Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T15:57:29.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Speak No Evil: Understanding Hermeneutical (In)justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2020

John Beverley*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Abstract

Miranda Fricker's original presentation of Hermeneutical Injustice left open theoretical choice points leading to criticisms and subsequent clarifications with the resulting dialectic appearing largely verbal. The absence of perspicuous exposition of hallmarks of Hermeneutical Injustice might suggest scenarios exhibiting some – but not all – such hallmarks are within its purview when they are not. The lack of clear hallmarks of Hermeneutical Injustice, moreover, obscures both the extent to which Fricker's proposed remedy Hermeneutical Justice – roughly, virtuous communicative practices – adequately addresses the injustice, and the accuracy of criticisms suggesting that Hermeneutical Justice is insufficient to the task. In what follows, after briefly defending necessary and sufficient conditions for what I take to be the best candidate interpretation of Hermeneutical Injustice, I build on recent work on moral responsibility to construct and defend a rigorous explication of Hermeneutical Justice.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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

Anderson, E. (2012). ‘Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Social Institutions.’ Social Epistemology 26(2), 163–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, J. (1997). ‘If Black English isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?' The Black Scholar 27(1), 56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenstain, N. (2016). ‘Epistemic Exploitation.' Ergo 3(22), 569–90.Google Scholar
Beverley, J. (2016). ‘The Ties that Undermine.’ Bioethics 30(5), 304–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beverley, J. and Beebe, J. (2017). ‘Judgments of Moral Responsibility in Tissue Donation Cases.’ Bioethics 32(2), 89–93.Google ScholarPubMed
Beverley, J. and Reischer, H.N. (2019). ‘Social Support Criterion in Organ Donation.’ American Journal of Bioethics 19(11), 32–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, K. (2011). ‘Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.’ Hypatia 26(2), 237–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, K. (2012). ‘A Cautionary Tale: On Limiting Epistemic Oppression.’ Frontiers 33(1), 2447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. Chicago, IL: A.C. McClurg & Co.; Cambridge, MA: University Press John Wilson and Son.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. (2010). ‘Replies to Alcoff, Goldberg, and Hookway on Epistemic Injustice.' Episteme 7(2), 164–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. (2012). ‘An Interview with Miranda Fricker.’ Social Epistemology 26(2), 253–63.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. (2016). ‘Epistemic Injustice and the Preservation of Ignorance.’ In Peels, R. and Blaauw, M. (eds), The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance, pp. 160–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. and Jenkins, K.T. (2017). ‘Epistemic Injustice, Ignorance, and Trans Experience.’ In A. Garry, S.J. Khader and A. Stone (eds), The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, pp. 268–78. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Futa, K.T., Nash, C.L., Hansen, D.J. and Garbin, C.P. (2003). ‘Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse: An Analysis of Coping Mechanisms used for Stressful Childhood Memories and Current Stressors.’ Journal of Family Violence 18(4), 227–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goetze, T. (2018). ‘Hermeneutical Dissent and the Species of Hermeneutical Injustice.’ Hypatia 33(1) 73–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hänel, H.C. (2018). What is Rape? Social Theory and Conceptual Analysis. Bielefeld: Transcript-Verlag.Google Scholar
Jenkins, K. (2017). ‘Rape Myths and Domestic Abuse Myths as Hermeneutical Injustices.’ Journal of Applied Philosophy 34(2), 191206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurthy, M., Lawford-Smith, H. and Sousa, P. (2017). ‘Does Ought Imply Can?' PLoS ONE 12(4), e0175206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kverme, B., Natvik, E., Veseth, M. and Moltu, C. (2019). ‘Moving Toward Connectedness – A Qualitative Study of Recovery Processes for People With Borderline Personality Disorder.’ Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kyratsous, M. and Sanati, A. (2017). ‘Epistemic Injustice and Responsibility in Borderline Personality Disorder.’ Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 23, 974980.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lorde, A. (1981). ‘The Uses of Anger.' Women's Studies Quarterly 9(3), 710.Google Scholar
Lowe, E.J. (2006). The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mason, R. (2011). ‘Two Kinds of Unknowing.’ Hypatia 26(2), 294307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, R. (Forthcoming). ‘Hermeneutical Injustice.' In Khoo, J. and Sterken, R. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McAdams, D.P. (2015). The Art and Science of Personality Development. New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
McMahan, J. (2002). Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, J. (2013). The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistance Imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, J. (2017 a). ‘Epistemic Injustice and Epistemologies of Ignorance.’ In P.C. Taylor, L.M. Alcoff and L. Anderson (eds), The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race, pp. 247–60. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Medina, J. (2017 b). ‘Varieties of Hermeneutical Injustice.’ In Kidd, I.J., Medina, J. and Pohlhaus, G. Jr (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, pp. 41–52. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mills, C. (2007). ‘White Ignorance.’ In S. Sullivan and N. Tuana (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 11–38. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Monaghan, J. (2018). ‘On Enforcing Unjust Laws in a Just Society.’ Philosophical Quarterly 68(273), 758–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, C.I. (2020). ‘Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles.’ Episteme 17(2), 141–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polhaus, G. Jr (2012). ‘Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance.’ Hypatia 27(4), 715–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reischer, H.N. and Cowan, H.R. (2020). ‘Quantity Over Quality? Reproducible Psychological Science from a Mixed Methods Perspective.’ Collabra: Psychology 6(1), 26. doi: http://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romdenh-Romluc, K. (2016). ‘Hermeneutical Injustice: Blood-sports and the English Defense League.’ Social Epistemology 30(5), 592610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simion, M. (Forthcoming). ‘Hermeneutical Injustice as Basing Failure.’ In Carter, J.A. and Bondy, P. (eds), Well-Founded Belief: New Essays on the Epistemic Basing Relation. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, B., Spear, A. and Ceusters, W. (2016). ‘Functions in Basic Formal Ontology.’ Applied Ontology 11, 103–28.Google Scholar
Sullivan, P. (2019). ‘Epistemic Injustice and Self-Injury: A Concept with Clinical Implications.’ Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 26(4), 349–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loon, Van and Kralik, D. (2005). Reclaiming Myself after Child Sexual Abuse. Glenside: St. Augustine Research Unit.Google Scholar
Ward, C. (1988). ‘Stress, Coping, and Adjustment in Victims of Sexual Assault: The Role of Psychological Defense Mechanisms.’ Counselling Psychology Quarterly 1, 165–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, N.E.W. (2019). The Powers Metaphysic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar