Kimon Sourlas-Kotzamanis (Wolfson College): Epistemic Injustice and its Place in Epistemology and Ethics
A crucial claim made by Fricker in Epistemic Injustice is that epistemic justice is not merely a specific case of distributive justice concerning the distribution of epistemic goods. Rather, it is necessary that there is a victim who is “wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower” (20). I defend Fricker’s claim by arguing that undermining someone as a knower is a wrong in light of distinctively epistemic obligations.
However, I remain unconvinced that hermeneutical injustice—one of Fricker’s two paradigm types of epistemic injustice alongside testimonial injustice—meets this condition. From this, I argue that there is more to the ethics of knowing than epistemic injustice. And yet hermeneutical injustice is still a kind of (moral) injustice. In order to get this intuitive result, we need to establish the moral significance of epistemic agency. Once we do so, the place of epistemic injustice in Ethics becomes apparent.
Additional Information: Ockham will be held on MS Teams during MT20. Please email alexander.read@philosophy.ox.ac.uk if you wish to attend.
