Can our epistemic environments render us closed-minded? This paper argues that they can. Drawing insights from feminist character theory, I examine two ways in which our epistemic environments can render us closed-minded. First, they can cause us to develop the intrinsic dispositions necessary for closed-mindedness. Our environments and their structures of power and our social locations in them can cause us to be unwilling or constitutionally unable to engage seriously with relevant alternatives to our beliefs. Second, closed-mindedness can also be relational: whether a person is closed-minded will partly depend on extrinsic features of her environment—on whether or not her environment supplies relevant intellectual options with which to engage. Drawing on relational accounts of autonomy and agency, I argue that just as one won’t have autonomy or agency in an environment that severely restricts freedom and opportunity, one won’t be open-minded in an environment that severely restricts intellectual options (e.g., an echo chamber). The absence of intellectual options renders one closed-minded, even when one has the intrinsic dispositions necessary for open-mindedness. Overall closed-mindedness (CMER) is an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options or to revise one’s beliefs.
