Epistemic Injustice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of Knowing

Metaphilosophy vol 34, nos.1/2 (Jan 2003); reprinted in M Brady and D Pritchard eds Moral and Epistemic Virtues (Blackwell, 2003)

Abstract: 

The dual aim of this paper is to reveal and explain a certain phenomenon of epistemic injustice as manifested in testimonial practice; and to arrive at a characterization of the anti-prejudicial intellectual virtue which is such as to counteract it. I try to develop the idea that when a hearer spontaneously takes in what another tells her, a testimonial sensibility is at work as the critical filter which regulates the degree of credibility she affords the speaker. Testimonial injustice occurs when  prejudice on the part of the hearer leads to a corruption of the hearer’s sensibility so that she gives the speaker less credibility than he deserves. It is suggested that where this phenomenon is systematic it constitutes an important form of oppression. 

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