The paper argues that some tools from the epistemic injustice literature can be fruitfully applied to the debate on epistemic decolonisation. The first step for such a project is to defuse recent misgivings about the liberatory potential of epistemic injustice scholarship. I group these misgivings under the slogan ‘Epistemic injustice is white-people stuff’, or ‘the WPS challenge’, for short, and use them to set desiderata for good theorising with epistemic injustice tools. I then look at three such tools – epistemic (...) oppression, white ignorance, and contributory injustice – and argue that they advance theorising epistemic decolonisation while meeting the three desiderata. If the argument works, its implications for the topic of this special issue are that we don’t need to decolonise epistemic injustice; we can instead use the tools of the epistemic injustice literature to advance the decolonisation project. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between epistemic freedom, and epistemic injustice and epistemic oppression. I situate epistemic freedom within the larger project of epistemic decolonisation and argue that epistemic freedom is central to both its positive and negative programme. Through exploring the intersections of the notion of epistemic freedom and the scholarship on epistemic injustice and oppression, I argue that one can think of epistemic injustices and oppression as infringements on epistemic freedom. I identify shared themes between the theorisation of (...) epistemic freedom and the literature on epistemic injustice and epistemic oppression, including silencing, active ignorance, and epistemic exploitation. I briefly explore each of these themes, identifying both intersections and divergences. Lastly, I draw on the literature on epistemic injustice and oppression to sharpen Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2018. Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization. London: Routledge) general conception of epistemic freedom and develop a tripartite structure for what substantial epistemic freedom entails. I argue that being epistemically free entails being able to choose one’s epistemic endeavours, having the means to pursue them, as well as being able to meaningfully partake in the shared endeavours of the epistemic communities that one belongs to. (shrink)

With few exceptions, philosophers working on immigration have not taken up the topic of epistemic injustice, primarily, I imagine, because immigration justice is often too narrowly conceived of as encompassing moral and political concerns rather than epistemic ones. But the more I think about the injustices immigrants endure on a daily basis, the more I take this to be a mistake; epistemic injustices must be seen as a central aspect of immigration injustice too. In what follows, I will demonstrate how (...) this is the case. More specifically, after providing an overview of the nature of epistemic injustice, I will highlight some examples of it in the lives of displaced Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia. In doing so, I hope to show why discussions about immigration injustice must include identifying and confronting epistemic wrongs. (shrink)

We suggest that philosophical accounts of epistemic effects of diversity have given insufficient attention to the relationship between demographic diversity and information elaboration, the process whereby knowledge dispersed in a group is elicited and examined. We propose an analysis of IE that clarifies hypotheses proposed in the empirical literature and their relationship to philosophical accounts of diversity effects. Philosophical accounts have largely overlooked the possibility that demographic diversity may improve group performance by enhancing IE, and sometimes fail to explore the (...) relationship between diversity and IE altogether. We claim these omissions are significant from both a practical and theoretical perspective. Moreover, we explain how the overlooked explanations suggest that epistemic benefits of diversity can depend on epistemically unjust social dynamics. (shrink)

Court cases involving sexual assault and police violence rely heavily on victim testimony. We consider what we call the “Traumatic Untrustworthiness Argument (TUA)” according to which we should be skeptical about victim testimony because people are particularly liable to misremember traumatic events. The TUA is not obviously based in mere distrust of women, people of color, disabled people, poor people, etc. Rather, it seeks to justify skepticism on epistemic and empirical grounds. We consider how the TUA might appeal to the (...) psychology and neuroscience of memory for empirical support. However, we argue that neither support the TUA. (shrink)

What makes an injustice epistemic rather than ethical or political? How does the former, more recent category relate to the latter, better-known forms of injustice? To address these questions, the papers of this Special Issue investigate epistemic injustice in close connection to different conceptions of agency, both epistemic and practical.

In addition to opening a fertile field for inquiry in analytical social epistemology, Miranda Fricker’s work has provided powerful conceptual tools that merge descriptive capacity and political potency. For this reason, over the last fifteen years, the conceptual repertoire introduced by the author has been well received in both academic and political arenas. At times, the concepts of both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice acquire excessive dimensions in the literature, and this undermines, on the one hand, their analytical precision and, on (...) the other, their usefulness. In this paper I argue against Fricker’s structural parallelism thesis and defend an independent treatment of each of these concepts. On this basis, to counteract the hyperinflation of the concept of hermeneutic injustice, I proceed with an exercise of conceptual precision. To this end, I identify the conditions that make hermeneutic injustice both unjust and hermeneutic. Finally, I present theoretical and practical reasons to encourage the rigorous use of these concepts. (shrink)

Demographic diversity might often be present in a group without group members noticing it. What are the epistemic effects if they do? Several philosophers and social scientists have recently argued that when individuals detect demographic diversity in their group, this can result in epistemic benefits even if that diversity doesn’t involve cognitive differences. Here I critically discuss research advocating this proposal, introduce a distinction between two types of detection of demographic diversity, and apply this distinction to the theorizing on diversity (...) in science. Focusing on ‘invisible’ diversity, I argue that in one common kind of group in science, if group members have full insight into their group’s diversity, this is likely to create epistemic costs. These costs can be avoided and epistemic benefits gained if group members only partly detect their group’s diversity. There is thus an epistemic reason for context-dependent limitations on scientists’ insight into the diversity of their group. (shrink)

Fricker‘s Epistemic Injustice discusses the idea of testimonial injustice, specifically, being harmed in one‘s capacity as a knower. Fricker‘s own theory of testimonial injustice emphasizes the role of prejudice. She argues that prejudice is necessary for testimonial injustice and that when hearers use a prejudice to give a deficit to the credibility of speakers hearers intrinsically harm speakers in their capacity as a knower. This paper rethinks the connections between prejudice and testimonial injustice. I argue that many cases of prejudicial (...) credibility deficits do not intrinsically harm speakers. Further, I suggest that prejudice is not necessary for harming speakers. I provide my own proposal on which testimonial injustice occurs when speaker‘s capacity as a giver of knowledge is interfered with in important ways. My proposal does not give prejudice any essential role. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that moral deference is prima facie obligatory in cases in which the testifier is a member of a marginalized social group that the receiver is not and testifies about their marginalized experience. We distinguish between two types of deference: epistemic deference, which refers to believing p in virtue of trusting the testifier, and actional deference, which involves acting appropriately in response to the testimony given. The prima facie duty we propose applies to both epistemic and (...) actional deference, though defeaters may quash either or both obligations. Even if one fails to epistemically defer to the marginalized testifier, we argue that they may still be ethically obligated to act in accordance with their testimony. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between hermeneutical injustice in religious settings and religious trauma and spiritual violence. In it I characterize a form of hermeneutical injustice that arises when experiences are obscured from collective understanding by normatively laden concepts, and I argue that this form of HI often plays a central role in cases of religious trauma and spiritual violence, even those involving children. In section I, I introduce the reader to the phenomena of religious trauma and spiritual violence. In (...) section II, I describe the role normatively laden concepts play in shaping our social experience. I then elucidate how they can contribute to HI. In section III, I provide a brief overview of the history of some significant identity prejudices in the history of Christianity and argue that children can properly be understood as victims of HI within some religious communities. I then return in section IV to the examples of religious trauma and spiritual violence offered throughout the article and demonstrate that HI plays an important causal role in each of them. HIs sometimes constitute spiritual and religious harms; at other times they create an epistemic environment conducive to spiritual abuse. (shrink)

The 2007 publication of Miranda Fricker’s celebrated book Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing gave way to a burgeoning area of study in philosophy of education. The book’s arguments create a context for expanding the scope of work on epistemic issues in education by moving beyond direct explorations of the distribution of epistemic goods and the role of power in curriculum development. Since that time, the rich scholarship on epistemic injustice in philosophy of education examines a variety of (...) topics, including the impact of epistemic injustice on the experiences of teachers and learners more broadly (focussing mostly on students who are marginalized along lines of race, gender, class, and ability, amongst others) and the implications of epistemic injustice for educational research, policy, and practice. This special issue extends this line of work by compiling a set of articles that address a broad range of topics, some of which are well established in the literature and some of which open new lines of inquiry in the field. In doing so, the issue aims to establish the intersection of epistemic injustice and education as a distinct area of study that holds great significance and potential. In this paper, A. C. Nikolaidis and Winston C. Thompson introduce the issue by discussing these contributions, explaining why education is central to the study of epistemic injustice (and vice versa), and exploring the complex nature of epistemic injustice and education as revealed in the articles that comprise this collection—namely, education’s simultaneous complicity as a perpetrator and promise as a disruptor of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic illness that requires intensive lifelong management of blood glucose concentrations by means of external insulin administration. There have been substantial developments in the ways of measuring glucose levels, which is crucial to T1D self-management. Recently, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has allowed people with T1D to keep track of their blood glucose levels in near real-time. These devices have alarms that warn users about potentially dangerous blood glucose trends, which can often be shared with (...) ther people. CGM is consistently associated with improved glycemic control and reduced hypoglycemia and is currently recommended by doctors. However, due to the costs of CGM, only those who qualify for hospital provision or those who can personally afford it are able to use it, which excludes many people. In this paper, I argue that unequal access to CGM results in: (1) unjust health inequalities, (2) relational injustice, (3) injustice with regard to agency and autonomy, and (4) epistemic injustice. These considerations provide prima facie moral reasons why all people with T1D should have access to CGM technology. I discuss the specific case of CGM policy in the Netherlands, which currently only provides coverage for a small group of people with T1D, and argue that, especially with additional considerations of cost-effectiveness, the Dutch government ought to include CGM in basic health care insurance for all people with T1D. (shrink)

My main aim in this paper is to examine whether gossip should be categorized as an epistemically valuable character trait. Gossip satisfies the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an acquired character trait to be classified as an intellectual virtue under the responsibilist understanding of the concept of virtue. The excellent gossiper is motivated to acquire epistemic goods through gossiping, reliably successful in acquiring epistemic goods through gossiping, competent at the activity of gossiping and good at judging when, with whom (...) and what to gossip. Nonetheless, I show that the excellent gossiper inflicts epistemic wrong on others. The excellent gossiper comes to intentionally acquire another person’s private information without their consent. This leaves virtue responsibilists with three options: resist my argument that gossip qualifies as a responsibilist virtue and/or that excellent gossiping inflicts epistemic wrong, bite the bullet and argue that the intellectually virtuous agent sometimes inflicts epistemic wrong on other agents intentionally, develop a no-wrong principle that disqualifies gossip from being categorized as an intellectual virtue. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to present and discuss a novel understanding of the nature of epistemic vice. I highlight that epistemic vice such as excessive curiosity, gossip and excessive inquisitiveness do not obstruct the acquisition, transmission and retention of knowledge and are not characterized by a deficiency of epistemic desires or vicious epistemic motivations. However, I argue that such traits ought to be classified as epistemic vices because the agent who possesses them causes epistemic harm to other agents (...) through those traits’ characteristic activities.To remedy obstructivism’s inability to account for vices that cause epistemic harm in other ways besides blocking effective epistemic inquiry, I propose an amended version of this theory. I argue that epistemic vices are character traits, attitudes, and ways of thinking that obstruct the acquisition, transmission, and retention of knowledge and/or cause other kinds of epistemic harm. In addition, I propose a modified version of motivationalism that cashes out non-obstructing, excess-motivation vices in terms of motivation simply by acknowledging, and incorporating into theory, excessive epistemic drives and the negative epistemic (and non-epistemic) consequences stemming from them. (shrink)

Many philosophers endorse the ideal of justice yet disagree radically over what that ideal requires. One persistent problem for thinking about justice is that the unjust social arrangements that originally motivated our questions may also distort our thinking about possible answers. This paper suggests some strategies for improving our thinking about justice in the unjust meantime. As our world becomes more just, we may expect our thinking about justice to improve.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems increasingly purport to deliver knowledge about people and the world. Unfortunately, they also seem to frequently present results that repeat or magnify biased treatment of racial and other vulnerable minorities. This paper proposes that at least some of the problems with AI’s treatment of minorities can be captured by the concept of epistemic injustice. To substantiate this claim, I argue that (1) pretrial detention and physiognomic AI systems commit testimonial injustice because their (...) target variables reflect inaccurate and unjust proxies for what they claim to measure; (2) classification systems, such as facial recognition, commit hermeneutic injustice because their classification taxonomies, almost no matter how they are derived, reflect and perpetuate racial and other stereotypes; and (3) epistemic injustice better explains what is going wrong in these types of situations than does the more common focus on procedural (un)fairness. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice has rapidly become a powerful tool for analysis of otherwise hidden social harms. Yet empirical research into how resistance to knowing and understanding can be generated and replicated in social programmes is limited. We have identified a range of subtle and not-so-subtle inflections of epistemic injustice as they play out in an intervention for people with chronic depression in receipt of disability benefits. This article describes the different ‘species’ of epistemic injustice observed and reveals how these are unintentionally (...) produced at frontline, management, commissioning and policy levels. Most notably, there remains a privileging of clinical knowledge over other forms of knowledge, producing a ‘pathocentric epistemic complex’. This, combined with the failure of different agencies with competing ideologies to adequately understand each other, and a vicious policy context, added to the injustices already faced by people with mental health issues, generating multiple harms. This has important implications for a range of integrated care and welfare interventions – not least by drawing attention to their unintended potential for replicating epistemic injustice as an institutionalised complex. Careful evaluation and design of such programmes, applying the philosophical and epistemic resources illustrated here, can help mitigate this outcome. Further, by raising awareness of epistemic injustice among programme participants, we can generate epistemic structures that secure programme integrity locally, and promote better policy. (shrink)

In this manuscript, I claim that the search for justice implies a complete reconfiguration of public space and a (radical) transformation of our social relations. I will argue through a negative path, i.e. starting from the comprehension of the experience of injustice. I will focus on the case of epistemic injustice since it illustrates how the unjustified harm it produces is originated in the structure of social relations. To reach my goal, I will attempt to bring into dialogue two different (...) philosophical debates —that which deals with the notion of the public space and that which discusses epistemic injustice—. This will help me show that epistemology has a fundamental and profound political dimension which needs to be addressed to find better avenues to search for and reach (epistemic and otherwise) justice. My main contention is that the possibility of constructing a functional public space depends on recognizing the confrontational character of politics and on not trying to erase the differences that make up society, nor trying to undo them under the idea of a (rational) consensus. (shrink)

Climate science denial results from ignorance and perpetuates ignorance about scientific facts and methods of inquiry. In this paper, I explore climate science denial as a type of active ignorance...

Among feminist philosophers, there are two lines of argument that sexist values are illegitimate in science, focusing on epistemic or ethical problems. This article supports a third framework, elucidating how value-laden science can enable epistemic oppression. My analysis demonstrates how purported knowledge laden with sexist values can compromise epistemic autonomy and contribute to paternalism and misogyny. I exemplify these epistemic wrongs with a case study of the morning-after pill during its 2006 switch to over-the-counter availability and its new drug label (...) from the US Food and Drug Administration that it “may prevent implantation.” Antiabortion science advisers created this label to protect zygotes based on debated value judgments that were later concealed. This zygote-centric knowledge enabled them to shape potential users by instructing “good mothers” that they ought to protect zygotes and punishing “bad mothers” by refusing their requests for the drug. Therefore, I argue that the sexist values and gender norms of antiabortionists that prioritize zygotic health are illegitimate in this context because they cause epistemic injustices and perpetuate epistemic oppression. Furthermore, I advocate against blanket protections for the “right to conscience” and “religious freedom” of healthcare providers because they reinforce the epistemic oppression of women, especially those on the margins.Content Warning: This article discusses sexual assault and refusals to provide contraception to patients, including survivors. (shrink)

Recent epistemology offers an account of what it is to know other persons. Such views hold promise for illuminating several issues in philosophy of religion, and for advancing a distinctive approach to religious epistemology. This paper develops an account of interpersonal knowledge, and clarifies its relation to propositional and qualitative knowledge. I then turn to our knowledge of God and God's knowledge of us, and compare my account of interpersonal knowledge with important work by Eleonore Stump on "Franciscan" knowledge. I (...) examine how interpersonal knowledge may figure in liturgical practice, in diffusing the problem of divine hiddenness, and in motivating a novel understanding of divine love. I also explore the possibility of epistemic injustice arising from dismissal or neglect of our religious testimony to one another, or of divine testimony to humanity, focusing specifically on the import of interpersonal knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I expand our framework for epistemic injustice by shifting focus from epistemic evaluations of individuals in information exchange to epistemic evaluations of individuals engaging their know-how in performance. I call the injustice to individuals qua knowers-how performative injustice, and I argue that performative injustice has distinct features worth understanding apart from varieties of epistemic injustice devoted to information exchange. I develop an account of the performative authority that is unfairly evaluated in cases of performative injustice and show (...) how, in some cases, cognitive penetration can affect observers’ evaluations. Finally, I show how stereotype threat may short circuit what would otherwise be cases of performative injustice, which in turn reveals the significance of its systemic manifestations. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to highlight the epistemic dimension present in the testimony of victims of sexual violence, which takes place through various mechanisms of epistemic injustice, whether testimonial or hermeneutic. In order to show the effects of the relation between epistemic wrongs and sexual violence, I focus on some cases of sexual injustice in Mexican society which support the contention that the systematic recurrence of sexual violence and epistemic injustices lead to a particular form of epistemic dehumanization.

Miranda Fricker distinguishes two senses in which testimonial injustice is epistemic. In the primary sense, it is epistemic because it harms the victim as a giver of knowledge. In the secondary sense, it is epistemic, more narrowly, because it harms the victim as a possessor of knowledge. Her characterization of testimonial injustice has raised the following objection: testimonial injustice is not always an epistemic injustice, in the narrow, secondary sense, as it does not always entail that the victim is harmed (...) as a knowledge-possessor. By adopting a perspective based on Robert Brandom's normative expressivism, we respond to this objection by arguing that there is a close connection, conceptual and constitutive rather than merely causal, between the primary and the secondary epistemic harms of testimonial injustice, such that testimonial injustice always involves both kinds of epistemic harm. We do so by exploring the logic and functioning of belief and knowledge ascriptions in order to highlight three ways in which the secondary epistemic harm caused by testimonial injustice crystallizes: it undermines the epistemic agency of the victim, the epistemic friction necessary for knowledge, and the possibility of occupying particular epistemic nodes. (shrink)

J.L. Austin argues that ordinary language should be used to identify when it is appropriate or inappropriate to make, accept, or reject knowledge claims. I criticize Austin’s account: In our ordinary life, we often accept justifications rooted in racism, sexism, ableism, and classism as reasons to dismiss knowledge claims or challenges, despite the fact such reasons are not good reasons. Austin’s Ordinary Language Epistemology (OLE) classifies the discounting of knowledge claims in classic cases of epistemic injustice as legitimate ordinary maneuvers. (...) I provide recommendations for revision of OLE and offer a means of distinguishing between dismissals in cases of epistemic injustice and their legitimate counterparts. (shrink)

A central frustration of recent political discourse is the consistent reduction of politically relevant factual and critical speech to mere expression of partisan commitment. Partisans of “the other side”—members of the other tribe—are viewed as de facto wrong, because partisans, even when their speech invokes mere facts or purportedly shared political principles. Ideally, democratic political discourse operates along at least two central dimensions: a dimension of shared factual, historical, and political assumptions, and a more contested dimension of interpretation, prioritization, and (...) evaluation that results in diverse and often competing understandings of what is good, and so of what is best to collectively pursue. Debates among advocates of competing conceptions of the good and partisans of diverse world views identifiable in terms of the second dimension are, on this picture, constrained and grounded by the shared factual and political commitments of the first, thus ensuring a meaningful basis for ongoing political engagement. While there is little reason to think this ideal has ever been perfectly realized, in recent political discourse statements that events have occurred, drugs are effective, or transparency is important in political conduct cannot seem to get uptake except as mere expressions of political partisanship any more than an actor on stage trying to convince her audience of the danger of a real fire that has broken out in the theater can get uptake for this claim except as an expression in a theatrical performance. In both cases, the real content and discursive intent of speech is undermined by the context in which it occurs. In the case of the actor on stage, the appropriate rules for uptake and interpretation are being followed, just to unfortunate effect. However, in the case of political discourse something seems to be wrong with the rules for uptake and interpretation that have come to dominate in many quarters. This essay relies on recent discussions of silencing and epistemic injustice to introduce the ideas of partisan silencing and hyper-partisan silencing in an attempt to say more precisely what has gone wrong with the rules for uptake and interpretation in political discourse. It then relies on Hannah Arendt’s analyses of truth and lies in politics to connect these phenomena to underlying features of political action and speech. Conditions of partisan and hyperpartisan silencing turn out to be a natural, if not inevitable, consequence of the relationship of truth-telling and deception to political action itself as Arendt understands this. Finally, the essay elaborates on two suggestive passages from Arendt’s 1967 essay “Truth and Politics” to propose potential strategies for resisting conditions of hyperpartisan silencing. Because hyper-partisan silencing itself imposes a certain discursive logic, there are kinds of political speech and action that might succeed in being understood as sincere and so in being persuasive—even in the face of hyper-partisan silencing—precisely because they challenge the assumptions that underpin this discursive logic itself. (shrink)

In “Epistemic Exploitation,” Nora Berenstain argues that an epistemic injustice of epistemic exploitation occurs “when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression”. While Berenstain accurately identifies norms of inquiry that ought to be avoided, her account ultimately establishes more barriers to the project of resisting oppression than it removes, necessitating the development of an alternative normative framework. Rejecting her account, I develop a normative model of inquiry through the isolation of a yet unidentified (...) epistemic injustice: epistemic entrapment. I argue that the normative directives entailed by my account of epistemic entrapment mitigate the harmful norms of inquiry Berenstain identifies without establishing further barriers to the project of resisting oppression. Finally, I argue that marginalized individuals have a limited obligation to respond to inquiry into the conditions of their oppression. (shrink)

The semantic gaps of hermeneutical injustice can be and are routinely overcome. The effort involved in responding to hermeneutical injustice, though, should be included in a taxonomy of epistemic injustice. Those who overcome hermeneutical injustice are deprived non-arbitrarily of access to the epistemic labor of others, and so their choices about where to direct their epistemic labors are unjustly limited.

This chapter outlines a new disentangling strategy for moral epistemology. It builds on the fundamental distinction between value-neutrality and value-independence as two separate aspects of methodological austerity introduced by Matthew Kramer. This type of conceptual analysis is then applied to two major challenges in moral epistemology: globalised scepticism and debate fragmentation. Both challenges arise from collapsing the fact/value dichotomy. They can be addressed by comprehensive disentangling that runs along both dimensions – value neutrality vs. value non-neutrality and value independence vs. (...) value dependence. The success of this strategy rests on two factors. The first is broadening the scope of disentangling to include theoretical-explanatory values on a par with distinctly ethical values. The second is differentiating between wider and narrower conceptualisations of what value neutrality requires with respect to contested matters. The objective is to pre-empt unjust theorising, a distinctive form of epistemic injustice that derives from the exclusive methodological focus on ethical evaluations at the expense of epistemic ones. When these methodological conditions are fulfilled, opponents should gain the confidence to treat each other as fellow inquirers engaged in the same project, that of reducing the scope of unhelpful disagreements. (shrink)

In a world where, as Martin Heidegger puts it, ‘homelessness’ has become its destiny, the colonized/Oriental Other that once exclusively constituted and was neglected from the matrix of the Western imaginary has no longer maintained its distance as ‘out there’. Instead it is embodied as a ‘refugee’ appearing on the borders of the ‘home’ with its complex cultural, colonial history. The majority of refugee studies feature the refugee as the outcome of the interplay of the two concepts of the ‘rights (...) of man’ and the ‘rights of the citizen’, who resides on the threshold of nativity and nationality as the limit phenomenon of the nation-state stands before the law in its totality but cannot be classified under any of its provisions. However, this thesis investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the emergence of the phenomenon of the refugee that appears at the threshold of one’s own experience of home as an alien who does not belong to the privileged normative structure of the home. Drawing on Anthony Steinbock’s approach to the Husserlian phenomenology of generativity, this study phenomenologically examines the possibility of an ethical relation in the Homeworld and Alienworld encounter. Focusing on the mode of givenness of the alien to the home in interpersonal relations, the main question of the thesis is:If phenomenologically the Other is accessible to home in a mode of inaccessibility, then how can the ‘I’ initiate an ethical relation to the Other?As the result of addressing this question, building on Edmund Husserl’s late project of ethical renewal and Bernhard Waldenfels’ phenomenological ethics of Responsivity alongside Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, I develop a new understanding of the experience of violence versus morally experiencing the Other. Although James Dodd contributed greatly to the development of the phenomenology of violence, this thesis gives a new perspective to the concept of ‘violence’ versus the ‘ethical’ from the perspective of types of phenomena and various modes of givenness. From a phenomenological perspective, by analyzing the mode of givenness peculiar to the experience of the Other in the intersubjective realm, I propose that violence is a disposition toward receiving the Other in experience as a denigrated phenomenon. However, an ethical relation to the Other means to receiving the Other as saturated phenomenon that is non-objectifiable. Chapter One discusses how phenomenology as critique can be a critical reflection on experience in order to justify and turn back to the question that concerns the refugee subject as ‘an alien other’. Applying Besinnung enables me to unravel the meaning structure that is operative in colonial subjectification and de-subjectification and the concept of violence that is embedded in the colonial situation. Dodd’s phenomenological account of violence and Giorgio Agamben’s discussion of ‘the camp’ gives me the opportunity to analyze the current manifestation of colonial violence in Australian offshore refugee detention camps. Considering various sorts of violence that are operative in the colonial structure, Chapter Two focuses on a specific type of violence that is hidden in the cognitive structure of our consciousness: epistemic violence. Building on Miranda Fricker’s notion of ‘epistemic injustice’ and Husserl’s phenomenological notion of ‘horizon-structure of experience’ that he proposed in Experience and judgment I develop a phenomenological analysis of the horizon structure of experiencing two types of epistemic injustice, which are testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. Phenomenologically thematizing the intersubjective structure of the home, Chapter Three investigates the way the institutional violence of the colonial system can affect meaning constitution. A regressive inquiry into the pregiven lifeworld of the colonial situation as a violent situation that emerges out of the disrupted world of sense, the chapter enquires into the relation of the ‘I’ with the ‘alien’, and asks how does the ‘I’ experience the Other and constitute it as alien? Doing so, I argue that I experience the other as always present in its absence in a way that its presence is withdrawn from the accessibility of home as inaccessible. Chapter Four examines the mode of experiencing the alien Other by the home as a liminal experience in which the alienworld is inaccessible and incomprehensible to home. Furthermore, building on the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Steinbock, I intend to liberate the phenomenon of the alien from the constitutive conditions of the home by discussing how the Other person is absolved from a disposal relation with me. This is to discover the most profound relation to the other that is given in moral experience. Chapter Five analyzes the moral experience of the Other in terms of the modality of the givenness of the Other, and in terms of the type of phenomena given in vertical givenness in the intersubjective realm. Reading Steinbock together with Marion, I explore the type of phenomenality of the alien Other who is given in the mode of revelation as a saturated phenomenon. I argue that by abandoning the givenness of the Other as a saturated phenomenon, I open the possibility of violence toward the Other. This way, I propose that the two concepts of violence and ethics are phenomenological orientations toward the reception of the call of the Other as a saturated phenomenon. (shrink)

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is fraught with controversies over the role of values and politics in regulatory science, especially with drugs in the realm of reproductive health. Philosophers and science studies scholars have investigated the ways in which social context shapes medical knowledge through value judgments, and feminist scholars and activists have criticized sexism and injustice in reproductive medicine. Nonetheless, there has been no systematic study of values and gender norms in FDA drug regulation. I focus on (...) three questions about values in regulatory science. First, how have societal values and gender norms shaped the way that the FDA regulates drugs in the realm of reproductive health, specifically with drug labels? Second, what are the ethical, epistemic, and social consequences of these influences on regulation for women and other marginalized groups? Third, which societal values and gender norms ought to influence drug regulation about reproductive health, and how ought this happen? Integrating philosophical analysis with historical archival research and in-depth interviews, I conduct three case studies of drug labeling about reproductive health: (1) the “drug fact” about the mechanism of the morning-after pill; (2) the package inserts for patients about the health risks of oral contraceptives; and (3) the special physician labels made for prescribing drugs to pregnant women. I identify three challenges for the FDA and suggest ways to reduce the influence of sexist values and facilitate feminist alternatives. First, across these cases, I have found that there are many ways in which other concerns in reproductive medicine (such as zygotic life, fetal health, and population control) have devalued women’s health. Second, both knowledge and ignorance xvi about their reproductive health have contributed to women’s oppression, especially poor women and women of color. Finally, by avoiding the epistemic dimensions of ethics, powerful, mostly male parties in medicine (such as doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and religious institutions) have misused “informed consent,” “religious freedom,” and “paternalism” for unethical purposes. For improvement, I suggest extracting sexist values and gender norms from regulatory science that cause epistemic injustices, and I point to success stories for reforming sexism with feminism at the FDA. (shrink)

You shouldn’t have done it. But you did. Against your better judgment you scrolled to the end of an article concerning the state of race relations in America and you are now reading the comments. Amongst the slurs, the get-rich-quick schemes, and the threats of physical violence, there is one comment that catches your eye. Spencer argues that although it might be “unpopular” or “politically incorrect” to say this, the evidence supports believing that the black diner in his section will (...) tip poorly. He insists that the facts don’t lie. The facts aren’t racist. In denying his claim and in believing otherwise, it is you who engages in wishful thinking. It is you who believes against the evidence. You, not Spencer, are epistemically irrational. -/- My dissertation gives an account of the moral-epistemic norms governing belief that will help us answer Spencer and the challenge he poses. We live in a society that has been shaped by racist attitudes and institutions. Given the effects of structural racism, Spencer’s belief could have considerable evidential support. Spencer notes that it might make him unpopular, but he cares about the truth and he is willing to believe the unpopular thing. But, Spencer’s belief seems racist. Spencer asks, however, how could his belief be racist if his beliefs reflect reality and are rationally justified? Moreover, how could he wrong anyone by believing what he epistemically ought to believe given the evidence? In answer, I argue that beliefs can wrong. (shrink)