personsthose reliable in an overall wayglobally reliable....