I was thinking about the connection between ethics and epistemology. I understand there is a whole sub-field of philosophy (moral epistemology) that concerns itself with how epistemology affects our ethical choices, e.g. "how do we know that this action is moral", but I was more interested in the other direction: how our ethics influences our ability to know things.
Here is an example:
As a scientist, there are scientific norms that you can interpret as an ethical code. You are not supposed to fudge your data, you should be open to having your ideas disproved by experiment, etc. The reason we have these norms is that if we don't follow them, it interferes with our ability to discern scientific truth. For example, if you let a conflict of interest undermine your objectivity, you may end up designing a flawed experiment that leads you to believe something that isn't true.
Basic "be kind to others" ethics also affect a scientist's ability to know truth. If you are a jackass scientist you are going to have a hard time finding good collaborators, postdocs and grad students, and this will affect your ability to perform good experiments and discover scientific truths.
Is there a broader philosophical discussion on how ethics affects epistemology in this way? I couldn't find anything with a few minutes of googling. This workshop seems somehow related to what I am looking for.
On their website it says:
This workshop aims to explore the possibility of an internal relation between ethics and epistemology. Ethics and epistemology are usually considered as two distinct philosophical domains. Ethics is seen as a source of external constraints on different domains of epistemic activity, and as providing an external model for the development of virtue epistemology. But when epistemology appeals to the traits of character of epistemic agents, such as courage or open-mindedness, as conditions for the formation of knowledge, is the image of two separate domains still appropriate? Wouldn’t the idea of an intrinsic contribution of ethics to epistemology be more relevant? Could ethical commitments then function as a productive component of the epistemic process? Seeing ourselves as epistemically responsible agents presupposes that our epistemic commitments involve choices for which we can be held responsible and which condition the acquisition of knowledge and may influence its content. To what extent do ethical commitments pertain to the choices that make us epistemically responsible?
The abstracts of the talks in this workshop don't seem to be that related to what I want.
Can anyone point me to any philosophical writing about this topic?