Abstract

Epistemic Responsibility means that scientists are responsible for their research being suitable to contribute to our understanding of the world, or at least some part of the world. As will be shown with the example of computer simulations in social sciences, this is unfortunately far from being understood as a matter of course. Rather, there exist whole research traditions in which the bulk of the contributions is quite free from any tangible purpose of enhancing our knowledge about anything. This essay is concerned with the causes of this phenomenon and pleads for taking epistemic responsibility as a scientific virtue serious. Science should be organized in such a way that it is possible and likely that scientists will assume epistemic responsibility for their research tasks.