Intellectual Integrity as Intellectual Virtue

Abstract

In this paper, I examine intellectual integrity as one of the possible intellectual virtues. I also try to investigate the opposite notion, intellectual dishonesty. I conclude that intellectual dishonesty does not necessarily entail dishonesty in the moral sense, but just presupposes that an agent has her interest in a certain outcome of her research and that it influences her actions. The analyzed problem then looks as follows: on the one hand, we have every reason to believe that intellectual integrity is desirable for a researcher; on the other hand, this requirement is not strictly necessary. Why? I show that although intellectual dishonesty negatively affects an agent’s personal ability to comprehend the truth, it can contribute to the achievement of the truth at the social level. We get such an outcome as a result of the confrontation of such motivated agents.