41.1 Introduction

In recent years philosophers have begun to theorize, and psychologists have begun to measure, a suite of related dispositions:

• modesty (Bommarito 2013;Wilson 2016),

• humility (Driver 2001; Saucier 2009; Lee and Ashton 2018),

• intellectual humility (Roberts and Wood 2007; Hazlett 2012; Samuelson et al.

• open-mindedness (Riggs 2010; Baehr 2011; Madison forthcoming; Kwong 2017).

At the same time, philosophers and psychologists have addressed a range of dispositions that, in one way or another, seem to oppose these dispositions, including:

• vanity (Egan and McCorkindale 2007; Roberts and Wood 2007),

• narcissism (Egan and McCorkindale 2007; Paulhus and Williams 2002; Roberts this volume),

• arrogance (Haggard et al. 2018,Tanesini 2016a, 2016b),

• pride (Roberts and Wood 2007;Tracy et al. 2009; Carter and Gordon 2017; Roberts this volume),

• myside bias (Taber and Lodge 2006;Westen et al. 2006; Stanovich and West 2007;West and Stanovich 2008;Wolfe and Britt 2008; Levy and Alfano 2019),

• dogmatism (Cassam 2016), and

• intellectual insouciance (Cassam 2018).

The first family of dispositions seems, at least at first blush, to encompass intellectual virtues, while the latter seems to be a rogues' gallery of intellectual vices. That said, there have been a number of contrarian positions defending, for example, closed-mindedness, staked out by Battaly (2018) and Fantl (2018).

In this chapter, we address a problem internal to the suite of dispositions referred to as mod­esty, humility, intellectual humility, and open-mindedness. For the sake of brevity, we will refer to them collectively as h-traits. The problem is this: if someone who embodies h-traits spends the bulk of their time, attention, and engagement with a homogeneous ingroup, they are liable to overcome myside bias (closely related to the broader phenomenon of confirmation bias) at a significant social epistemic cost.

If this is on the right track, then people who embody h-traits are especially liable to participate in a process of group polarization (Brady et al. 2017;Van Bavel and Pereira 2018; Sunstein 2017) that leads to the development of“filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” (Pariser 2011; see also Nguyen forthcoming).Avoiding this effect may require them either to develop different dispositions from the h-traits, or to rewire their networks of trust so that their h-traits function more appropriately. Our claim is that the evaluative character of h-traits— whether they should be considered epistemically good or not—depends on the structure of the social networks in which agents find themselves. This idea could be given a strong inter­pretation, according to which epistemic virtues are partly constituted by the material, social, and political environment, or a weaker interpretation, according to which epistemic virtues are essentially embedded in material, social, and political environments.

The tension between myside and ourside bias is a problem because the h-traits are— ideally—supposed to forestall both individualistic manifestations of vanity, undue pride, and so on, and groupish manifestations of these vices such as “racism, sexism, ethnic hatred, religious hatred, and homophobia” (Spezio et al. 2018; see also Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2017; Christen, Robinson, and Alfano 2014).We thus need to reconsider how people can best ensure that h-traits are expressed in appropriate attitudes not only toward members of their own com­munities (a topic that has been addressed in the literature) but also toward those who belong to other communities (a topic that has been largely neglected).

Here is the plan for this paper: in Section 1, we argue that h-traits plausibly correct or ameliorate myside bias. Next, in Section 2 we argue that, given how people's social networks are typically structured, h-traits can be expected to lead to ourside bias. Finally, in Section 3 we explore three approaches to resolving the dilemma we've diagnosed. The first involves restructuring one's social network so that ourside bias is not exacerbated by h-traits.The second involves emulating the Socratic figure of the gadfly. And the third involves the Nietzschean virtue of solitude.

41.2