Works by Michel Croce
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- On What it Takes to be an Expert.Michel Croce -2019 -Philosophical Quarterly 69 (274):1-21.This paper tackles the problem of defining what a cognitive expert is. Starting from a shared intuition that the definition of an expert depends upon the conceptual function of expertise, I shed light on two main approaches to the notion of an expert: according to novice-oriented accounts of expertise, experts need to provide laypeople with information they lack in some domain; whereas, according to research-oriented accounts, experts need to contribute to the epistemic progress of their discipline. In this paper, I (...) defend the thesis that cognitive experts should be identified by their ability to perform the latter function rather than the former, as novice-oriented accounts, unlike research-oriented ones, fail to comply with the rules of a functionalist approach to expertise. (shrink)
- Moral exemplars in education: a liberal account.Michel Croce -2020 -Ethics and Education (x):186-199.This paper takes issue with the exemplarist strategy of fostering virtue development with the specific goal of improving its applicability in the context of education. I argue that, for what matters educationally, we have good reasons to endorse a liberal account of moral exemplarity. Specifically, I challenge two key assumptions of Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017), namely that moral exemplars are exceptionally virtuous agents and that imitating their behavior is the main strategy for acquiring the virtues. I will introduce (...) and discuss the notions of enkratic exemplars and injustice illuminators and show that we have good reasons to consider them moral exemplars although they fail to satisfy (either of) the key assumptions. (shrink)
- Consuming Fake News: Can We Do Any Better?Michel Croce &Tommaso Piazza -2023 -Social Epistemology 37 (2):232-241.This paper focuses on extant approaches to counteract the consumption of fake news online. Proponents of structural approaches suggest that our proneness to consuming fake news could only be reduced by reshaping the architecture of online environments. Proponents of educational approaches suggest that fake news consumers should be empowered to improve their epistemic agency. In this paper, we address a question that is relevant to this debate: namely, whether fake news consumers commit mistakes for which they can be criticized and (...) that they could easily avoid by reforming their doxastic conduct. Proponents of structural approaches, like R. Rini and B. Millar, have defended in different ways a negative answer to this question. In this paper, we criticize their views and suggest that individual users could improve on their epistemic practice by widening their information diet. (shrink)
- Expert-oriented abilities vs. novice-oriented abilities: An alternative account of epistemic authority.Michel Croce -2018 -Episteme 15 (4):476-498.According to a recent account of epistemic authority proposed by Linda Zagzebski (2012), it is rational for laypersons to believe on authority when they conscientiously judge that the authority is more likely to form true beliefs and avoid false ones than they are in some domain. Christoph Jäger (2016) has recently raised several objections to her view. By contrast, I argue that both theories fail to adequately capture what epistemic authority is, and I offer an alternative account grounded in the (...) abilities that different kinds of authorities are required to possess. (shrink)
- Educating through Exemplars: Alternative Paths to Virtue.Michel Croce &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza -2017 -Theory and Research in Education 15 (1):5-19.This paper confronts Zagzebski’s exemplarism with the intertwined debates over the conditions of exemplarity and the unity-disunity of the virtues, to show the advantages of a pluralistic exemplar-based approach to moral education (PEBAME). PEBAME is based on a prima facie disunitarist perspective in moral theory, which amounts to admitting both exemplarity in all respects and single-virtue exemplarity. First, we account for the advantages of PEBAME, and we show how two figures in recent Italian history (Giorgio Perlasca and Gino Bartali) satisfy (...) Blum’s definitions of ‘moral hero’ and ‘moral saint’ (1988). Then, we offer a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of heroes and saints with respect to character education, according to four criteria derived from PEBAME: admirability, virtuousness, transparency, and imitability. Finally, we conclude that both unitarist and disunitarist exemplars are fundamental to character education; this is because of the hero's superiority to the saint with respect to imitability, a fundamental feature of the exemplar for character education. (shrink)
- Exemplarism in moral education: Problems with applicability and indoctrination.Michel Croce -2019 -Journal of Moral Education 48 (3):291-302.This article introduces an account of moral education grounded in Zagzebski’s recent Exemplarist Moral Theory and discusses two problems that have to be solved for the account to become a realistic alternative to other educational models on the market, namely the limited-applicability problem and the problem of indoctrination. The first problem raises worries about the viability of the account in ordinary circumstances. The second charges the proposed educational model with indoctrinating students. The main goal of this article is to show (...) how an exemplar-based account of moral education can handle both problems without compromising its structure and upshot. (shrink)
- Experts, Public Policy and the Question of Trust.Maria Baghramian &Michel Croce -2021 - In Michael Hannon & Jeroen de Ridder,The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology. New York: Routledge.This chapter discusses the topics of trust and expertise from the perspective of political epistemology. In particular, it addresses four main questions: (§1) How should we characterise experts and their expertise? (§2) How can non-experts recognize a reliable expert? (§3) What does it take for non-experts to trust experts? (§4) What problems impede trust in experts?
- Epistemic Authorities and Skilled Agents: A Pluralist Account of Moral Expertise.Federico Bina,Sofia Bonicalzi &Michel Croce -2024 -Topoi 43:1053-1065.This paper explores the concept of moral expertise in the contemporary philosophical debate, with a focus on three accounts discussed across moral epistemology, bioethics, and virtue ethics: an epistemic authority account, a skilled agent account, and a hybrid model sharing key features of the two. It is argued that there are no convincing reasons to defend a monistic approach that reduces moral expertise to only one of these models. A pluralist view is outlined in the attempt to reorient the discussion (...) about moral expertise. (shrink)
- Moral Understanding, Testimony, and Moral Exemplarity.Michel Croce -2020 -Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (2):373-389.While possessing moral understanding is agreed to be a core epistemic and moral value, it remains a matter of dispute whether it can be acquired via testimony and whether it involves an ability to engage in moral reasoning. This paper addresses both issues with the aim of contributing to the current debates on moral understanding in moral epistemology and virtue ethics. It is argued that moral epistemologists should stop appealing to the argument from the transmissibility of moral understanding to make (...) a case for their favorite view of moral understanding. It is also argued that proponents of exemplarist moral theories cannot remain neutral on whether the ability to engage in moral reasoning is a necessary component of moral understanding. (shrink)
- Misinformation and Intentional Deception: A Novel Account of Fake News.Michel Croce &Tommaso Piazza -2021 - In Maria Silvia Vaccarezza & Nancy Snow,Virtues, Democracy, and Online Media: Ethical and Epistemic Issues. Routledge.This chapter introduces a novel account of fake news and explains how it differs from other definitions on the market. The account locates the fakeness of an alleged news report in two main aspects related to its production, namely that its creators do not think to have sufficient evidence in favor of what they divulge and they fail to display the appropriate attitude towards the truth of the information they share. A key feature of our analysis is that it does (...) not require that fake news must be circulated with the intention to deceive one’s audience. In this way, our account overcomes a potential limitation of the current philosophical discussion about fake news, which appears to individuate the main problem with this phenomenon in the fact that fake news consumers are misled and misinformed. In contrast, the proposed analysis shows that an additional (and perhaps equally fundamental) problem uncovered by the spread of fake news is a widespread pathological relationship with information, one on which we consume information not to satisfy our interest in the truth but to strengthen our social identities and quench our hunger for social recognition. (shrink)
- Education as The Social Cultivation of Intellectual Virtue.Michel Croce &Duncan Pritchard -2022 - In Mark Alfano, Jeroen De Ridder & Colin Klein,Social Virtue Epistemology. Routledge. pp. 583-601.The recent literature has seen a burgeoning discussion of the idea that the overarching epistemic goal of education is the cultivation of the intellectual virtues. Moreover, there have been attempts to put this idea into practice, with virtue-led educational interventions in schools, universities, and even prisons. This paper explores the question of whether—and, if so, to what degree—such intellectual virtue-based approaches to education are essentially social. The focus in this regard is on the role of intellectual exemplars within this approach, (...) and in particular the extent to which direct social interaction with such exemplars is crucial to the implementation of this educational methodology. (shrink)
- Epistemic Paternalism and the Service Conception of Epistemic Authority.Michel Croce -2018 - In Michel Croce & Maria Silvia Vaccarezza,Connecting Virtues: Advances in Ethics, Epistemology, and Political Philosophy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 107–128.Epistemic paternalism is the thesis that in some circumstances we are justified in interfering with the inquiry of others for their own epistemic good without consulting them on the issue. This paper addresses the issue of who is rationally entitled to undertake paternalistic interferences, and in virtue of which features one has this entitlement. First, it undermines the view according to which experts are the most apt people to act as paternalist interferers. Then it argues that epistemic authorities are in (...) a better position to satisfy the requirements of justified epistemic paternalism, when conceived according to the service model of epistemic authority. Finally, it offers a virtue‐based account of paternalist interferers and shows how it can apply to cases in which the interferer is a group or an institution. (shrink)
- Civility in the Post-truth Age: An Aristotelian Account.Maria Silvia Vaccarezza &Michel Croce -2021 -Humana.Mente - Journal of Philosophical Studies 39 (39):127-150.This paper investigates civility from an Aristotelian perspective and has two objectives. The first is to offer a novel account of this virtue based on Aristotle’s remarks about civic friendship. The proposed account distinguishes two main components of civility—civic benevolence and civil deliberation—and shows how Aristotle’s insights can speak to the needs of our communities today. The notion of civil deliberation is then unpacked into three main dimensions: motivational, inquiry-related, and ethical. The second objective is to illustrate how the post-truth (...) condition—in particular, the spread of misinformation typical of the digital environments we inhabit—obstructs our capacity to cultivate the virtue of civility by impairing every component of civil deliberation. The paper hopes to direct virtue theorists’ attention to the need to foster civic virtues as a means of counteracting the negative aspects of the post-truth age. (shrink)
- Epistemologia delle fake news.Tommaso Piazza &Michel Croce -2019 -Sistemi Intelligenti 31 (3):433-461.Questo articolo prende in esame il fenomeno della proliferazione di fake news da un punto di vista filosofico—anzi, per meglio dire, prettamente epistemologico—con particolare attenzione a tre questioni fondamentali: cosa sono le fake news e come debbano essere definite; quali meccanismi ne favoriscono la proliferazione sui social media; chi debba essere ritenuto responsabile e degno di biasimo nel processo sotteso alla generazione, pubblicazione e diffusione di fake news. A partire dall'analisi dei principali lavori nella letteratura filosofica sul tema, ci proponiamo (...) di: offrire una definizione di fake news che eviti le obiezioni sollevate contro altre definizioni discusse dalla letteratura (§1); mettere in luce le principali cause della propagazione di fake news, con particolare riferimento ai bias cognitivi e alle strutture comunitarie in cui si organizzano gli utenti dei social media (§2); infine, presentare una analisi originale della responsabilità epistemica dei consumatori di fake news (§3). (shrink)
- Virtue Monism and Medical Practice: Practical Wisdom as Cross-Situational Ethical Expertise.Mario De Caro,Federico Bina,Sofia Bonicalzi,Riccardo Brunetti,Michel Croce,Skaistė Kerusauskaite,Claudia Navarini,Elena Ricci &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza -2025 -Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 50 (2):80-92.This article defends the centrality of practical wisdom in medical practice by building on a monistic view of moral virtue, termed the “Aretai model,” according to which possession of practical wisdom is necessary and sufficient for virtuousness, grounding both moral growth and effective moral behavior. From this perspective, we argue that practical wisdom should be conceived as a cross-situational ethical expertise consisting of four skills:moral perception, moral deliberation, emotion regulation, and moral motivation. Conceiving of practical wisdom as both overall virtuousness (...) and ethical expertise makes it possible to deal adequately with the uniqueness of concrete ethically relevant situations. We contend that this becomes particularly evident in the context of medical practice, both in terms of decision-making and action-taking, especially in the most challenging or contentious clinical cases. We conclude the article by suggesting the potential implications of the Aretai model for continuing education in medical and healthcare professions. (shrink)
- For A Service Conception of Epistemic Authority: A Collective Approach.Michel Croce -2019 -Social Epistemology (2):1-11.This paper attempts to provide a remedy to a surprising lacuna in the current discussion in the epistemology of expertise, namely the lack of a theory accounting for the epistemic authority of collective agents. After introducing a service conception of epistemic authority based on Alvin Goldman’s account of a cognitive expert, I argue that this service conception is well suited to account for the epistemic authority of collective bodies on a non-summativist perspective, and I show in detail how the defining (...) requirements of an expert can apply to epistemic groups. (shrink)
- Epistemic Rights, Moral Rights, and The Abuse of Perceived Epistemic Authority.Michel Croce -2023 -Notizie di Politeia 149:122-126.This contribution discusses two aspects of Watson’s account of epistemic rights: namely, the nature of epistemic rights, and a particular form of epistemic rights violation that Watson calls the abuse of perceived epistemic authority. It is argued that Watson’s take on both aspects is unsatisfactory, and some suggestions for an alternative view are offered.
- The Epistemology of Disagreement.Michel Croce -2023 -Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Article Summary. The epistemology of disagreement studies the epistemically relevant aspects of the interaction between parties who hold diverging opinions about a given subject matter. The central question that the epistemology of disagreement purports to answer is how the involved parties should resolve an instance of disagreement. Answers to this central question largely depend on the epistemic position of each party before disagreement occurs. Two parties are equally positioned from an epistemic standpoint—namely, they are epistemic peers—to the extent that they (...) have roughly equal access to the evidence and comparable intellectual resources. When one party is epistemically better positioned than the other—that is, when one is an epistemic superior—it is widely agreed that this party should retain their belief while the other party—the epistemic inferior—should revise their opinion in the direction of what the epistemic superior believes. Addressing the central question is a complex task when the disagreeing parties are epistemic peers. Three main answers can be distinguished. Conciliatory answers mandate that both parties revise—i.e. lower their confidence in—their beliefs upon the occurrence of peer disagreement. Steadfast answers allow both parties to retain their respective beliefs, thereby committing them to demote the epistemic position of the interlocutor. The third group of answers suggests that the solution to peer disagreement depends on whether either party is highly justified in holding their belief. If either party is highly justified, then it is rational that this party retains its view. If neither party is highly justified, both should revise. The epistemology of disagreement addresses further important questions such as: whether the occurrence of disagreement opens the doors to skepticism and/or relativism; what the consequences of epistemic disagreement on intellectual character are; what laypeople should do when experts disagree with each other; and whether disagreement among groups can be treated in the same way as disagreement among individuals. (shrink)
- Understanding friendship.Michel Croce &Matthew Jope -2024 -Philosophical Issues 34 (1):371-386.This article takes issue with two prominent views in the current debate around epistemic partiality in friendship. Strong views of epistemic partiality hold that friendship may require biased beliefs in direct conflict with epistemic norms. Weak views hold that friendship may place normative expectations on belief formation but in a manner that does not violate these norms. It is argued that neither view succeeds in explaining the relationship between epistemic norms and friendship norms. Weak views inadvertently endorse a form of (...) motivated reasoning, failing to resolve the normative clash they seek to avoid. Strong views turn out to be incoherent once we consider the question of whether the requirement to form an epistemically partial belief is independent of whether the belief in question would be true. It is then argued that an epistemology of friendship should recognise the special role that understanding plays in friendship. On this view, friendship normatively requires understanding the truth about our friends. This entails that epistemic partiality, far from being a requirement, is in fact at odds with good friendship. (shrink)
- Epistemic Paternalism, Personal Sovereignty, and One’s Own Good.Michel Croce -2020 - In Amiel Bernal & Guy Axtell,Epistemic Paternalism Reconsidered: Conceptions, Justifications and Implications. Lanham, Md: Rowman & LIttlefield. pp. 155-168.A recent paper by Bullock (2018) raises a dilemma for proponents of epistemic paternalism. If epistemic paternalists contend that epistemic improvements contribute to one’s wellbeing, then their view conflates with general paternalism. Instead, if they appeal to the notion of a distinctive epistemic value, their view is unjustified, in that concerns about epistemic value fail to outweigh concerns about personal sovereignty. In this chapter, I address Bullock’s challenge in a way that safeguards the legitimacy of epistemic paternalism, albeit restricting its (...) scope to a limited range of cognitive projects. After shedding light on a problem with how Bullock singles out cases to which the dilemma applies, I argue that there is at least one reasonable way of interpreting the notion of ‘personal autonomy’ which legitimates and justifies undertaking epistemically paternalistic interferences for one’s epistemic good. (shrink)
- Guest editors’ preface.Maria Silvia Vaccarezza,Michel Croce &Angelo Campodonico -2019 -Journal of Moral Education 48 (3):275-279.
- Virtue Responsibilism, Mindware, and Education.Michel Croce &Duncan Pritchard -2022 - In Mark Alfano, Jeroen De Ridder & Colin Klein,Social Virtue Epistemology. Routledge. pp. 42-44.Response to Steven Bland’s ‘Interactionism, Debiasing, and the Division of Epistemic Labour’ (in Social Virtue Epistemology, (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder). Biased cognition is an obvious source of epistemic vice, but there is some controversy about whether cognitive biases generate reliabilist or responsibilist epistemic vices. Bland’s argument, in a nutshell, is that since the development of cognitive biases is due to the interplay of internal psychological processes and external (i.e., environmental) conditions, it cannot be expected that (...) a solution to the problem tackles only one of these dimensions. We argue that the complex architecture on which Bland’s coordinated approach is grounded appears to lose some stability once we analyze more closely its pillars. We shall concentrate our attention on the notion of reliabilist and responsibilist epistemic virtues that the approach should foster as well as on the educational implications of Bland’s view. (shrink)
- Objective Expertise and Functionalist Constraints.Michel Croce -2019 -Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 8 (5):25-35.Christian Quast has recently embarked on the project of systematizing the debate about the notion of expertise, an extremely fascinating and important issue addressed by scholars of many disciplines yet still in need of an interdisciplinary take. He sheds light on a number of relevant features of this notion and defends what he calls a “balanced” account of expertise, namely one that defines this concept in light of an expert’s dispositions, manifestations of their dispositions, and social role or function. In (...) this critical reply, I offer some considerations that put pressure on Quast’s balanced account and hopefully help anyone interested in this debate take a step forward toward explaining what it takes for one to be an expert. The reply is structured as follows. First, I argue that his allegedly balanced view is liable to a potentially compromising tension between its function component and the ingredients of objective expertise (§1). Then, I show that Quast’s threefold characterization of an objective expert is too strong, as it imposes conditions that several individuals whom we would consider experts are unable to fulfill (§2). Finally, I provide reasons in favor of endorsing an objective account of expertise in light of some specific features of our society and show how this account can take into due consideration the different services experts ordinarily perform (§3). (shrink)
- Experts—Part II: The Sources of Epistemic Authority.Michel Croce &Maria Baghramian -2024 -Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70005.This paper investigates the topic of epistemic authority from the perspective of the ordinary people facing expert testimony. In particular, two central questions are discussed: how one should respond to expert testimony; and what should one do before expert disagreement.
- Experts – Part I: What They Are and How to Identify Them.Michel Croce &Maria Baghramian -2024 -Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e13009.This paper investigates the topic of expertise in cognitive domains from a socio-epistemological perspective. In particular, two central questions in the epistemology of expertise are discussed: what an expert is according to extant theories on the market; and how ordinary people can identify an expert in domains in which they have no competence of their own.
- Teorie dei vizi. Un'analisi critica.Michel Croce -2020 -Ethics and Politics 22 (1):577-598.This paper offers a critical analysis of the current debate in vice theory. Its main aim is to provide the reader with the conceptual and methodological tools to navigate the discussion among reliabilist, responsibilist, and obstructivist approaches to moral and epistemic vices. After a brief exploration of the reasons underlying the recent flourishing of vice theories (§2), the responsibilist account is introduced (§3) and several critical remarks are offered to ensure that this view can accommodate the cases of malevolent and (...) indifferent individuals (§4). The two following sections are devoted to a critical discussion of vice-reliabilism (§5) and Quassim Cassam’s obstructivism (§6). The conclusive section (§7) provides reasons to favor vice-responsibilism over vice-reliabilism and Heather Battaly’s pluralist approach, and sheds light on the innovative features of an obstructivist reading. (shrink)
- Etica delle virtù. Un'introduzione.Angelo Campodonico,Michel Croce &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza -2017 - Rome, Italy: Carocci Editore.The volume is the first treatment in the Italian language, introductory yet as complete and up-to-date as possible, of Virtue Ethics, a current of contemporary ethics that is still relatively unknown and underdeveloped in continental Europe, which centers around the notion of virtue. Although this term is not particularly used or appreciated in today's common language, the interest it has generated in recent decades allows Virtue Ethics to be presented as a true branch of contemporary ethics with classical roots, distinguishing (...) itself from deontological and utilitarian-consequentialist approaches. After a review of the main authors associated with Virtue Ethics, the book examines its most relevant and debated conceptual points from a thematic or problem-based perspective, highlighting the connections between virtues and other dimensions of human action. Lastly, it includes an extensive and up-to-date bibliography. (shrink)
- Moral Exemplars and Exemplarism: Guest Editors' Preface.Maria Silvia Vaccarezza &Michel Croce -2018 -Ethics and Politics 20 (2):9-14.
- Introduction: Virtues, Wisdom, and Expertise.Maria Silvia Vaccarezza &Michel Croce -2024 -Topoi 43:845-848.
- (1 other version)Epistemologia delle virtù.Michel Croce -2017 -Aphex 15.In this entry, I offer a critical analysis of virtue epistemology, which is a fundamental collection of recent approaches to epistemology. After a few remarks on the roots of this view, I reconstruct the key features of the two main accounts of virtue epistemology and I discuss how these accounts respond to some traditional epistemological challenges. -/- Questo contributo propone una disamina critica dell’epistemologia delle virtù, una delle correnti più importanti della teoria della conoscenza contemporanea. Dopo un breve affondo sulle (...) origini di questa corrente, vengono analizzate le caratteristiche dei due approcci fondamentali all’epistemologia delle virtù e le risposte che essi offrono ad alcuni problemi epistemologici tradizionali. (shrink)
- Santi, eroi e l’unità delle virtù. Una proposta esemplarista di educazione morale.Maria Silvia Vaccarezza &Michel Croce -2016 -Iride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 3.This article sheds light on moral education from an exemplarist perspective. Following Linda Zagzebski's Exemplarist Virtue Theory, we relate several fundamental exemplarist intuitions to the classical virtue ethical debate over the unity-disunity of the virtues, to endorse a pluralistic exemplar-based approach to moral education ("Empe"). After a few preliminary remarks, we argue that Empe amounts to defending "a prima facie" disunitarist perspective in moral theory, which admits both exemplarity in all respects (moral sainthood) and single-domain exemplarity (moral heroism). Then, we (...) evaluate the effectiveness of heroes and saints for moral education, according to four criteria derived from Empe. This analysis allows us to conclude that moral education should value both kinds of exemplars and, therefore, adopt weaker standards of exemplarity than the unitarist's ones. (shrink)
- Epistemologia morale.Michel Croce -2020 -Aphex 21.This paper offers a critical introduction to moral epistemology, that is, one of the emerging disciplines within metaethics and epistemology. The main sections of this contribution are devoted to addressing the three following issues: first, whether it is possible to acquire moral knowledge; second, how – viz., through which sources – we can acquire moral knowledge; and third, which implications moral epistemology draws from empirical sciences.
- L’esemplarismo come teoria morale: uno sguardo critico.Michel Croce -2016 - In Iolanda Poma,I fondamenti dell'etica. Brescia: Morcelliana. pp. 381-390.Il problema di determinare quali siano i fondamenti dell’etica si riflette direttamente sul dibattito tra le principali etiche normative che si è arricchito, in tempi molto recenti, della teoria morale detta “esemplarista”, proposta da Linda Zagzebski, voce illustre nel panorama della filosofia morale, della conoscenza e della religione analitiche. L’esemplarismo, come ogni altra teoria morale fondazionalista, ha a cuore la questione del fondamento, ma si distingue dalle classiche teorie fondazionaliste sfidando l’idea che tale fondamento possa essere un concetto. Infatti, Zagzebski (...) non fonda la sua teoria su uno dei concetti morali fondamentali (bene, virtù, atto giusto), bensì fa derivare la definizione di tali concetti dall’individuazione di un esemplare morale in “questa o quella” persona. In altre parole, l’esemplarismo trova la sua fondazione non-concettuale in quei soggetti che ammiriamo per la loro eccezionalità morale. Questo contributo intende fornire una breve analisi della proposta esemplarista suddivisa in due parti: nella prima parte, ricostruirò i lineamenti essenziali dell’esemplarismo tentando di definire chi sia l’esemplare e quale sia la struttura portante della teoria esemplarista; la seconda parte, invece, includerà una breve critica della proposta di Zagzebski e alcune riflessioni sui vantaggi e le prospettive di ricerca che essa apre. (shrink)
- On testimonial knowledge and its functions.Michel Croce -2022 -Synthese 200 (2):1-21.The problem of explaining how we acquire knowledge via testimony gives rise to a dilemma, according to which any theory must make testimonial knowledge either too hard or too easy, and therefore no adequate account of testimonial knowledge is possible. In recent work, John Greco offers a solution to the dilemma on behalf of anti-reductionism that appeals to Edward Craig’s functionalist epistemology. It is argued that Greco’s solution is flawed, in that his functionalist account provides wrong verdicts of ordinary cases (...) of testimonial knowledge. In contrast, it is shown that both anti-reductionism and reductionism have the resources to solve the dilemma and provide the right verdicts in ordinary cases of testimonial knowledge without appealing to Greco’s functionalism. (shrink)
- La riscoperta dell'umiltà come virtù relazionale: la risposta della tradizione ai problemi contemporanei.Michel Croce -2014 - In M. S. Vaccarezza & S. Langella,Emozioni e virtù. Percorsi e prospettive di un tema classico. Orthotes. pp. 159-170.Questo contributo riguarda il tema specifico dell’umiltà come virtù etica e nasce all’interno di uno studio più ampio sulla relazione tra umiltà in campo morale e umiltà intellettuale, tema ricorrente tra i sostenitori della Virtue Epistemology. L’intento di questo saggio è quello di approfondire il recente dibattito circa la natura dell’umiltà come virtù e la sua definizione e il mio obiettivo è quello di mostrare come la tradizione aristotelico-tomista, generalmente sottovalutata da chi si occupa di umiltà nella filosofia analitica contemporanea, (...) possa fornire una risposta soddisfacente alle problematiche più recenti relative a questo tema. La struttura di questo breve contributo prevede un primo paragrafo in cui offrirò una sintetica panoramica sulla concezione di umiltà di Aristotele e Tommaso d’Aquino. Quindi, nel secondo paragrafo, analizzerò la ricezione di questa virtù all’interno della filosofia morale contemporanea di matrice analitica, affrontando due problemi di cui qualsiasi definizione di umiltà deve dare spiegazione: la compatibilità di umiltà e conoscenza di sé, e la possibilità, per chi eccelle in un determinato ambito, di essere umile. Mostrerò come la tradizione aristotelico-tomista possa fornire una risposta efficace a tali quesiti recenti e presenterò i tratti generali della concezione di umiltà come virtù relazionale. Infine concluderò indicando alcuni punti degni di futuri sviluppi. (shrink)
- Response to Commentaries by Alessandra Tanesini and Lani Watson.Michel Croce &Duncan Pritchard -2022 - In Mark Alfano, Jeroen De Ridder & Colin Klein,Social Virtue Epistemology. Routledge. pp. 609-612.The insightful commentaries to our contribution "Education as the Social Cultivation of Intellectual Virtue" (in 'Social Virtue Epistemology', (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder, Routledge 2022) offered by Alessandra Tanesini and Lani Watson highlight some important aspects of the work that philosophers, education theorists, and educators should carry out to strengthen the theoretical and practical advantages of the educational approach we have proposed. This commentary briefly addresses a few points that could set the grounds for future investigations (...) on intellectual virtue-based approaches to education and their social dimensions. (shrink)
- Il potenziale educativo degli esemplari intellettuali.Michel Croce -2018 -Ethics and Politics 20 (2):143-162.This paper explores the educational potential of epistemic exemplars, namely those individuals who possess intellectual virtues to an exceptional degree. It purports to do so by applying the exemplarist framework proposed by Linda Zagzebski in her Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017) to the domain of intellectual virtues. After a brief summary of the main features of her view, I explain how the exemplarist dynamics can apply to the intellectual domain. Then, I introduce the basics of an exemplar-based account of education and (...) explain how it can be employed to educate the young to intellectual virtues. Finally, I attempt to show how this model can accommodate several objections and, in particular, how it addresses the charge of indoctrinating the students raised by proponents of a critical thinking approach to education. (shrink)
- Testing What’s at Stake: Defending Stakes Effects for Testimony.Michel Croce &Paul Poenicke -2017 -Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 36 (3):163-183.This paper investigates whether practical interests affect knowledge attributions in cases of testimony. It is argued that stakes impact testimonial knowledge attributions by increasing or decreasing the requirements for hearers to trust speakers and thereby gain the epistemic right to acquire knowledge via testimony. Standard, i.e. invariantist, reductionism and non-reductionism fail to provide a plausible account of testimony that is stakes sensitive, while non- invariantist versions of both traditional accounts can remedy this deficiency. Support for this conceptual analysis of stakes (...) is found through a review of the experimental philosophy literature on stakes effects on knowledge attribution. Finally, a diagnosis is offered for what is needed to provide a more robust defense of the paper’s primary claims in terms of future experimental study. (shrink)
- Civil Deliberation Unpacked: An Empirical Investigation.Michel Croce,Filippo Domaneschi &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza -2023 -Journal of Media Ethics 38 (4):211-223.In recent decades, the digital age and the Third Industrial Revolution have attracted significant attention in terms of their benefits and risks. Scholars have explored the impact of these changes on autonomy, freedom, human interactions, cognition, and knowledge sharing. However, the influence of the digital communicative environment on civic interactions and public deliberation processes has received limited attention from virtue theorists. This paper aims to address this gap. First, we discuss the challenges posed by the digital communicative environment, and we (...) present recent attempts to revive civility within this context. Then, we propose a twofold account of civility as consisting in the two virtues of civic benevolence and civil deliberation. Finally, we focus on the epistemic side of civility, civil deliberation, and we conduct the first empirical studies on two of its components. (shrink)
- Epistemic Inequality Reconsidered: An Inquiry into Epistemic Authority.Michel Croce -2020 - Dissertation, School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language SciencesEpistemic inequality is something we face in our everyday experience whenever we acknowledge our epistemic inferiority towards some and our epistemic superiority towards others. The negative side of this epistemic phenomenon has received due attention in the context of the debate on epistemic injustice: whenever an epistemic subject deflates the credibility of another or fails to recognize their authority qua knowers, unjust epistemic inequality is easily produced. However, this kind of inequality has an important positive side, as it can amount (...) to a fundamental opportunity for the subject to achieve epistemic goods—such as knowledge, understanding, and intellectual virtues—from those who are epistemically superior to them. This thesis inquires into the key features of the interaction between non-peer agents to provide a compelling account of epistemic inequality as a positive phenomenon, that is, as an inescapable and reliable source of epistemic goods. To achieve this overarching aim, the proposed analysis shall address three main questions, one conceptual, one normative, and one practical. The conceptual question asks what it takes for an epistemic agent to be epistemically superior to someone else. The normative question investigates the rational boundaries of the interaction between non-peer agents. From the standpoint of the epistemically superior agent, I examine the permissibility of epistemic paternalism, namely whether it can be legitimate for one to interfere with another’s agency for the epistemic benefit of the subject interfered with without consulting them on the issue. From the standpoint of the epistemically inferior agent, I examine which attitudes it is rational to have towards individuals epistemically superior to us. The practical question is about the implications of this analysis for a paradigmatic instance of interaction between non-peer subjects, such as the educational relationship between teachers and students. As a response to the conceptual question, I shall offer a pluralistic virtue-based framework that allows individuating various ways in which an individual or a collective agent—such as groups, committees, and research teams—can be epistemically superior to another. In particular, I shall distinguish between experts, authorities of belief, and authorities of understanding. As a response to the normative question, I argue that epistemic paternalism is permissible only insofar as the interferers are epistemically better positioned than the subjects interfered with, and I outline an account of what I call a “virtuous paternalist interferer”. Furthermore, I argue that there are cases in which it is rational for an epistemically inferior subject to set aside whatever belief they might have and defer to the epistemically superior interlocutor—thereby endorsing a limited version of the so-called preemptionist view of epistemic authority. Finally, as a response to the practical question, I shall propose an exemplar-based account of education, explain how it can be employed to educate the young to intellectual virtues, and defend the view from several objections raised against virtue-based approaches to education. (shrink)
- Credenze che fanno male. Per un'etica degli atteggiamenti epistemici.Michel Croce -2024 - Bologna: Il Mulino.Tradizionalmente si ritiene che ciò che siamo giustificati a credere dipenda solo da criteri di tipo conoscitivo, ovvero debba riguardare soltanto la qualità della nostra evidenza. Ma cosa succede quando le nostre credenze, pur sostenute da buone prove, rischiano di ledere gli altri, discriminandoli o facendo loro un torto? Alcuni filosofi e alcune filosofe hanno iniziato a chiedersi se sia giusto che anche le considerazioni morali influenzino i nostri doveri epistemici. In altre parole: quando le nostre credenze rischiano di fare (...) male a qualcuno, l’etica ha il diritto di invadere il campo della filosofia della conoscenza e modificarne gli standard normativi? L’intersezione tra questioni morali e questioni epistemologiche è diventata così un ampio terreno da esplorare. Attraverso esempi di bruciante attualità, questo volume offre la prima indagine in lingua italiana sull’etica degli sconfinamenti normativi, fornendo una solida base teorica per chiunque sia interessato a comprendere meglio le intersezioni tra norme etiche e norme epistemiche. Dopo aver ricostruito le fondamenta dell’etica della credenza e la disputa tra evidenzialisti e pragmatisti, il volume discute criticamente le principali caratterizzazioni delle credenze che fanno male presenti sul mercato e propone una chiave di lettura originale e innovativa del conflitto tra norme morali e norme epistemiche. (shrink)
- Connecting Virtues: Advances in Ethics, Epistemology, and Political Philosophy.Michel Croce &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza (eds.) -2018 - Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Connecting Virtues examines the significant advances within the fast-growing field of virtue theory and shows how research has contributed to the current debates in moral philosophy, epistemology, and political philosophy. It includes groundbreaking chapters offering original solutions to long-standing issues, such as the plausibility of different lists of virtues, the relationship between virtues and the vices that oppose them, and the connection between moral and intellectual virtues. In addition, the volume offers insights into cutting-edge areas of application of the topic (...) of virtue, such as the role of intellectual virtues in an age of neuromedia, virtuous dispositions related to social epistemology, and the value of some neglected virtues for political philosophy. The book breaks down barriers between different philosophical perspectives on the study of the virtues—both to highlight the interplay and overlap among virtues pertaining to different philosophical areas, and to stress the peculiarity of specific virtues within their own fields. It is a unique and insightful collection of essays composed by some of the leading philosophers working on the topic. (shrink)
- Connecting Virtues: Introduction.Michel Croce &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza -2018 -Metaphilosophy 49 (3):191-203.This article introduces the special issue “Connecting Virtues,” which aims to advance virtue theory by bringing into a conversation works on the virtues in epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. The collection covers several key themes within virtue theory. It includes ground‐breaking articles offering original solutions to long‐standing issues in virtue theory, such as the plausibility of different lists of virtues, the relationship between virtues and their opposing vices and the connection between moral and intellectual virtues. In addition, the collection offers (...) insights into cutting‐edge fields of application of the topic of virtue, such as the role of intellectual virtues in an age of neuromedia, virtuous dispositions related to social epistemology, and the role of some neglected virtues for political philosophy. (shrink)
- Di chi posso fidarmi. Autorità ed esperti nella filosofia analitica contemporanea.Michel Croce -2019 - Bologna: Il Mulino.Molte questioni aperte che interessano la nostra società e ci fanno preoccupare per il futuro ruotano intorno a un problema fondamentale: capire chi sia davvero esperto in un determinato ambito e, di conseguenza, decidere di chi possiamo fidarci. È inevitabile che ognuno di noi debba riporre la propria fiducia in altri individui quando si tratta di questioni quali il riscaldamento globale e la tutela dell’ambiente, le terapie mediche a cui sottoporsi, la sicurezza informatica e l’istruzione dei propri figli. Ma come (...) dovremmo scegliere le persone a cui affidarci? E cosa dobbiamo fare quando il parere dell’esperto si discosta dalla nostra opinione? Il libro si propone di rispondere a queste domande offrendo una chiave di lettura originale e innovativa dell’attuale dibattito sulle nozioni di esperto e di autorità nella filosofia della conoscenza e nella filosofia morale di matrice analitica. (shrink)
- Epistemic paternalism and the service conception of epistemic authority.Michel Croce -2018 - In Michel Croce & Maria Silvia Vaccarezza,Connecting Virtues: Advances in Ethics, Epistemology, and Political Philosophy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Export citation
Bookmark - Introduction.Michel Croce &Maria Silvia Vaccarezza -2018 - In Michel Croce & Maria Silvia Vaccarezza,Connecting Virtues: Advances in Ethics, Epistemology, and Political Philosophy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 1–12.No categories
- Tra il dire e il fare. Gli esperti morali alla prova.Michel Croce -2020 - Sesto San Giovanni (MI): Mimesis.Se nell’era della post-verità la competenza degli esperti è oggetto di continui attacchi, la figura dell’esperto morale è da sempre vista con un certo scetticismo. Riconoscerne l’esistenza implica ammettere che alcune persone sono moralmente superiori ad altre e richiede di determinare la natura della loro superiorità. Dobbiamo immaginare l’esperto morale come una persona virtuosa o come uno specialista in fatto di dilemmi etici? E quale contributo possiamo aspettarci dall’esperto morale all’interno delle nostre comunità? Il volume si propone di rispondere a (...) queste domande e offrire una concezione originale dell’expertise in campo etico, a partire dagli studi più recenti in etica delle virtù ed epistemologia morale. (shrink)
- Virtù, legge e fioritura umana: saggi in onore di Angelo Campodonico.Simona Langella,Maria Silvia Vaccarezza,Michel Croce &Angelo Campodonico (eds.) -2022 - Milano: Mimesis.No categories
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David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Area Editors:
David Bourget
Gwen Bradford
Berit Brogaard
Margaret Cameron
David Chalmers
James Chase
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Esa Diaz-Leon
Barry Hallen
Hans Halvorson
Jonathan Ichikawa
Monte Johnson
Michelle Kosch
Øystein Linnebo
Paul Livingston
Brandon Look
Manolo Martínez
Matthew McGrath
Michiru Nagatsu
Susana Nuccetelli
Giuseppe Primiero
Jack Alan Reynolds
Darrell P. Rowbottom
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