Closed-mindedness and Academic Practice: How an Intellectual Vice Can Infect the scientific community

Abstract

Closed-mindedness is an intellectual vice that that degrades people intellectually and practically. Academic practice, in particular, requires an open mind which is susceptible of critical dialogue, that is, the same virtues and skills that are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Thus, if we take closed-mindedness as a vice that should be avoided by the general public, it is a devastating flaw for academics in particular that undermines the different functions of their activities. In this paper, after outlining a framework that provides an opportunity to discuss the importance and impact of moral and intellectual virtues and vices on academic activity, we turn to the main features of closed-mindedness and what makes it an intellectual vice. Then, we show how this vice misleads the three functions of academic practice and degrades them, while open-mindedness enriches these functions and helps them to be realized in the best possible way.