The Importance of Intellectual Virtue in Democracy

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I think that if nothing else, you know the whole discussion Probably is a little bit unfair, but it's kind of depressing to think about all these vices that we're all subject to. But maybe Sunlight is the best disinfectant if we keep talking about them people will automatically become a little bit more self-correcting. And I would urge people to reflect on their own, you know Intellectual vices, but also just to think about why why this topic really matters.

All of us have been wrong about things from time to time. But sometimes it was a simple, forgivable mistake, while other times we really should have been correct. Properties that systematically prevent us from being correct, and for which we can legitimately be blamed, are “intellectual vices.” Examples might include closed-mindedness, wishful thinking, overconfidence, selective attention, and so on. Quassim Cassam is a philosopher who studies knowledge in various forms, and who has recently written a book Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political. We talk about the nature of intellectual vices, how they manifest in people and in organizations, and what we can possibly do to correct them in ourselves.

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Quassim Cassam received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford University. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He previously held faculty positions at Cambridge University and University College London. He has served as the president of the Aristotelian Society, and was awarded a Leadership Fellowship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK.

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