ABSTRACT
This chapter explains moral responsibility and for knowledge. It suggests that such capacities are only knowledge-conducive when they work against the background of suitable responsibilist virtues. The chapter begins with a short statement of the case to be made on the other side: on behalf of an unqualified 'no' to our question. Even if the Assistant Royal Astronomer is motivated to do excellent work, hoping for a promotion, it is not clear that his good work—which does exemplify the various epistemic virtues—is any the less virtuous for that. For if knowledge without epistemic responsibility is not, by concession, actionable—this seriously undercuts its value. Without the responsibilist, motivationally driven epistemic virtues, we remain, it could be said, normatively paralyzed. We may wonder whether mere reliabilist virtues can ever yield epistemic responsibility.
