Epistemic goods

We think highly morally of teachers who put an enormous effort into getting their students to know and understand the material. Moreover, we think highly of these teachers regardless of whether they are in a discipline, like some branches of engineering, where the knowledge and understanding exists primarily for the sake of non-epistemic goods, as when they are in a discipline, like cosmology, where the knowledge and understanding is primarily aimed at epistemic goods.

The virtues and vices in disseminating epistemic goods are just as much moral virtues and vices as those in disseminating other goods, such as food, shelter, friendship, or play, and there need be little difference in kind. The person who is jealous of another’s knowledge has essentially the same kind of vice as the one who is jealous of another’s physical strength. The person generous with their time in teaching exhibits essentially the same virtue as the one generous with their time in feeding others.

There is, thus, no significant difference in kind between the pursuit of epistemic goods and the norms of the pursuit of other goods. We not infrequently have to weigh one against the other, and it is a mark of the virtuous person that they do this well.

But if this is all correct, then by parallel we should not make a significant distinction in kind between the pursuit of epistemic goods for oneself and the pursuit of non-epistemic goods for oneself. Hence, norms governing the pursuit of knowledge and understanding seem to be just a species of prudential norms.

Does this mean that epistemic norms are just a species of prudential norms?

I don’t think so. Consider that prudentially we also pursue goods of physical health. However, norms of physical health are not a species of prudential norms. It is the medical professional who is the expert on the norms of physical health, not the prudent person as such. Prudential norms apply to voluntary behavior as such, while the norms of physical health apply to the body’s state and function. We might say that norms of the voluntary pursuit of the fulfillment of the norms of physical health are prudential norms, but the norms of physical health themselves are not prudential norms. Similarly, the norms of the voluntary pursuit of the fulfillment of epistemic norms are prudential norms, but the epistemic norms themselves are no more prudential norms than the health norms are.