This is a penultimate draft. For the final draft, please see the volume in which it has been published.

The Situationist Challenge to Educating for Intellectual VirtuesJason Baehr

Loyola Marymount University

One main branch of virtue epistemology focuses on intellectual character virtues like curiosity, open-mindedness, attentiveness, intellectual courage, and intellectual tenacity.1 Such traits appear to be importantly relevant to educational theory and practice. We expect a good education to help students learn to ask good questions (curiosity), take up alternative standpoints (open-mindedness), notice important details (attentiveness), take intellectual risks (intellectual courage), and embrace intellectual challenges (intellectual tenacity). Intellectual virtues also suggest a way of “thickening” certain worthy but nebulous educational goals like a love of learning, lifelong learning, and critical thinking. A love of learning—or a desire for “epistemic goods”—is the putative psychological basis of intellectual virtues.2 And intellectual virtues are the deep personal qualities or character traits required for lifelong learning and critical thinking.3 By enriching our understanding of what these other educational goals amount to, the concepts of intellectual character and intellectual virtue can also improve our understanding of how best to pursue these goals.

Suppose, however, that situationist critiques of moral character and virtue ethics are successful.4 Given the structural similarity between moral virtues and intellectual virtues, this critique may also spell trouble for virtue epistemology and its application to educational theory and practice.5 It may, for instance, yield a decisive objection to thinking of intellectual character growth as a plausible educational aim. Indeed, situationist critiques may be especially pointed in this context: if intellectual virtue is a rare or non-existent phenomenon, attempts to educate for growth in intellectual virtues are likely to seem quixotic at best and a scandalous waste of scarce educational resources at worst.6

1 This is “virtue responsibilism” or character-based virtue epistemology rather than “virtue reliabilism.” For more on difference, see Baehr (2011: Ch. 4). 2 See, for example, Montmarquet (1993), Zagzebski (1996), and Baehr (2011). 3 See Baehr (2013) for a development of this and related points. 4 See (Doris 2002) for a recent systematic treatment of the issue. The empirical literature he draws on is surveyed in Nisbett and Ross (1991). For one of the initial philosophical replies to this literature, see Flanagan (1991). 5 Mark Alfano (2012; 2013) has led the way in extending the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. For a recent response to Alfano, see King (2014). 6 John Doris (2002: 6; 24; 121f) makes a similar point. Indeed, some of the earliest and most influential situationist-type arguments were leveled at attempts to educate for growth in moral virtues. See especially Kohlberg (1968, 1981). For some early responses to Kohlberg, see Hamm (1977) and (Peters 1978).

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In what follows, I address this challenge head on.7 My primary focus is the situationist claim that intellectual virtue is a rare (possibly non-existent) phenomenon. I begin by identifying some situationist research that bears on this question. Prior to examining its implications, I distinguish between three “levels” of intellectual virtue: maximal, robust, and minimal. I go on argue that while the research supports thinking that maximal intellectual virtue is rare, it provides only weak support for thinking that robust intellectual virtue is rare, and it provides little to no support for the rarity of minimal intellectual virtue. I then turn briefly to consider whether, even if all three levels of intellectual virtue were rare, this would significantly undermine the enterprise of “educating for intellectual virtues” (EIV).8 I conclude by arguing that while situationist research does not seriously threaten EIV, the most promising approaches to EIV will be informed and constrained by it.

1. The Situationist ResearchIdentifying situationist findings relevant to EIV is a somewhat tricky task, for the

majority of situationist experiments have targeted moral character and virtues.9 However, my focus here will be two studies targeting activity that can reasonably be thought of as characteristic of two intellectual virtues—in particular, of intellectual flexibility and intellectual courage.10 While my immediate focus is fairly narrow, I attempt to offset this limitation by making several initial concessions and assumptions that favor a situationist perspective.

Though the results in question are drawn from two studies, it will be helpful to divide them into the following three groups:

CANDLE-I: In a study by Alice Isen, Kimberly Daubman, and Gary Nowicki (1987), participants are asked to complete the so-called Duncker candle task. Each participant is given a book of matches, a box of thumbtacks, and a candle and is asked to attach the candle to the wall in such a way that when the candle is lit, no wax drips on the floor. (The solution: take the tacks out of the box, pin the box to the wall, then place the candle upright in the box.) It does not seem implausible to think of this task as demanding a certain kind of intellectual flexibility—and indeed a kind that, if practiced and internalized in the right way, could amount to an intellectual character virtue. In the study, only 13% of participants were able to complete the task. However, when the

7 My concern is not with the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology per se, that is, qua epistemological theory. This underscores a difference between the project of this paper and replies to situationism on behalf of virtue ethics. 8 For more on what this enterprise might look like in practice, see Battaly (2006), Ritchhart (2002), and Baehr (2013). It is also worth noting that the aim of EIV, as I am thinking about it here, is not that students would become paragons of intellectual virtue (an extremely unrealistic goal), but rather that they would experience meaningful or significant growth over a reasonable period of time. See Baehr (2013) for more on this point. 9 For more on the relationship between intellectual virtues and moral virtues, see Baehr (2011: Appendix).10 These are two of the main studies addressed in Alfano (2012), which is one of very few attempts to extend the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. A version of this paper is reprinted in his (2013: Ch. 5). I limit my attention to these studies mainly because, to my mind, they are the ones that most clearly target activity characteristic of specific and identifiable intellectual virtues.

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tacks were presented to participants outside of the box, making the solution to the problem more apparent, the completion rate jumped to 83%. On the assumption that solving the former version of the task requires intellectual flexibility but solving the latter version does not, one lesson to be drawn from these findings, per situationism, is that most people lack intellectual flexibility.11

CANDLE-II: In the same study, a second group of participants is presented with the more challenging, tacks-inside-the-box version of the task, but is also given a “mood enhancer.” Specifically, each person is given some candy or shown a brief comedy immediately prior to being asked to complete the task. Surprisingly, 75% of participants went on to discover the solution, compared with 13% in the control group. The conclusion urged by situationists is that while most people may be disposed to engage in intellectually flexible activity under these conditions, doing so is not an indication of the virtue of intellectual flexibility, for we expect the genuinely virtuous to engage in virtue-relevant activity without reliance on mood enhancers or similar expedients. Put another way, the upshot is that most people are at best intellectually flexible only in a very weak or insignificant sense.

LINES: In a now famous series of experiments conducted in the 1950s, Solomon Asch sought to determine the extent to which group pressure might cause people to deny the clear evidence of their senses. In one such experiment (1963), seven confederates and a single participant are shown a series of line pairs and asked to identify the longer of the two lines. While the answer was always clear to the naked eye, Asch found that when all seven of the confederates answered incorrectly (identifying the shorter line as longer), the lone participant regularly registered agreement. Specifically, he found that while approximately one quarter of participants refused to agree with the majority, roughly a third agreed more often than not, and 50 to 80 percent of participants agreed at least once. Subsequent experiments identified various limitations on these findings.12 For instance, it was discovered that the group effect disappears when the disagreement is anything short of unanimous and when the size of a unanimously dissenting group is sufficiently small. It is also generally agreed that the participants do not actually disbelieve the evidence of their senses but rather are simply unwilling to assert what they believe. These qualifications notwithstanding, there is some plausibility to the situationist suggestion that, when participants do register agreement with the majority, they fail to demonstrate a kind of intellectual courage called for in the situation.

Before turning to discuss the implications of these findings for EIV, I want briefly to identify a few assumptions that will guide the remainder of the discussion. Each one is intended to bolster the situationist case against EIV. First, I assume that the activity 11 See e.g. Alfano (2012: 237). A slightly different conclusion would be that solving the tacks-outside-the-box version of the task requires some intellectually flexible thinking but that the participants who completed this task do not possess the virtue of intellectual flexibility because they manifested such thinking only after being primed (tacks outside the box) in a manner that would not be necessary for someone with the actual virtue of intellectual flexibility. For a response to this sort of possibility, see the discussion in section 3.2 below. 12 See (Alfano 2013:134) for a relevant discussion.

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targeted by these experiments is indeed representative or characteristic of the virtues in question, such that a failure to engage in this activity is at least prima facie relevant to the question of how widely these virtues are possessed. Second, I assume that the behavior of the subjects in these experiments is representative of how most people would act under similar conditions. Third, and most importantly, I shall assume that similar experiments could be designed for the full range of intellectual virtues and that the results would be comparable and capable of being replicated on a wide scale. Taken together, these assumptions will allow us to generalize on the research in way that will be helpful for better understanding the prospects of EIV.

2. Levels of Intellectual VirtueHow, then, might a situationist draw on this research to argue against EIV? One

possibility is as follows:

(P1) Intellectual virtues do not exist;(C) Therefore, EIV is a bad idea.

This argument is a non-starter. While some situationists have defended the non-existence of character traits (e.g. Harman 1999), (P1) is not well supported by the findings just noted. In both studies, a non-negligible number of participants engage in the targeted virtue-relevant activity (even without any motivational boost or priming). Therefore, contra (P1), the studies do not show that intellectual virtues are non-existent; rather, they provide some evidence for thinking that at least some people possess intellectual virtues.

A similar but more promising version of the argument is as follows:

(P2) Intellectual virtues are rare;(C) Therefore, EIV is a bad idea.

This argument is an improvement on the previous one. Indeed, (P2) may appear to be precisely what is supported by the relevant studies. However, as I turn now to argue, (P2) is importantly ambiguous and its plausibility varies significantly from one understanding of it to another.

Like moral virtue virtues, intellectual virtues come in degrees. A person can be more or less open-minded, fair-minded, intellectually careful, intellectually courageous, or the like. This has obvious implications for how we understand (P2). Should (P2) be read merely as the claim that “perfect” or “ideal” intellectual virtue is rare? Or should it be read as a claim about the rarity of “minimal” intellectual virtue as well? The difference is significant. For claims of the latter sort are far stronger and require far more support than claims of the former sort. Moreover, if situationists can show merely that “perfect” intellectual virtue is rare, the implications for EIV may be insignificant.

This point about levels or degrees of virtue is not given an especially prominent role in most discussions of situationism. Though I cannot stop to develop the point here, my own view is that this often makes it unnecessarily difficult to pinpoint the significance of the situationist findings.13 I contend that to get a good handle on the plausibility of situationism in ethics or epistemology, it is important to draw clear distinctions between

13 A recent and very welcome exception is (Miller 2013), especially Chapters 2 and 7.

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different levels of virtue and then to consider what the evidence suggests with respect to each level. As we will see, this is no easy task. Doing so, however, will provide a more accurate and illuminating perspective on the situationist case against EIV.

I shall distinguish between three levels of intellectual virtue in relation to the following three criteria:

1. Scope: For a given subject S and intellectual virtue V, is S disposed to engage in V-relevant activity across a wide range of V-relevant contexts?14

2. Frequency: Within a given V-relevant context, how frequently or consistently does S engage in V-relevant activity?

3. Motivation: To what extent is S’s V-relevant activity epistemically motivated? That is, to what extent is it motivated by distinctively epistemic goods like truth, knowledge, or understanding?

Each of these factors bears importantly on whether or the extent to which a person possesses an intellectual virtue.15 If a person regularly engages in open-minded intellectual activity, say, but does so only in an extremely narrow range of contexts, then she presumably is not a very open-minded person. Similarly, if this person demonstrates intellectual autonomy across several different situations, but does so only very rarely, thereby frequently missing opportunities to manifest this trait, then she presumably lacks the virtue of intellectual autonomy.

While the notions of scope and frequency are straightforward, the concept of motivation merits closer attention. On several accounts of intellectual virtue, a person’s intellectual activity instantiates an intellectual virtue only if it is motivated by something like a desire for epistemic goods. Many virtue epistemologists (e.g. Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996; Baehr 2011) hold further that the desire in question must be intrinsic, that is, that an intellectually virtuous person necessarily is motivated by epistemic goods as such. It does not follow, however, that the activity of an intellectually virtuous person must be strictly or exclusively motivated by epistemic goods. While a plausible qualification, this raises the further question of just how strong or efficacious the motivation in question must be. While I cannot explore this question in any detail here, I offer the following elaboration:

14 Throughout the paper I use the term “virtue-relevant activity” to refer to activity that is characteristic or expressive of a virtue; and I use the term “virtue-relevant context” to refer to contexts in which virtue-relevant actions are called for. 15 These criteria, or closely related ones, are a familiar part of the situationist dialectic. For instance, my scope condition is extremely similar (perhaps identical to) what Doris describes as “consistency” (2002: 22) and what Sreenisvasan describes as “cross-situational stability” (2002: 49); and my frequency condition is similarly related to what Doris calls “stability” (ibid.) and Sreenivasan calls “temporal stability” (ibid.).

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(EM) S’s virtue-relevant activity is “epistemically motivated” in the relevant sense just in case it is (a) motivated by an epistemic good as such and this motivation is (b) strong enough to cause the activity.16

We are now in a position to distinguish between three levels of intellectual virtue:

S is maximally intellectual virtuous in respect of a particular intellectual virtue V only if: (a) S engages in V-relevant activity across all V-relevant contexts; (b) within all V-relevant contexts, S always engages in V-relevant activity when doing so is called for; and (c) within all V-relevant contexts, S’s V-relevant activity is always epistemically motivated.17

S is robustly intellectually virtuous in respect of a particular intellectual virtue V only if: (a) S engages in V-relevant activity across a wide range of V-relevant contexts; (b) within a wide range of V-relevant contexts, S often engages in V-relevant activity when doing so is called for; and (c) within in a wide range of V-relevant contexts, S’s V-relevant activity often is epistemically motivated.18

S is minimally virtuous in respect of a particular intellectual virtue V only if: (a) S engages in V-relevant activity across some V-relevant contexts; (b) within some V-relevant contexts, S sometimes engages in V-relevant activity when doing so is called for; and (c) within some V-relevant contexts, S’s V-relevant activity sometimes is epistemically motivated.

The characterization of robust virtue includes terms like “wide” and “often.” While not very precise, what these terms are intended to pick out should be clear enough.19 The same cannot be said, however, about the terms “some” and “sometimes” employed in the characterization of minimal virtue. These terms are even less precise and do warrant further clarification.

The concept of minimal virtue is intended to get at a certain threshold, that is, at whatever conditions must be satisfied in order for a person to possess a minimal degree of

16 This causal requirement may be too demanding. If so, then one central condition for intellectual virtue is less difficult to satisfy than I have suggested, which in turn makes the central claim of this paper easier to defend. A weaker but less straightforward requirement would be that the motivation must figure centrally in the explanation of the activity in question. For relevant discussions, see Miller (2013: 54) and Adams (2006: 137).17 As indicated by “only if,” these conditions are intended to be necessary; I wish to leave it an open question whether they are sufficient. More on this below. 18 I am using the term “robust virtue” in a way that resembles but is not identical to Doris’s usage of this term in (2002). Robust virtue as Doris conceives of it apparently lies somewhere between robust virtue and maximal virtue as I am thinking of these states. 19 These distinctions are not aimed at a precise identification of determinate and pretheoretically familiar states of character. The aim is rather to identify certain (possibly somewhat arbitrary) points along a continuum from minimal to maximal virtue. For this reason, further clarity about “many” and “often” is unnecessary.

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intellectual virtue.20 Intellectual virtues are personal traits—they reveal something positive or admirable about their possessor qua person.21 Accordingly, we can understand “some” and “sometimes” in relation to the minimal requirements for the kind of personal bearing or significance in question. Specifically, we may stipulate that S “sometimes” engages in V-relevant activity or does so in “some” V-relevant situations only if, on account of such activity, S can be characterized by V qua person.22 To illustrate, suppose a person engages in intellectually thorough activity only very occasionally and only across one or two relevant contexts. While there need not be a problem with describing this person’s activity as intellectually thorough, it will not make sense to describe the person herself in these terms. That is, it will not make sense to think of her as an intellectually thorough person in any interesting sense.

3. The Situationist ArgumentHaving distinguished between maximal intellectual virtue, robust intellectual virtue,

and minimal intellectual virtue, we are now in a position to return to the following argument:

(P2) Intellectual virtues are rare;(C) Therefore, EIV is a bad idea.

It should now be clear that (P2) might be read as a claim about maximal, robust, or minimal intellectual virtue. Thus any of the following three premises could be used to mount an argument against EIV:

(P3) Maximal intellectual virtue is rare.

(P4) Robust intellectual virtue is rare.

(P5) Minimal intellectual virtue is rare.

I turn now to evaluate each of these premises in light of the empirical findings and corresponding assumptions identified above. I shall refer to this total body of evidence as (E). Once this examination is complete, I will then turn to consider the validity of the corresponding arguments.

Does (E) at least provide adequate support for (P3), that is, for the claim that maximal intellectual virtue (MaxV) is rare? It does if it provides adequate support for thinking that most people fail to engage in the relevant intellectual activity across one or more virtue-relevant contexts. One might wonder, however, whether the contexts in question really are virtue-relevant. Is the fact that someone fails to engage in intellectually flexible or courageous activity in a rather artificial and low-stakes experimental context necessarily even a weak indication that the person lacks these traits? While I think the

20 For more on the idea of virtue as a threshold concept, see Swanton (2003: 24-25) and Miller (2013: 13-16). 21 For a development of this point, see Baehr (2011: Chs. 6-7) and Adams (2006: Ch. 2). 22 This is not intended as a definition of “some” or “sometimes,” but rather as a criterion for determining when the relevant conditions have been satisfied.

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matter is debatable, I will assume that the contexts in question are virtue-relevant and thus that (E) does support (P3). A far more difficult question concerns the implications of (E) for (P4) and (P5), that is, for the rarity of robust intellectual virtue (RobV) and minimal intellectual virtue (MinV). I turn now to address this question. 3.1. Scope and Frequency Conditions for RobV and MinV

First let us explore what (E) suggests about the satisfaction of the scope and frequency conditions for Rob V and MinV. More specifically, the question is whether (E) supports thinking that most people fall short of frequently (RobV) or sometimes (MinV) engaging in intellectually flexible or intellectually courageous activity across a wide (RobV) or at least some (MinV) range of virtue-relevant contexts.

CANDLE-I and LINES show that in certain relevant contexts, most people fail to engage in certain forms of intellectually flexible or courageous activity. However, this is consistent with either of the following two possibilities:

(i) Even in the contexts in question, most people do or would engage in other forms of intellectually flexible or intellectually courageous activity.

(ii) In other relevant contexts, most people do or would engage in the targeted or other forms of intellectually flexible or intellectually courageous activity.

These possibilities point in the direction of two more:

(iii) Most people frequently engage in intellectually flexible or courageous activity of one form or another across a wide range of relevant contexts.

(iv) Most people sometimes (with a “personally significant” frequency) engage in intellectually flexible or courageous activity of one form or another across some (“personally significant” range of) relevant contexts.

If (iii) were true, it would follow, contra (P4), that most people satisfy the scope and frequency conditions for RobV. And if (iv) were correct, it would follow, contra (P5), that most people satisfy the scope and frequency conditions for MinV. Thus (E) is at least consistent with the possibility that MinV and even RobV are widespread. This is something that the situationist can readily agree with. Her retort will be that while (E) may be consistent with (iii) and (iv), these claims nevertheless are unlikely or improbable given (E). But this is precisely the claim on which the situationist must make good. To defend (P4) and (P5), she must show that (iii) and (iv) really are improbable given (E).23

Let us come at this question by first considering what (E) suggests about (i) and (ii). Does (E) provide evidence against (i), which again is the claim that in the experimental

23 Yet another way to put the point is that the situationist must show that the best or most plausible explanation of (E) is the thesis that RobV and MinV are rare. As all of these formulations suggest, the burden of proof is on the situationist: she must show that the evidence favors a situationist perspective over and against other (more intuitively or experientially plausible) perspectives, including, for instance, that MinV is not nearly as rare as situationists suggest. Put another way, my aim is to show that the situationist perspective is not more plausible or a better explanation than one or more other, non-situationist perspectives.

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contexts in question, most people engage in other, non-targeted forms of intellectually flexible or intellectually courageous activity? On the contrary, (E) provides some support for (i). Recall, for instance, that most of the subjects in LINES assert their belief in the face of unanimous opposition when the opposition is comprised of a sufficiently small number of people and in the face of majority opposition that is anything less than unanimous. Why think that intellectual courage is required for voicing dissent when faced with unanimous opposition of a certain size but not when that opposition is of a slightly smaller size or when it is of the same size but just shy of unanimous? To be sure, the former scenario is likely to require more intellectual courage or intellectual courage of a more challenging or impressive variety. However, it hardly follows that voicing opposition in the latter scenarios manifests no intellectual courage at all.24 Because most subjects in LINES register dissent in the face of unanimous opposition of a certain (non-negligible) size and in the face of any majority opposition that is less than unanimous, LINES provides some evidence for thinking that even in the contexts at issue, most people do or would engage in some form of intellectually courageous activity.

A similar point can be made in connection with CANDLE-I. Recall that most of the participants successfully completed the candle task when the tacks were presented outside of the box. It is at least an open question whether in doing so they might have manifested some intellectual flexibility. While we might expect a maximally intellectually flexible person to be able to complete the more challenging version of the task, why deny that a lesser degree or variety of intellectual flexibility might be manifested in the completion of the less challenging version? Thus CANDLE-I may also provide some evidence for thinking that even in the present context, most people do or would engage in some form of virtue-relevant activity.

Indeed, it may even be hasty to conclude that the subjects in CANDLE-I and LINES who fail to engage in the targeted activity also fail to manifest any intellectual flexibility. Surely the majority of participants who failed to complete the candle task when they were presented with the tacks inside the box did not sit idle and thoughtless for the duration of the experiment. Rather, we may assume that many of them thought hard about a possible solution. And it is not implausible to think that at least some of this mental activity might have manifested intellectual flexibility—even if not enough or of the right sort to arrive at the solution.25 In other words, it may be that a number of the subjects in CANDLE-I engage in intellectually flexible cognitive activity in their (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to complete the task. Similarly, it is reported that many of the subjects in LINES who (verbally) deny the evidence of their senses nevertheless express considerable discomfort or regret at having done so. Such discomfort might also be a form or be evidence of low-level virtue-relevant activity.26

24 Sabini and Silver (2005: 554-55) and Adams (2006: 129, Ch. 9) make a similar point. As Alfano (2012: 240, 244, 247) points out, we also expect virtuous acts to be admirable; and it might be wondered whether the activity in question satisfies this requirement. But here as well my reply is that while the activity is not maximally admirable (or virtuous), it is minimally so. Alfano seems to arrive at a similar assessment (240, 247).25 Nathan King (2014) makes a similar point. 26 For a similar point, see Webber (2006: 204), Kamtekar (2004: 473), Sabini and Silver (2005: 554-55), and Swanton (2003: 30-31).

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We have seen that (E), rather than providing evidence against (i), may in fact support this claim. How, then, does (E) bear on (ii), that is, on the claim that in other (potentially quite different) virtue-relevant contexts, most people do or would engage in the targeted or other forms of intellectually flexible or intellectually courageous activity? Does (E) provide good evidence against this claim? I offer three reasons for thinking that it does not.

First, we have just seen that many of the participants in both CANDLE-I and LINES appear to engage in low-level virtue-relevant activity of one sort or another. To the extent that they do, and to the extent that we can expect them to act similarly in similar contexts, (E) may in fact provide some support for (ii).

Second, certain aspects of the contexts at issue underscore a problem with trying to generalize on the behavior that occurs in these contexts.27 It is not difficult to believe, for instance, that at least some of the subjects in CANDLE-I might have experienced a kind of awkwardness or unusual pressure in the request to complete the candle task, coming as it did from a psychological experimenter in a highly controlled environment. Nor is it difficult to believe that such awkwardness or pressure might have played a role in their failure to complete the task.28 Suppose, for instance, that the same subjects were asked to complete a comparable task in a more familiar or natural environment, for example, while reading the Sunday paper at home, trying to solve a logistical problem at work, or taking an exam at school. To my mind, it is far from obvious that we should expect the same type or level of intellectual flexibility in these other contexts that was manifested in the experimental context.29 A related point applies to LINES. In this experiment, no significant epistemic good is hanging in the balance. In (verbally) denying the evidence of their senses, the subjects are not, for instance, failing to voice some conviction that is important to them or forfeiting access to some important item of knowledge. It is at least an open question whether, had the epistemic stakes been higher, many of the subjects would have exhibited greater intellectual courage.30 This is significant given that, paradigmatically, an intellectually courageous person is one who is willing to face certain fears or harms for the sake of

27 Doris (2002: 35-36) acknowledges a problem for situationism along these lines but responds by noting that the burden is on the critic of situationism to identify reasons for thinking that people’s behavior might differ or be less susceptible to situational influences in other, non-experimental contexts. This is a reasonable challenge and one that I attempt to meet below. 28 For the development of a closely related point, see Sabini and Silver (2005: 550-53).29 For a similar point, see Webber (2006: 197). Moreover, were they disposed to act differently in these other contexts, there would not appear to be any problem with attributing to them at least a certain level of intellectual flexibility. 30 For analogous points, see Merritt (2000: 372-75), Kamtekar (2004: 470-76), Sreenivasan (2002: 58), Snow (2010: Ch. 4 and 5); and Mischel and Shoda (1995). Alfano (2012: 244) raises an opposite question about the stakes involved in the case: he points out that if the threat to the participants had been more significant (greater than suffering embarrassment for speaking up in the face of unanimous dissent), then their behavior would likely have been even less impressive. My concern is not with the threat faced by the participants but rather with what they had to gain by subjecting themselves to the threat. I agree that had the threat been greater, their actions would likely have been even less intellectually courageous. However, I think that even with the threat being what it was, the disagreement they did proceed to register was at least minimally admirable or virtuous.

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significant epistemic goods. In these respects as well (E) fails to tell significantly against (ii).

Third, it is extremely important in this context to note that a single intellectual virtue can be manifested in a very wide and diverse range of cognitive operations or activities. Consider, for example, the virtue of open-mindedness. Open-mindedness can be manifested in attempts to understand a difficult or foreign subject matter, the handling of counterevidence, the assessment of an opponent’s point of view, the imagining of an original idea or explanation, or a decision about whether to bring an inquiry to a close (“keeping an open mind”). What exactly open-mindedness demands of a person is likely to vary considerably from one of these activities to the next.31 This underscores the importance of not equating one possible and rather fine-grained manifestation of a virtue with anything like the full range of its characteristic manifestations. The ability to complete the Duncker candle task is hardly equivalent to the ability to think or reason in an intellectually flexible manner. Similarly, then, we must not move too quickly from a person’s failure to engage in a particular fine-grained virtue-relevant activity to the conclusion that she is unlikely, in the present context or in other virtue-relevant contexts, to engage in any other fine- or coarse-grained activities characteristic of the same virtue. This further underscores the evidential gap between (E) and (ii).

I turn now to consider how (E) might bear on (iii) and (iv), which again are as follows:

(iii) Most people frequently engage in intellectually flexible or intellectually courageous activity of one form or another across a wide range of virtue-relevant contexts.

(iv) Most people sometimes (with a “personally relevant” frequency) engage in intellectually flexible or courageous activity of one form or another across some (“personally relevant” range of) relevant contexts.

Let us begin by considering (iii). Does (E) support the denial of (iii)? Alternatively, does it indicate that most people fail to frequently engage in intellectually flexible or courageous activity of one form or another across a wide range of relevant contexts? This is rather difficult to assess. On the one hand, the fact that the majority of participants fail to engage in certain forms of intellectually flexible or courageous activity in the present contexts provides some prima facie evidence for thinking that they will fail to engage in the same or very similar forms of activity in other relevant contexts. On the other hand, we saw above that certain features of the present contexts may complicate attempts to extrapolate from what occurs here to what occurs or is likely to occur in other (more familiar or high-stakes) contexts. Moreover, when one considers the sum total of the participants’ actions (including those that appear to be indicative of lower levels of intellectual virtue), and the diversity of activities in which intellectual flexibility or intellectual courage might manifest, the bearing of (E) on (iii) becomes even less clear. I will not attempt to settle this matter here. Rather, I will conclude, fairly I hope, that (E) provides some evidence against (iii) but that this evidence is relatively weak.

31 For more on this point, see Baehr (2011: Ch. 9).

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Getting a handle on the relationship between (E) and (iv) is less challenging, for (iv) is a considerably weaker claim than (iii). Again, CANDLE-I and LINES show that in certain relevant contexts, most people fail to engage in certain forms of intellectually flexible or courageous activity. But this leaves wide open the possibility that in some (“personally significant” range of) other relevant contexts, most people sometimes (with a “personally significant” frequency) engage in other forms of intellectually flexible or courageous activity. This possibility is especially salient given the other factors just noted: again, the low-level virtue-relevant activity engaged in by the participants in the experimental contexts, the artificiality and low-stakes character of these contexts, and the array of forms that intellectually flexible or courageous activity might take. We may conclude, then, that (E) fails to provide significant evidence against (iv).

We began by noting that to defend (P4) and (P5) the situationist must make good on the claim that (iii) and (iv) are improbable in light of (E). By first considering how (E) bears on (i) and (ii), we have been led to the conclusion that (E) provides some (albeit) weak evidence against (iii) but that it provides little or no evidence (iv). In these respects, (E) provides only weak support for (P4) and little or no support for (P5). 3.2. Motivational Conditions for Max V, RobV, and MinV

Thus far our concern has been limited to the satisfaction of the scope and frequency conditions for MaxV, RobV, and MinV. I turn now to consider what (E) suggests about how often most people’s virtue-relevant activity satisfies the motivational conditions for these states. How frequently (always, often, or sometimes) is this activity epistemically motivated in the manner specified by (EM)?

It is not immediately clear how, if at all, the studies at issue are supposed to bear on this question. To the extent that the participants in CANDLE-I and LINES fail to engage in the targeted virtue-relevant activity, the question of whether their virtue-relevant activity was epistemically motivated is moot. Similarly, to the extent that they engage in or manifest what we have identified as low-level virtue-relevant activity, it seems difficult to say much one way or the other about what the motivational basis of this activity might have been. While CANDLE-I and LINES do not bear significantly on our question, CANDLE-II does. Recall that most participants in the group who received candy or were shown a brief comedy went on to complete the tacks-inside-the-box version of the candle task, while most participants in the group that was not given a mood enhancer failed to complete the task. At first glance, this appears to say something significant about the motivation of the subjects in the first group. Provided that there were no relevant differences between them and the subjects in the second group, it suggests that their motivation had more to do with the candy or comedy than it did with any epistemic end or goal. More specifically, it appears to tell in favor of the following two claims:

(v) The enhancers are the reason the majority of subjects in the first group performed the intellectually flexible activity in question.

(vi) And therefore this activity was not epistemically motivated in the sense specified by (EM).

However, both of these claims are problematic.

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Contra (v), the fact that most of the people in question engaged in intellectually flexible activity only when given mood enhancers does not show that the enhancers were the reason or cause of this activity. Rather, as the very notion of an “enhancer” suggests, a more plausible interpretation is that the enhancers served to stimulate or boost—to the point of causal efficacy—an existing motivational structure or mechanism. We shall return to this point below.

On one way of understanding (vi), the claim is that the enhancers introduced a new, non-epistemic motive and that this motive was the cause of the relevant activity. However, the enhancer did not introduce a new motive, at least in the sense of introducing a new end or goal. By all appearances, the goal of the participants was still to complete the task at hand. Together with the point in the previous paragraph, this underscores the possibility that the participants’ intellectually flexible activity was in fact epistemically motivated in the sense specified by (EM).

While this point tells against (vi), it exposes a problem with (EM). For, as the situationist will be quick to point out, we expect even minimally virtuous persons to be capable of engaging in virtue-relevant activity without the assistance of mood enhancers or similar expedients. We must, then, amend the foregoing account of epistemic motivation. One way of doing so is as follows:

(EM*) S’s V-relevant activity is “epistemically motivated” in the relevant sense just in case it is (a) motivated by an epistemic good as such and this motivation is (b) strong enough to cause the activity and (c) does not depend on any enhancers or similar expedients.

But (EM*) is too strong, for contrary to what is suggested by much of the situationist literature, reliance on mood enhancers and the like is not necessarily inconsistent with virtue-possession. Suppose, for instance, that a person is disposed to engage in a certain type of virtue-relevant activity but only when she has taken her allergy medication, an antidepressant, or some related substance. Or imagine that she can be relied upon to manifest the relevant ability but only under conditions of relative quiet or only when she has had her daily jolt of caffeine. The efficacy of this person’s virtue-relevant disposition is contingent on the presence of certain situational facilitators.32 Yet it is not all clear that her disposition fails to count as a virtue. This suggests that certain kinds of situational dependence or contingency are consistent with virtue possession while others are not.33 I cannot pause here to try to get at the difference. For our purposes, it is enough to make a distinction between “problematic” and “unproblematic” dependence on facilitators. This in turn motivates the following amended version of (EM*):

(EM**) S’s V-relevant activity is “epistemically motivated” in the relevant sense just in case it is (a) motivated by an epistemic good as such and this motivation is (b)

32 It does not follow from this that an epistemic motive is not the cause of the activity. For, again, the idea is that the expedients, rather than introducing a new motive, serve to bolster or enhance an existing epistemic motive. For more on the claim that virtues can be “fragile” in this sense, see Adams (2006: Ch. 9). 33 For a similar point, see Sabini and Silver (2005: 504).

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strong enough to cause the activity and (c) does not exhibit problematic dependence on any enhancers or similar situational expedients.

We are now in a better position to consider what CANDLE-II suggests about the satisfaction of the motivational condition for MaxV. Given the plausible assumption that reliance on candy and comedies is problematic in the sense just noted, we may conclude that CANDLE-II supports the claim that the intellectually flexible activity of most people fails to satisfy the motivational condition for MaxV, which again stipulates that one’s virtue-relevant activity must always be epistemically motivated in the relevant sense.

Next we need to consider what CANDLE-II might suggest about the satisfaction of the motivational conditions for RobV and MinV. The motivational condition for RobV says that, within a wide range of virtue-relevant contexts, one’s virtue-relevant activity must often be epistemically motivated, while the motivational condition for MinV stipulates that, within some (“personally significant” range of) virtue-relevant contexts, one’s virtue-relevant activity must sometimes (with a “personally significant” frequency) be epistemically motivated. Here again our question is whether or the extent to which CANDLE-II makes it plausible to think most people fail to satisfy these conditions. To answer this question, it will be helpful to consider the extent to which CANDLE-II provides support for the following two claims:

(vii) Most people’s intellectually flexible activity is often epistemically motivated in the relevant sense only in a narrow range of relevant contexts.

(viii) Most people’s intellectually flexible activity is sometimes (with a “personally significant” frequency) epistemically motivated in the relevant sense only in a very narrow (less than “personally significant”) range of relevant contexts.

CANDLE-II supports the claim that most people fail to satisfy the motivational condition for RobV only if it supports (vii) and it supports the claim that most people fail to satisfy the motivational condition for MinV only if it supports (viii).

Does CANDLE-II support (vii)? CANDLE-II shows that most people’s performance of certain intellectually flexible actions within a certain relevant context is problematically dependent on a certain sort of situational facilitator and thus is not epistemically motivated in the relevant sense. While this might make us wonder whether most people’s performance of other intellectually flexible actions or of similar intellectually flexible actions in other contexts would also fail to satisfy the requirements specified in (EM**), there are at least two sorts of reasons for thinking that CANDLE-II does not provide significant support for (vii).34

The first sort concerns the narrowness of the activity targeted in CANDLE-II. As noted above, intellectual flexibility should not be equated with the ability to solve the Duncker candle task. Rather, the virtue of intellectual flexibility can be manifested in an 34 The question is not, of course, whether it is reasonable to think that most people’s intellectually flexible activity in other relevant contexts is similarly dependent on their receiving candy or watching a comedy. Rather, the question is whether, given CANDLE-II, it is reasonable think that most people’s intellectually flexible activity is problematically dependent on some kind of situational facilitator or other, be it a favorable mood, artificial priming, or some other factor.

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array of finer and coarser-grained cognitive activities. This opens up the possibility that while most people’s performance of the specific activity targeted in CANDLE-II falls short (on account of its dependence on mood enhancers) of being epistemically motivated, there exist other forms of intellectually flexible activity most people’s performance of which is or would be epistemically motivated. We have seen, for instance, that some forms of intellectually flexible activity are more demanding than others. Therefore, there may be forms of intellectually flexible activity most people’s performance of which is or would be less dependent on situational facilitators and therefore is or would be epistemically motivated in the relevant sense. Alternatively, there may be forms of intellectually flexible activity that are significantly different from (albeit no less demanding than) the kind of thinking required by the candle task, such that most people’s performance of this activity also is or would be epistemically motivated. These possibilities underscore the problem with trying to extend the account of epistemic motivation applicable in CANDLE-II to other forms of intellectually flexible activity performed in the present or other relevant contexts.

The second sort of reason concerns the context of CANDLE-II. Several features of this context also pose an obstacle to generalizing very broadly on the results in question. One is the fact, noted above, that there is no significant epistemic good (actual or perceived) at stake in this context. To the extent that a person’s completion of the candle is susceptible of epistemic motivation at all, the epistemic good at issue must be something like the solving of a puzzle. This is not an especially inspiring epistemic end. Thus, if we are interested in measuring the extent to which people’s intellectually flexible activity is epistemically motivated in the sense relevant to possessing an intellectual virtue, we would be much better off examining this activity in contexts in which there is a significant epistemic good at stake or in which the persons in question are genuinely curious or motivated by a desire for truth.35 A second and related reason concerns the awkwardness or artificiality of the target context. Again, these features might have a relatively unique hampering effect on people’s epistemic motivation—an effect that would be absent from more natural or normal epistemic contexts.36 This points to a third possibility, namely, that the enhancers do not actually supply a motivational boost that otherwise would be absent, but rather serve to cut through or mitigate the awkwardness or artificiality just noted. Watching the comedy might, for instance, cause subjects to loosen up or feel more comfortable, thereby allowing their normal or standing epistemic motivation to take effect

35 The latter point is similar to claims others (e.g. Flanagan 1991; Merritt 2000; Kamtekar 2004; Russell 2009; Snow 2010; Cokelet 2014) have made in defense of virtue ethics vis-à-vis situationist objections: e.g. that when it comes to determining to what extent (if any) people possess moral virtues, we ought look primarily at how they behave in the context of their deeply held commitments or intimate relationships (not in relation to strangers) or in contexts they deem or construe as morally important. Indeed, even Nisbett and Ross (1991) emphasize the importance of subjective construal in this regard. Similarly, then, it may be that to determine the extent to which people possess intellectual virtues, we ought to examine their intellectual activity with respect to questions or subjects they have an intrinsic interest in, construe as worth knowing, and so on. 36 As noted earlier, I am assuming that while susceptibility to such effects might not be consistent with the highest degrees of virtue, it is consistent with lower degrees, particularly if the person’s virtue-relevant activity is regularly epistemically motivated in more normal or natural contexts.

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—an effect it would automatically have in wide range of other, less artificial but still virtue-relevant contexts.37

Taken together, the foregoing considerations suggest that CANDLE-II does not provide much support for (vii). That is, it does not provide much support for the claim that most people’s intellectually flexible activity is often epistemically motivated in the relevant sense only in a narrow range of relevant contexts. Ipso facto, neither does it support the claim that most people’s intellectually flexible activity fails to satisfy the motivational condition for RobV. I am not claiming, of course, that most people’s intellectually flexible activity does satisfy this condition. Rather, my claim is merely that neither CANDLE-II nor any other element of (E) provides a good reason to think otherwise. Given the earlier discussion of (E) and its bearing on the satisfaction of the scope and frequency conditions for RobV, we may conclude that on the whole (E) provides only modest support for (P4) and thus also for the argument against EIV based on this premise.

Given the conclusion just reached about the (very limited) bearing of CANDLE-II on (vii), it should be no surprise that this bearing is even weaker in connection with (viii), which again is the claim that most people’s intellectually flexible activity is sometimes (with a “personally significant” frequency) epistemically motivated in the relevant sense only in a very narrow (less than “personally significant”) range of relevant contexts. That is to say, the obstacles just identified to generalizing on CANDLE-II in the attempt to support (vii) apply with even greater force to any attempt to defend (viii) on the basis of CANDLE-II. We may conclude that CANDLE-II also fails to support (viii). When combined with the earlier discussion of (E) and its significance regarding the satisfaction of the scope and frequency conditions for MinV, this warrants the further conclusion that (E) as a whole provides little if any support for (P5) and thus also for the argument against EIV based on this premise. 3.3 Taking Stock

The cognitive character manifested by participants in CANDLE-I, CANDLE-II, and LINES exhibits clear weaknesses and limitations. We have found that these limitations are good evidence for the claim that MaxV is a rare phenomenon. However their bearing on the possession of RobV and MinV is considerably less significant. Specifically, they provide only weak support for thinking that RobV is rare; and they provide little to no support for thinking that MinV is rare. Indeed, we have found that the research is consistent with—and in certain respects may even favor—the claim that MinV (and to a lesser extent RobV) is relatively widespread.

Before returning to the question of how these findings bear on EIV, I want briefly to acknowledge three limitations of the discussion up to this point. First, as noted early on, my focus has been limited to two main sets of experimental findings. While I have made several concessions to the situationist in an effort to compensate for this limitation, the point remains that if there are or come to be other empirical findings that clearly bear on the possession of specific intellectual (vs. moral) virtues, some revision of the foregoing arguments or conclusions may be in order. Second, the plausibility of the situationist account of intellectual virtue depends in part on the availability and plausibility of alternative accounts or explanations of the relevant data. I have gestured at an alternative explanation here: namely, that at least MinV is a fairly widespread phenomenon. However,

37 In this case, we might have to take back the concession that CANDLE-II shows that most people’s intellectually flexible activity fails to satisfy the motivational condition for MaxV.

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I have done little to fill out the details of this account or to consider all of its merits.38 To this extent the present examination and critique of situationism remains incomplete. Third, while the conditions specified for the three levels of intellectual virtue are necessary, I have left it an open question whether they are sufficient. This underscores the possibility that there exist other necessary conditions for, say, MinV, which in turn opens up the possibility that while (E) does not support thinking that most people fail to satisfy the conditions for MinV identified above, it does support thinking that they fail to satisfy one or more of these additional conditions. These are further possibilities that a more exhaustive treatment of the issues would need to take into consideration.

4. Is the Situationist Argument Valid? Earlier in the paper we noted three possible variations on a situationist argument

against EIV the central premises of which were, respectively, (P3), (P4), and (P5). Again, we have found that (E) provides strong support for (P3), modest support for (P4), and little or no support for (P5). In the present section I turn to consider the validity of these arguments. I contend that even if their central premises were true, EIV would remain a viable enterprise. As this suggests, while the situationist case against EIV already looks relatively weak, its prospects are even poorer than what has been suggested by the discussion up to this point.

(P3) is the claim that MaxV is rare. This claim is well supported by (E) and by ordinary experience. Does the truth of (P3) somehow threaten the viability of EIV? As indicated earlier in the paper, the goal of EIV is not intellectual perfection. Rather, EIV is aimed at fostering meaningful or significant growth in intellectual virtues. But surely such growth might be possible even if MaxV is and remains a rare phenomenon. It leaves entirely open the possibility that, for instance, either MinV or RobV can be fostered on a wide scale. Were educators capable, over a reasonable period of time, of fostering character growth of this sort, this would be a significant achievement indeed. Thus (P3) by itself does little to threaten EIV.

What if (P4) or (P5) were also true? What might follow from the rarity of RobV or MinV? At first glance, this could seem like a more serious problem for EIV. For it could seem, first, as if EIV would likely benefit only a small minority of students; and, second, that EIV would thereby constitute a highly questionable expenditure of time and other scarce educational resources. In the remainder of this section, I explain why neither of these impressions is correct.

The rarity of MinV or RobV might in fact be viewed as a reason in support of EIV.39 Few would deny that a higher incidence of MinV or RobV would be a desirable state of affairs. Indeed, given that the quality (even moral quality) of our actions depends in part on the quality of the beliefs that guide these actions (Montmarquet 1993), this could have major benefits from an epistemic, moral, and civic point of view. Thus the rarity of RobV or MinV could be viewed as underscoring an urgent need for intellectual character education. At a minimum, any existing lack of intellectual virtue should not by itself be regarded as a problem for EIV. For, EIV is not something that has been widely attempted and found

38 I do some of this work in “Is Intellectual Character Growth a Realistic Educational Goal?” (typescript). 39 See Sosa (2009: 286) and King (2014: 251) for similar points.

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wanting. On the contrary, understood as systematic and explicit undertaking, attempts to educate for growth in intellectual virtues are in their infancy.40

Suppose, however, that we were eventually to learn that even our best efforts at EIV warrant pessimism about fostering RobV or MinV for anything but a minority of students. Would this tell significantly against EIV? Here as well it can seem that it would, for it is tempting to think that by adopting an educational approach that benefits only a minority of students, the majority of students would suffer. There are, however, several good reasons for doubting that this would be the case.

First, part of why it may be tempting to think that a majority of students would be worse off in such a scenario is the assumption that EIV is an alternative to educating for more traditional educational aims like the transmission of knowledge or the fostering of various intellectual skills. Thus if the focus were on intellectual character growth, and only a minority of students could be expected to experience significant levels of such growth, it could seem that the knowledge and skills of the majority of students would suffer. However, as I have argued elsewhere (Baehr 2013), EIV is not an alternative to educating for knowledge and intellectual skills. It is rather a way of doing so—a way that is aimed at producing deep understanding of important content, that promotes wondering and asking questions, encourages intellectual risk-taking, includes structured opportunities to practice intellectual virtues, and so on. Accordingly, the cost of EIV, vis-à-vis more traditional educational aims, is apparently minimal.41

Second, even if EIV were found to promote significant intellectual character growth for only a minority of students, the majority of students might still reap certain characterological benefits. It is a familiar complaint about many current educational systems and practices that they serve to diminish students’ curiosity, imagination, intellectual autonomy, and related traits (Kohn 1993; Stipek and Seal 2001). In doing so, they apparently weaken or damage students’ intellectual character. Therefore, even if educators were unable to bring about positive intellectual character growth in a majority of their students, they might still be able to limit a kind of characterological fallout or atrophy that otherwise would occur. Taken together with the previous point about the low cost of EIV vis-à-vis goals like the transmission of knowledge and the cultivation of intellectual skills, this actually tells in favor of EIV.

Third, the (questionable) assumption that significant growth in RobV or MinV cannot be fostered on a wide scale is compatible even with the possibility that EIV is capable of effecting some positive intellectual character growth for a majority of students. Specifically, it allows for the possibility of fostering widespread growth in what might be referred to as “respective virtue.” It might, that is, help a number of students to develop certain facets of virtues or to be become virtuous in certain respects. For instance, it might

40 See nt. 8 above for some of the relevant literature. Alfano (2013: Ch. 7) argues along with Dweck (2006) and others that virtue-ascriptions function like self-fulfilling prophecies. If this is right, it supports the present point and sheds light on an important strategy for promoting intellectual character growth. 41 One possible cost is that the breadth of topics a teacher can get through when educating for intellectual character growth may be more limited than if her objective is merely (say) the transmission of cursory knowledge or the fostering of certain rudimentary problem-solving skills. Because intellectual virtues aim at conceptual or explanatory understanding of important subject matters (Baehr 2014), EIV favors instruction that prioritizes depth over breath.

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help students learn to think carefully and thoroughly, ask insightful questions, or persevere in the face of struggle within a certain relatively narrow range of contexts.42 While ex hypothesi respective virtue falls below the threshold of MinV, an ability to systematically foster facets of virtues would be nothing to discount.43 Provided, again, that the cost of EIV is not too substantial, this is further support for EIV—support that obtains even given an inability to foster widespread RobV or MinV.

A fourth and final reason concerns the way in which intellectual virtues can function as regulative ideals. Intellectual virtues are broadly attractive and compelling personal traits. In their purest or most exemplary form, they inspire intellectual respect and admiration.44 Even if teachers cannot expect to help a majority of their students satisfy the requirements for RobV or MinV, the very activity of reflecting on and pursuing growth in intellectual virtues can add meaning and value to the educational process. It can bring a kind of depth and richness to this process that is sorely lacking in educational settings dominated by the memorization of information, an obsessive concern with state standards, “teaching to the test,” or the kind of crass careerism prevalent in some university settings. Treating intellectual virtues as a regulative ideal can also have significant benefits in connection with other educational goals and values like conceptual understanding, academic rigor, metacognition, and critical thinking. These and several related concepts are closely related to the notion of good or virtuous intellectual character.45 Given the rich, specific, and compelling nature of the traits that comprise such character, serious reflection on and attention to these traits can help teachers and students better understand these other goals and be more inclined to pursue them. In other words, treating intellectual character growth as an educational ideal can provide a personal and attractive framework for understanding, integrating, and pursuing several other important educational aims.46 Such value is independent of any intellectual character growth that might or might not result from this approach.

We have considered several reasons for thinking that even if (P3) – (P5) were true, EIV would remain an important and viable enterprise. Again, the rarity of MaxV leaves wide open the possibility that educators can foster substantial and significant progress in intellectual virtues. Moreover, even if both RobV and MinV were also rare, several reasons in support of EIV would remain. Some of these reasons are characterological in nature (e.g.

42 King (2014: 251) makes a similar point. 43 This may be a matter of fostering the sorts of dispositions that many situationists are willing to ascribe to many people. See, for example, (Doris 2002: 62, 115-16) and (Alfano 2013: 65). It is also similar to what Adams (2006: 125-30) and Flanagan (1991: 268-75) describe as “modules” of virtue. 44 For an example of how even scholarly work on intellectual virtues can be informative and personally edifying, see Roberts and Wood (2007). 45 As noted above, any plausible approach to EIV will place a premium on facilitating deep explanatory understanding of important subject matters. In doing so, it will necessarily be academically rigorous. As I argue in Baehr (2013), the best approaches to EIV will also involve the promotion of self-knowledge, in particular, knowledge of one’s intellectual character strengths and weaknesses. As such, they will promote the kind of self-reflection and self-understanding that is central to “metacognitive” strategies and approaches (Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison 2011).46 Miller (2013: 208) makes a similar point about the regulative role of virtue concepts. See also Merritt (2000: 372).

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the possibility of significant characterological improvement, the minimization of characterological atrophy or damage, and the fostering of “respective” virtue). Others point to value in EIV that lies beyond the characterological domain (e.g. the addition of depth and meaning to the educational process and the provision of a framework for understanding and pursuing other important educational goals).

5. The Remaining Relevance of Situationist ResearchWe are finally in position to see that the situationist challenge fails to pose a

significant threat to EIV. However, this conclusion underscores a new question: can proponents and practitioners of EIV therefore safely disregard situationist psychology? In this final section, I briefly defend a negative answer to this question.

Though we have thus far been focusing on the limitations of the situationist research vis-à-vis EIV, it would be a mistake to conclude that this research fails to reveal any widespread characterological limitations or vulnerabilities. LINES, for example, shows that, to a greater extent than commonsense would predict, some of our intellectual activities (e.g. speaking our minds) are constrained by situational (e.g. social) factors. And CANDLE-II reveals some ways in which what might initially seem like cognitively insignificant factors (e.g. mood) can have a significant bearing on a person’s ability or motivation to perform certain virtue-relevant tasks.

Viable approaches to EIV must take account of what situationist research suggests about the limitations of the intellectual character of most people.47 Thus practitioners of EIV should, among other things, be cautious about adopting overly optimistic or ambitious characterological goals. Given that intellectual virtues are often conceived of as ideals, it can be tempting to view the goal of EIV as the radical transformation of every student’s intellectual character. But it should now be clear how structuring one’s pedagogy or an entire educational program around such a goal could be misguided and potentially damaging.48 Situationist research should also have an effect on which virtues educators decide to focus on and how they conceive of these traits. In particular, situationist findings underscore the importance of intellectual humility and related virtues. Intellectual humility can be understood as a kind of alertness to and “ownership” of one’s cognitive limitations, defects, or mistakes. Accordingly, if I am trying to promote the intellectual character growth of my students, I might draw on situationist research to help my students better understand what their cognitive limitations and vulnerabilities are and to encourage them to accept or “own” (rather than deny or ignore) them. Finally, the best approaches to EIV will also draw on situationist research when it comes to designing activities, assignments, or other “interventions” aimed at fostering intellectual character growth. Knowing the influence that certain social factors can exert on the intellectual activity of my students, for instance, I might create frequent opportunities for them to confront some of their intellectual fears in a “safe” environment. And in other respects as well I might work to

47 A similar point is made by Sosa (2009: nt. 20). Doris, while suggesting that one must choose between fostering character growth and taking situationist empirical findings seriously (2002: 111-112, 121, 146), eventually seems to acknowledge that the latter may play a fruitful role vis-à-vis the former (151-52). 48 Doris sketches some of these problems in (1998: 517).

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create a classroom culture in which things like intellectual risk-taking are valued as much or more than things like speed and accuracy (Ritchhart 2002: Ch. 2).49

Of course, situationist psychology is not alone in meriting serious attention in this context. Other bodies of psychological research should also play a role in efforts to foster intellectual character growth. This includes research in developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, attachment theory, and positive psychology.50 However, the point I wish to emphasize at present is that while situationist research is not a threat to EIV, neither is it irrelevant. The best approaches to EIV will be informed and constrained by situationist insights.51

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49 For some similar suggestions, see Battaly (2014), Alfano (2013: 178-79), Merritt (2000: 372-75), Kamtekar (2004: 487-91), and Sabini and Silver (2005: 561-62).50 For a discussion of developmental psychology and character education, see Berkowitz (2012). See Porter (forthcoming) for ways that attachment theory can inform attempts to foster intellectual character growth. The work of Peterson and Seligman in positive psychology (2004) sheds light on several character strengths relevant to moral and intellectual character education. Likewise, psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on “mindsets” (2006) has obvious bearing on character education broadly construed. 51 I am grateful to Michael Pace, Heather Battaly, Anne Baril, Lani Watson, Allan Hazlett, and the students in my fall 2014 graduate seminar on virtue epistemology for helpful conversations about this material.

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