Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:34:29.902Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

AGENTIAL INSENSITIVITY AND SOCIALLY SUPPORTED IGNORANCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2017

Lauren Woomer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I identify a form of epistemic insensitivity that occurs when someone fails to make proper use of the epistemic tools at their disposal in order to bring their beliefs in line with epistemically relevant evidence that is available to them. I call this kind of insensitivity agential insensitivity because it stems from the epistemic behavior of an individual agent. Agential insensitivity can manifest as a failure to either attend to relevant and available evidence, or appropriately interpret evidence that is attended to. The concept of agential insensitivity allows us to conceptualize the kind of not-knowing involved in forms of ignorance that are cultivated and maintained by individual agents, especially when this ignorance is enabled or encouraged by social structures. I use the skepticism about racial disparities in policing practices that is displayed by many white Americans as a lens for exploring this connection. Understanding agential insensitivity thus provides insight into both social and epistemic phenomena.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 73 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alcoff, L. 2007. ‘Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three Types.’ In Sullivan, S. and Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 39–58. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. 2015. Stop and Frisk in Chicago. http://www.aclu-il.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ACLU_StopandFrisk_6.pdf.Google Scholar
Anderson, E. 2012. ‘Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Social Institutions.’ Social Epistemology, 26: 163–73.Google Scholar
Balz, D. and Clement, S. 2014. ‘On Racial Issues, America Is Divided Both Black and White and Red and Blue.’ Washington Post, 27 December. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-racial-issues-america-is-divided-both-black-andwhite-and-red-and-blue/2014/12/26/3d2964c8-8d12-11e4a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html.Google Scholar
Code, L. 1995. Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cooper, B. 2015. ‘Black America's “Gaslight” Nightmare: The Psychological Warfare Being Waged Against Black Lives Matter.’ Salon.com, 2 September. http://www.salon.com/2015/09/02/black-americas-gaslight-nightmare-the-psychologicalwarfare-being-waged-against-black-lives-matter/.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, K. W. and Ritchie, A. J. 2015. Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women. New York, NY: African American Policy Forum. http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f20d90e4b0b80451158d8c/t/55a810d7e4b058f342f55873/1437077719984/AAPF_SMN_Brief_full_singles.compressed.pdf.Google Scholar
Ditto, P. H. and Lopez, D. F. 1992. ‘Motivated Skepticism: Use of Differential Decision Criteria for Preferred and Nonpreferred Conclusions.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63: 568–84.Google Scholar
Edwards, K. and Smith, E. E. 1996. ‘A Disconfirmation Bias in the Evaluation of Arguments.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71: 5–24.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frye, M. 1983. The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Grasswick, H. E. 2004. ‘Individuals-in-Communities: The Search for a Feminist Model of Epistemic Subjects.’ Hypatia, 19: 85–120.Google Scholar
Kahan, D. M. 2013. ‘Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection.’ Judgment and Decision Making, 8: 407–24.Google Scholar
Kunda, Z. 1987. ‘Motivation and Inference: Self-Serving Generation and Evaluation of Evidence.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53: 636–47.Google Scholar
Kunda, Z. 1990. ‘The Case for Motivated Reasoning.’ Psychological Bulletin, 108: 480–98.Google Scholar
Medina, J. 2012. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. W. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. W. 2007 ‘White Ignorance.’ In Sullivan, S. and Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 11–38. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Mogul, J. L., Ritchie, A. J. and Whitlock, K. 2011. Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Molden, D. C. and Higgins, E. T. 2005. ‘Motivated Thinking.’ In Holyoak, K.J. and Morrison, R.G. (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning, pp. 295–317. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
National Association of Police Organizations. 2016. ‘NAPO Statement on the Murders of Dallas Police Officers.’ 12 July. http://www.napo.org/washington-report/latest-news-updates/napo-statement-murders-dallas-police-officers-napo-meets-president-and-vice-president-over-shootings-napo-news-congress-adjourns/.Google Scholar
Nelson, L. H. 1990. Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2016. ‘How Blacks and Whites View the State of Race in America.’ Pew Research Center, 24 June. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/state-of-race-in-america/Google Scholar
Pohlhaus, G. Jr. 2012. ‘Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance.’ Hypatia, 27: 715–35.Google Scholar
Ritchie, B. 2012. Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and America's Prison Nation. New York, NY: New York University.Google Scholar
Taber, C. S. and Lodge, M. 2006. ‘Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.’ American Journal of Political Science, 50: 755–69.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. 2016. Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3010223-BPD-Findings-Report.html#document/p8.Google Scholar