Philosophers

Do academics in particular have a moral responsibility to be outspokenly critical of social injustice?

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I suggest that all people have a moral responsibility to be outspokenly critical of social injustice (under normal conditions when being outspoken does not provoke even more injustice, and so on) and because academics are people (let us hope so!), they too have such a duty.

But I take it you are asking, more specifically, about the particular duties that an "academic" has; does a scholar, teacher, professor, administrator functioning in an educational academy have a special duty in this matter? I am not sure it is a duty, but I think it is certainly permissible for academics and an academy itself to take a stand on social injustice. The American Philosophical Association has done so from time to time, and it has censored institutions that it believes use unfair practices of discrimination.

The journal Ethics and International Affairs had a symposium on this question very recently, see

www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2012/summer-2012-issue-26-2/--

focused mostly of the topic of world poverty as addressed by the new organization Academics Stand Against Poverty (www.academicsstand.org). <Fair disclosure, I have been involved with both ASAP and the E&IA symposium.>

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