Abstract
Scholars of epistemology have identified two conceptions of epistemic injustice: discriminatory epistemic injustice and distributive epistemic injustice. The former refers to wrongs to one’s capacity as a knower that are the result of identity prejudice. The latter refers to violations of one’s right to know what one is entitled to know. This essay advances a third conception, formative epistemic injustice, which refers to wrongs to one’s capacity as a knower that are the result of or result in malformation—the undue restriction of one’s formative capacities. The author argues that formative epistemic injustice is a distinctly educational wrong and that it brings to light important epistemic injustices that standard accounts of epistemic injustice either downplay or are unable to capture. This third conception of epistemic injustice is an important analytic tool for theorizing both epistemic injustice and educational justice.
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Notes
Note that the third conception that I talk of here refers to a whole new category of epistemic injustice. It is not to be confused with subcategories of standard conceptions of epistemic injustice. For example, the third conception I advance should not be confused with what Kristie Dotson (2012) calls a “third-order epistemic injustice” or “contributory injustice.” Dotson’s third-order epistemic injustice falls under discriminatory epistemic injustice and so is a subcategory of one of the two standard conceptions. See the next section for an account of contributory injustice.
The term willful hermeneutical ignorance was coined by Gaile Pohlhaus Jr. (2012).
Critics of Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice such as Dotson (2012), Medina (2013), and Pohlhaus (2012) observe, correctly in my opinion, that dominant epistemic resources are wrongly perceived as “common” by dominant groups (including Fricker whose account of hermeneutical marginalization is premised on the existence of a “common pool” of epistemic resources) when in fact multiple marginalized epistemic resources exist that are purposely disregarded by dominant groups. This purposeful disregard lies at the heart of Pohlhaus’ (2012) “willful hermeneutical ignorance” and Dotson’s (2012) contributory injustice.
This account of epistemic oppression is the epistemic equivalent of Iris Marion Young’s (1990) five faces of oppression.
Elsewhere Martin (2016) provides a Habermasian account of formative epistemic injustice, referring to it as developmental coercion.
Interestingly, like Martin’s account of formative epistemic injustice, Fricker’s account of discriminatory epistemic injustice is also secondarily educational since it holds formative implications with regard to identity formation (see next section).
That Beeby (2011) has in mind such an educational wrong becomes apparent when she suggests that an account of hermeneutical injustice that place capabilities at its center would be more promising (485). Her reference to capabilities is based on Sen’s (2000) and Nussbaum’s (2000) capabilities approach.
Medina (2012, 213–214; 2013, 107) rejects Fricker’s claim that the hermeneutical lacuna of a privileged person is merely a case of epistemic bad luck, when it leads them to commit an injustice against marginalized individuals. Rather, he claims, that it is a case of hermeneutical injustice because, even though the person who suffers from the cognitive disablement is not the same as the one who suffers the injustice, the injustice is committed as a result of the cognitive disablement. Notice that Medina’s account of epistemic injustice also falls under discriminatory epistemic injustice in that the locus of injustice is discrimination. The privileged person’s hermeneutical disadvantage is a wrong but not to themself; it is a wrong to the marginalized person who is unjustly discriminated against by the hermeneutically disadvantaged privileged person. Medina’s account thus also dismisses cases of malformation.
Similar with his critique of Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice, Medina (2011) argues that the credibility excess of a speaker may constitute a testimonial injustice for their interlocutor whose credibility could, by relation, be deflated. Again, testimonial injustice here is the result of discrimination.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Winston Thompson for providing me with extensive feedback in an earlier version of the essay as well as my anonymous reviewers whose feedback was critical for strengthening the argument.
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Nikolaidis, A.C. A Third Conception of Epistemic Injustice. Stud Philos Educ 40, 381–398 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-021-09760-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-021-09760-1