Abstract
This article uses philosopher Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice to shed light on the legal concept of the fiduciary, alongside demonstrating the wider contribution Fricker’s work can make to business ethics. Fiduciary, from the Latin fīdūcia, meaning “trust,” plays a fundamental role in all financial and business organisations: it acts as a moral safeguard of the relationship between trustee and beneficiary. The article focuses on the ethics of the fiduciary, but from a unique historical perspective, referring back to the original formulation of the fiduciary within a familial context to investigate presuppositions regarding agential capabilities, whilst also paying attention to the power mechanism embedded in the trustee–beneficiary relationship. Using Fricker’s theory of pre-emptive testimonial injustice, the analysis elucidates the impact of cumulative beneficiary silencing in contemporary contexts, and the article uncovers ethical issues of an epistemological kind at the core of the fiduciary—of epistemic injustice.
Highlights
This article uses philosopher Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice to shed light on the legal concept of the fiduciary, alongside demonstrating the wider contribution Fricker’s work can make to business ethics
Business Ethics Quarterly why a duty of care plays a central role in the fiduciary and to uncover key foundational presuppositions regarding agential capabilities embedded in the trustee–beneficiary relationship
The article builds on existing work on the power relationship implicit in the fiduciary and its historical origins in gender relations (Richardson 2011; Mussell 2020) by using philosopher Miranda Fricker’s (2009) insightful theory of epistemic injustice to explicate the position of the beneficiary
Summary
To successfully demonstrate how Miranda Fricker’s work can be used to contribute to business ethics by investigating epistemic injustice in the fiduciary, a brief. Drawing on insights from Fricker’s work on the impact of cumulative pre-emptive testimonial injustice on epistemic agents—of persistently excluding their testimonies—an analysis of two contemporary contexts in which the fiduciary is prevalent is offered. The first of these examines the persistent gender disparity in positions of trusteeship held by women. A discussion of the normative impact of the fiduciary relationship, how this ties to shareholder apathy, and what increasing shareholder activism reveals about this normativity are outlined This discussion leads to the crucial recognition that in light of the preceding revelations regarding the epistemic injustice embedded in the fiduciary, we must recognise the extent to which our financial structures and systems—in which the fiduciary in turn is fully embedded—are embodiments of pre-emptive testimonial injustice. The case is made that a future-fit fiduciary—or alternative arrangement— requires a realist rethink of agential capabilities, a re-emphasis on the trustee– beneficiary relationship, and a revisit to the good care ethics central to fiduciary
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