Modalized Robust Virtue Epistemology Defended

Abstract

This essay addresses one of the most central and longstanding problems in epistemology: What is the nature of knowledge? According to robust virtue epistemology, which is a popular answer to this problem, knowledge is explained solely by appealing to cognitive abilities, epistemic competences, or intellectual virtues. In this essay, I defend a reliabilist and modalized version of robust virtue epistemology. More specifically, the main thesis of this essay is that Mortini's (2022) reformulation of the safety principle as "environment-relative safety", which is the best response to Kelp's (2009; 2016; 2018) safety dilemma, makes robust virtue epistemology even more plausible. In section 2, after the introduction, I will present Pritchard's defense of a modest (non-robust) virtue epistemology based on the independence thesis. In section 3, Kelp's (2009; 2016; 2018) safety dilemma, which is an objection to the necessity of safety for knowledge, is presented. However, I will argue that Mortini's (2022) reformulation of safety satisfactorily answers this objection and that it is the best answer to this dilemma thus far in the literature. Finally, in section 4, I argue that the manifestation of cognitive abilities ought to be relativized to actual features of the environment. And I will argue that the satisfaction of the ability condition relativized to those features entails the satisfaction of environment-relative safety.