The Whatness of Intellectual Virtues and their Relation to Ethical Virtues

Virtue is of the most important ethical concepts and among those few words including ethical propositions. Aristotle has divided virtues into two ethical and intellectual classes with regard to their purposes. It was known for him that intellectual virtues were stable features of soul which are used by the purpose of recognizing reality (truth). In virtue-oriented epistemology approach which has been developed during the recent decades, it has been emphasized on epistemological values of intellectual virtues and their role in the truth of beliefs. However, there is not an equal perspective about these virtues in various varieties of this approach. For Sosa they are known as types of power and epistemological talents, but for Zagzebski they are deemed as behavioral features and personality characteristics and as their subcategories of ethical virtues. Although he chooses the Aristotle view about intellectual virtues, he does not accept separation of intellectual and ethical virtues. Analyzing various approaches on intellectual virtues, this paper attempts to investigate Zagzebski’s reasons in equalizing intellectual virtues and ethical ones.