Intellectual Humility Without Open-Mindedness: How to Respond to Extremist Views
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: How should we respond to extremist views that we know are false? This paper proposes that we should be intellectually humble, but not open-minded. We should own our intellectual limitations, but be unwilling to revise our beliefs in the falsity of the extremist views. The opening section makes a case for distinguishing the concept of intellectual humility from the concept of open-mindedness, arguing that open-mindedness requires both a willingness to revise extant beliefs and other-oriented engagement, whereas intellectual humility requires neither. Building on virtue-consequentialism, the second section makes a start by arguing that intellectually virtuous people of a particular sort—people with “effects-virtues”—would be intellectually humble, but not open-minded, in responding to extremist views they knew were false. We suggest that while intellectual humility and open-mindedness often travel together, this is a place where they come apart.
Source: Episteme
DOI: 10.1017/epi.2024.63
Authors: Katie Peters, Cody Turner, Heather Battaly
Institutions: University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts System
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4408501919