Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:42:03.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The moral virtue of open-mindedness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Yujia Song
Yujia Song*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD, USA
*
E-mail: ysong147@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper gives a new and richer account of open-mindedness as a moral virtue. I argue that the main problem with existing accounts is that they derive the moral value of open-mindedness entirely from the epistemic role it plays in moral thought. This view is overly intellectualist. I argue that open-mindedness as a moral virtue promotes our flourishing alongside others in ways that are quite independent of its role in correcting our beliefs. I close my discussion by distinguishing open-mindedness from what some might consider its equivalent: empathy and tolerance.

Keywords

Open-mindednessmoral virtueintellectual virtueempathytolerance
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , 2018 , pp. 65 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Arpaly, Nomy. 2011. “Open-Mindedness as a Moral Virtue.” American Philosophical Quarterly 48(1): 75–85.Google Scholar
Baehr, Jason. 2011. The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604074.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barabas, Jason. 2004. “How Deliberation Affects Policy Opinions.” American Political Science Review 98(4): 687–701. 10.1017/S0003055404041425CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, Cheshire. 1995. “Standing for Something.” Journal of Philosophy 92(5): 235–260. 10.2307/2940917CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwall, Stephen. 1977. “Two Kinds of Respect.” Ethics 88(1): 36–49. 10.1086/292054CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Daryl. 1998. Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan. Far Hills, NJ: New Horizon Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 2000. “Autonomy, Social Disruption and Women.” In Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self, edited by Mackenzie, Catriona and Stoljar, Natalie, 35–51. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 1983. The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Galeotti, Anna E. 2002. Toleration as Recognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511487392CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, William. 1985. In Defence of Open-Mindedness. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Hare, William. 1987. “Open-Mindedness in Moral Education: Three Contemporary Approaches.” Journal of Moral Education 16(2): 99–107. 10.1080/03057240.1987.10753557CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honneth, Axel, and Margalit, Avishai. 2001. “Recognition: Invisibility: On The Epistemology Of ‘Recognition’.” Aristotelian Society Supplementary 75(1): 111–126. 10.1111/1467-8349.00081CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2009. “Pluralism, Toleration, and Ethical Promiscuity.” Journal of Religious Ethics 37(2): 311–329. 10.1111/jore.2009.37.issue-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwong, Jack. 2016. “Open-Mindedness as Engagement.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 54(1): 70–86. 10.1111/sjp.2016.54.issue-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugones, María. 1987. “Playfulness, ‘World’-travelling, and Loving Perception.” Hypatia 2(2): 3–19. 10.1111/j.1527-2001.1987.tb01062.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrae, Robert, and Costa, Paul. 2008. “The Five-Factor Theory of Personality.” In Handbook of Personality, edited by John, Oliver P., Robins, Richard W., and Pervin, Lawrence A., 159–181, 3rd ed. New York: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1989. ‘On Liberty’ and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pariser, Eli. 2012. The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. New York: The Penguin Press. 10.3139/9783446431164CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston-Roedder, Ryan. 2013. “Faith in Humanity.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87(3): 664–687. 10.1111/phpr.2013.87.issue-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratliff, Ben. 2016. Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Riggs, Wayne. 2010. “Open-Mindedness.” In Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic, edited by Battaly, Heather, 173–188. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 2001. “The Value of Philosophy.” In The Problems of Philosophy, 89–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas M. 2003. The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511615153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, David B. 2006. Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism. New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/0195305396.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woo, Sang Eun, Chernyshenko, Oleksandr S., Longley, Andrew, Zhang, Zhi-Xue, Chiu, Chi-Yue, and Stark, Stephen E.. 2014. “Openness to Experience: Its Lower Level Structure, Measurement, and Cross-Cultural Equivalence.” Journal of Personality Assessment 96(1): 29–45. 10.1080/00223891.2013.806328CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zagzebski, Linda. 1996. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139174763CrossRefGoogle Scholar