Organizations in the Space of Reasons

Bounded rationality presents a challenge to the notion that virtue is a capacity for knowledge, suggesting that judgments concerning the salience of specific facts are, in some cases, an indication of one’s incapacity to appreciate the full range of normatively salient facts. This problem can be mitigated by linking an account of the virtues with a theory of organizations. From this perspective, virtue is inherently shaped by the norms structuring one’s role(s) and is linked to the complementary set of roles, that is, the organization, in which one is participating through the virtues of loyalty and obedience. Within this perspective, human cognitive limitations are made to be strengths, allowing one to focus on a narrow set of reasons for action linked with one’s role to better achieve salient aims as a member of the organization than one could as an isolated individual.