Abstract

Recognizing that the truth is socially constructed or that knowledge and power are related is hardly a novelty in the social sciences. In the twenty-first century, however, there appears to be a re...

Highlights

  • The politically contested nature of truth-claims and their manipulation via propaganda, ideology, and other forms of power, social construction, and knowledge production are a familiar mainstay of social scientific inquiry

  • Kidd (2017) notes that vice epistemology is devoted to three sorts of issues: first, to foundational issues concerning the nature and structure of epistemic vices; second, to studies of specific epistemic vices, such as epistemic malevolence (Baehr 2011), and other vices we examine below; and third, to applied vice epistemology, which explores how epistemic vices manifest in specific contexts, practices, systems, and communities

  • We have argued for the general importance of drawing on virtue epistemology to better understand the epistemic conduct of organizations and actors in organizational systems, in terms of contexts where claims to truth and knowledge are continually being expressed, renegotiated, and acted upon by epistemic agents

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The politically contested nature of truth-claims and their manipulation via propaganda, ideology, and other forms of power, social construction, and knowledge production are a familiar mainstay of social scientific inquiry. A growing number of scholars have begun voicing these concerns (de Bruin 2013, 2015), calling for an ‘epistemic ethics’ (Buchanan 2009), and the development of theory around epistemic–ethical interfaces In this vein, the current paper draws on an important, under-examined contemporary development in epistemology that acts to lift the contrived divide between the epistemic and the ethical: virtue (and vice) epistemology. We seek to contribute to virtue epistemology in business ethics by paying equal attention to important vices as well as just focusing on epistemic virtues. To this end, the current paper covers five key areas. We conclude by outlining a business ethics research agenda on epistemic vices, with implications for organizations and managers responding to epistemic vices and their illegitimacy in practice

Epistemic Virtues and Vices
Vice Epistemology and Conceptualizing Vices of the Mind
The Importance of Epistemic Vices in Addition to Virtues
Few Actors are Model Epistemic Agents
Epistemic Virtue Gives an Incomplete View of Epistemic
Amelioration of Conduct Depends on Uncovering and Understanding Epistemic Vices
Epistemic Malevolence
Epistemic Insouciance
Epistemic Hubris
Epistemic Injustice
Conclusion
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call