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In Daniel Featley's Life of Jewel, it is asserted that the ‘truth of love’ in biography should not ‘prejudice’ the ‘love of truth’. As this suggests a preference toward information that is truth-led as opposed to that that is love-led, it is also emphasized that love entails its own truth and this is the kind that is able to challenge the truth associated with intractable fact. The tensions between the two types of information that a biographer has to rule over are modified by Walton, specifically in the biographies discussed in this chapter. He had to give emphasis to the affectionate relationship that he shared with the subject to establish his credentials for making these biographies. This chapter looks into Walton's biographies of both John Donne and George Herbert that justify the ‘truth of love’.

This chapter explores the problem of what makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief. Otherwise known as the value problem, it distinguishes four ways a belief can possess value by evaluating its relation to truth: (i) a belief can have value because truth is its consequence; (ii) a belief can have teleological value in the Aristotelian sense — that is, the kind of value attributable to that which is a necessary component of a good natural end; (iii) assuming true beliefs are good, a belief can be valuable in that truth is its end in the sense of an aim; and (iv) a belief can be good in virtue of arising from a good motive — namely, valuing truth or disvaluing falsehood. Ultimately, the fourth way is superior to the first three because a belief that is motivated by valuing truth has the kind of value which makes knowledge better than mere true believing.

The personal worth conception of intellectual virtue introduced and defended in Chapter 6 is contrasted with five other accounts of intellectual or moral virtue in the literature. The accounts of Thomas Hurka (2002) and Robert Adams (2007) are shown to have certain significant similarities to a personal worth account, but also to have certain defects that are not shared by this account. The personal worth account is then contrasted with a naturalistic account of intellectual virtue inspired by Rosalind Hursthouse's (1999) theory of moral virtue, Julia Driver's (2000) consequentialist account of intellectual virtue, and Linda Zagzebski's (1996) motivational account of intellectual virtue. Substantive objections are raised against each of these conceptions. The result is a further defense of the personal worth conception of intellectual virtue.

This chapter is one of Zagzebski’s papers on the problem of what makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief, otherwise known as the value problem. I distinguish four ways a belief can possess value by its relation to the good of truth: (i) a belief can have value because truth is its consequence; (ii) a belief can have teleological value in the Aristotelian sense if truth is a necessary component of a good natural end; (iii) a belief can be valuable in that truth is its aim; and (iv) a belief can be good in virtue of arising from a good motive—namely, valuing truth or disvaluing falsehood. She argues that the fourth way is superior to the first three in explaining what makes knowledge better than mere true belief.