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The Intellectual Virtues

This chapter explores the nature of intellectual character virtues, as a way of preparing the reader for the rest of the book, which explores individual virtues in detail. After providing a list of important intellectual virtues and some examples of these virtues “in action,” the chapter proceeds to discuss the structure of virtues. It identifies intellectual virtues as excellent traits of character involving thought, behavior, and motivation in relation to knowledge. The chapter then introduces a model for understanding intellectual virtues that parallels Aristotle’s account of the moral virtues. Specifically, many intellectual virtues stand as a mean between vices of deficiency and excess. After applying Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean to several intellectual virtues, the chapter closes by applying Aristotle’s metaphor of virtue as hitting a target. It suggests that our intellectual actions “hit the target” insofar as they involve our doing the right intellectual acts, at the right times, in the right ways, and for the right reasons.