Epistemic Vices in Organizations: Knowledge, Truth, and Unethical Conduct

Abstract

Recognizing that 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 renewed concern regarding people's relationship with the truth and the propensity for certain actors to undermine it. Organizations are highly implicated in this, given their central roles in knowledge management and production and their attempts to learn, although the entanglement of these epistemological issues with business ethics has not been engaged as explicitly as it might be. Drawing on work from a virtue epistemology perspective, this paper outlines the idea of a set of epistemic vices permeating organizations, along with examples of unethical epistemic conduct by organizational actors. While existing organizational research has examined various epistemic virtues that make people and organizations effective and responsible epistemic agents, much less is known about the epistemic vices that make them ineffective and irresponsible ones. Accordingly, this paper introduces vice epistemology, a nascent but growing subfield of virtue epistemology which, to the best of our knowledge, has yet to be explicitly developed in terms of business ethics. The paper concludes by outlining a business ethics research agenda on epistemic vice, with implications for responding to epistemic vices and their illegitimacy in practice.

Epistemic in/justice: Towards ‘Other’ ways of knowing

“…The two need not be mutually exclusive. A 'double' victim of this sort of injustice could both have their views not believed or distorted/misrepresented by powerful others whilst also doubting their own minds in representing their reality credibly and capably to themselves and others (Baird and Calvard, 2019). Furthermore, hermeneutical marginalisation is compounded by testimonial injustice, whereby the subordination and persistent exclusion of Others from research practices/knowledge production from which they might derive value, further reinforces their subjugation.…”

A brief introduction to virtue epistemology

“…jer se, barem u izvesnoj meri, možemo smatrati odgovornim i za posedovanje same osobine i za postupke u kojima se ona ispoljava (Baird & Calvard 2019). Iako je ukazivanje na ova dva pristupa opšte mesto u većini pregleda epistemologije vrline, ta činjenica ne treba da nas navede na pomisao da se vode neke žestoke debate oko pitanja kako treba shvatiti intelektualnu vrlinu -relijabilistički ili responsibilistički.…”

“…Pre bi se moglo reći da se ovi pristupi na neki način komplementarni u okviru epistemologije vrline. Većina autora se opredeli za jedan pristup uvažavajući doprinose drugog, kao što možemo da vidimo u sledećem primeru: "Iako relijabilizam poroka nudi značajan doprinos savremenim problemima epistemologije, mi ga ne nalazimo korisnim za svrhe ovog rada..." (Baird & Calvard 2019). Pojedini autori ukazuju ne potrebu da se na neki način (bilo sintezom, bilo obuhvatnijom analizom samog pojma epistemičke vrline) prevaziđe ova podela, smatrajući da postoji prostor za jedinstven i sveobuhvatan pristup epistemologiji vrline (npr.…”

The epistemic vices of corporations

“…Epistemic vices are qualities of individuals or collectives that undermine the creation, sharing, and storing of knowledge (Baehr, 2011 ; Battaly, 2015 ; Cassam, 2016 ; 2019 ; de Bruin, 2015 ). In individuals, epistemic vices such as rigidity and indifference have been found to be associated with belief in conspiracy theories, the endorsement of fake news, and of myths about Covid-19 (Meyer, Alfano, and de Bruin, 2021 ).…”