ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how hard the virtue epistemologist should take the news that there is no such thing as epistemic virtue. Reliabilists standardly list things like vision, memory, rational insight, inductive and deductive reasoning, and certain recognitional capacities. Though reliabilists are open to counting character traits as epistemic virtues, they do not usually focus on character traits. The concept of distinctively epistemic value derives from the concept of a distinctly epistemic reason. An epistemic reason is a reason for belief. 'Epistemic' (in a sense intended to be distinctive) and 'intellectual' are just synonyms for 'theoretical'. Epistemic reasons are: reasons to think that some thought accurately represents reality. Reliability has distinctively epistemic value insofar as it is oriented toward accuracy. This value is objectively instrumental. The mark of the distinctively epistemic comes from the nature of epistemic reasons. The science of epistemic reasons is 'theoretical reason' as opposed to 'practical reason'.
