Recovering a Role for Moral Character and Ascetic Practice in Religious Epistemology

Abstract

: Moral character and ascetic practice have not been major themes in contemporary analytic religious epistemology. But they have been major themes in the religious epistemologies of several influential historical figures, including the medieval Islamic philosopher al-Ghazâlî. This paper will be concerned with the place of moral character and ascetic practice in both al-Ghazâlî’s religious epistemology and in contemporary analytic religious epistemology. By reading al-Ghazâlî alongside contemporary work, I aim to highlight some fruitful ideas about how moral character and ascetic practice could play important roles in religious epistemology. I argue that the exploration of these ideas may be enriched via engagement with recent developments in mainstream epistemology and virtue theory, pointing toward future avenues for such work.