Cultivating Intellectual Virtue in Religion: A Hemispheric Approach

Abstract The hemisphere hypothesis suggests that the brain is tuned to two complementary ways of attending to reality, the global-intuitive right hemisphere mode and the focal-analytic left hemisphere mode. I explore ways of applying this hypothesis to intellectual virtues and virtue epistemology in the context of religion. I argue that the right hemisphere approach is the key to understanding narratives, myths, and rituals and to grasping the relational and ethical dimensions of religion. The left hemisphere contributes to conceptual and doctrinal clarity as well as to the communicability of religions. I further argue that the right hemisphere is connected to virtues of dependence (humility, deference, and trust), virtues of the new and the unknown (open-mindedness and curiosity), and understanding. The left hemisphere mode is important for intellectual autonomy and virtues of rigor (inquisitiveness and criticism) as well as intellectual perseverance.