Alasdair MacIntyre’s challenge: Police corruption, management ethics, and the indispensable virtues of integrity and constancy

Abstract

This paper investigates some of the information conditions necessary for the preservation of police officers’ individual and collective moral agency, particularly the virtues of integrity and constancy, which can diminish in markedly rule-based, informationally impoverished, or corrupt work environments. We focus on one particular work from philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who explores the threat of social structures to moral agency by using the hypothetical case of J whose job it was to make the trains run on time while avoiding questions about the cargo. J’s supervisors and the broader social structure he occupies inhibited his capacity to be a full moral agent. In order to illustrate the relevance and application of MacIntyre’s argument to policing and the good justice, including the wider philosophical and economic problems of compartmentalization of moral agency, we draw from his framework to consider our own case study in policing inspired by a challenging era within the recent history of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (USA). Implications for leadership and management in policing are discussed.