The Epistemic Roots of Moral Injury: Phronetic Injustice and the Weaponization of Ignorance

This paper introduces the concept of phronetic injustice—a form of epistemic injustice that specifically wrongs individuals as moral knowers—and demonstrates how it constitutes a systematic pathway to moral injury. When powerful actors perpetrate epistemic malpractice by manipulating, concealing, or fabricating morally relevant information, they corrupt the epistemic foundations necessary for virtuous moral deliberation. From propaganda obscuring ongoing genocides to educational sanitization and ideological censorship, these manipulations are able to compromise the exercise of practical wisdom (phronesis) on a massive scale, causing otherwise virtuous individuals to become complicit in atrocities through epistemic manipulation rather than personal moral failure. This corruption frequently results in moral injury as agents discover themselves complicit in actions that fundamentally violate their deepest moral commitments. In an era of mass atrocities and sophisticated disinformation campaigns, deepfakes, and AI-amplified information warfare, understanding this concept of phronetic injustice is critical for both individual flourishing and collective responses to injustice.