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13 McKinnon Epistemic Injustice

Key Themes and Concepts

  1. Epistemic Injustice:
  2. Defined as harm to someone in their capacity as a knower.

  3. Includes prejudices, implicit or explicit, that lead to a failure to believe testimony or marginalize certain voices.

  4. Credibility and Testimony:

  5. Hearers rely on various sources of information (e.g., a speaker's reliability, manner of delivery, background knowledge) to judge credibility.
  6. Credibility deficits occur when individuals are underestimated as credible due to identity-based biases.

  7. Credibility excesses involve overestimating someone’s credibility, which can perpetuate others' credibility deficits.

  8. Miranda Fricker's Contributions:

  9. Coined the term "epistemic injustice" and outlined two main types:
    • Testimonial Injustice: Occurs when prejudices lead to dismissing someone's testimony.
    • Hermeneutical Injustice: Happens when marginalized groups lack the shared resources to make sense of their experiences.
    • 证言上的不公正（Testimonial Injustice）：因偏见而忽视某人的证言。
    • 诠释上的不公正（Hermeneutical Injustice）：边缘化群体缺乏共享的诠释资源，无法理解或表达自身经验。

Detailed Points

Testimonial Injustice:

  • Examples and Case Studies:
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley: Marge's evidence about a murder is dismissed due to gendered prejudices, exemplifying credibility deficits.

  • To Kill a Mockingbird: Tom Robinson, a Black man, is disbelieved in court because of racial prejudices, demonstrating the intersection of credibility deficits and societal biases.

  • Critiques and Expansions:

  • Scholars like José Medina argue that Fricker's focus on deficits overlooks the interplay between deficits and excesses in credibility judgments. 过于关注可信度不足，而忽视了可信度过高与不足之间的相互作用。
  • Credibility is interactive and contextual rather than distributive, emphasizing comparisons across social dynamics.

Hermeneutical Injustice 诠释上的不公正：

  • Definition and Mechanisms:

    • Occurs when a gap in shared "hermeneutical resources" obstructs marginalized groups from understanding and expressing their experiences.
    • For instance, prior to the feminist movement, workplace harassment was often dismissed as harmless flirting.
    • 当共享的“诠释资源”不足以帮助边缘化群体理解和表达自身经验时，就会发生诠释上的不公正。
    • 例如，在女性主义运动之前，职场性骚扰常被视为“无害的调情”。

  • Resistance to Hermeneutical Progress:

    • Dominant groups may resist adopting new hermeneutical tools (e.g., acknowledging "white privilege" or "rape culture"), which perpetuates structural oppression.
    • 主流群体可能抵制接受新的诠释工具（例如“白人特权”或“强奸文化”），从而延续结构性压迫。

Extensions and Applications:

  • Epistemic Ignorance:

  • Marginalized individuals may lack resources to comprehend oppression, while dominant groups may remain willfully ignorant to maintain systemic inequalities.

  • Epistemic Violence and Oppression:

  • Exclusion of certain knowledge systems and dismissal of testimony causes political and epistemic harm, exemplifying epistemic violence.
  • Phenomena like "testimonial quieting" (ignoring someone's testimony entirely) and "testimonial smothering" (self-censorship due to anticipated dismissal) further deepen epistemic marginalization.

Implications and Broader Relevance:

  • Social Epistemology:
  • Recent trends recognize knowledge as inherently social, involving trust, power dynamics, and political considerations.

  • Questions of who is believed and why are critical to understanding how epistemic justice or injustice unfolds in societal structures.

  • Applications in Various Fields:

  • Explored in medical ethics, education, propaganda studies, and more.
  • Scholars connect epistemic injustice to broader societal issues like gaslighting, allyship, and developmental policy.