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Philosophy

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	If standpoint epistemology is correct in concluding that valuable perspectives are often excluded from social and scientific discourse, then this is an instance of epistemic injustice. <OpenstaxTerm>Epistemic injustice</OpenstaxTerm> is injustice related to epistemology. Epistemic injustices include the exclusion and silencing of perspectives, systematic misrepresentation of group or individual views, unfair conferring of expert status, and unjustified distrust of certain perspectives. British philosopher Miranda <OpenstaxTerm>Fricker</OpenstaxTerm> (b. 1966), who coined the term <OpenstaxEm>epistemic injustice</OpenstaxEm>, divides epistemic injustice into two categories: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice (Fricker 2007). <OpenstaxTerm>Testimonial injustice</OpenstaxTerm> occurs when the opinions of individuals or groups are unfairly ignored or treated as untrustworthy. <OpenstaxTerm>Hermeneutical injustice</OpenstaxTerm> occurs when a society’s language and concepts cannot adequately capture the experience of people living within that society, which thereby limits understanding of their experiences.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxH3>Testimonial Injustice</OpenstaxH3>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Silencing and distrust of someone’s word often occurs by virtue of that individual’s membership in a marginalized group. Women, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income individuals, and religious minorities are all examples of marginalized groups. Take as an example a criminal trial. If the jury takes the testimony of a witness less seriously because of their perceived class status or membership in a particular group, this is an example of epistemic injustice, specifically testimonial injustice. Philosophers who focus on <OpenstaxTerm>testimonial injustice</OpenstaxTerm> utilize research to show how the voices of individuals and groups are unfairly ignored and discounted compared to others. For example, many studies over the past few decades have illustrated that reports of pain by Black patients are taken less seriously by medical professionals than similar pain reports by White patients. An outcome of this is that Black patients are given less pain medicine and pain management than White patients, even in cases where the patients had the same injury or surgery (Smedley, Stith, and Nelson 2003; Cintron and Morrison 2006). This is clearly a case of testimonial injustice: Black patients receive less care because their testimony (reporting pain) is not taken as seriously as the testimony of their White counterparts.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	But <OpenstaxTerm>testimonial injustice</OpenstaxTerm> also occurs when someone’s opinions are systematically misrepresented. To misrepresent a view is to interpret that view in a way that does not align with the original intended meaning. As an example, consider the Black Lives Matter movement and a popular response to it. Black Lives Matter was formed in response to police brutality and racially motivated violence against Black people. The idea was to affirm the value of Black lives. However, a popular response to the movement was the phrase “All lives matter.” This response implies that the message of Black Lives Matter is really that <OpenstaxEm>only</OpenstaxEm> Black lives matter, which is an unfair and inaccurate representation of the view.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00003" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/4ace92769384538dce27f1c317e5f76dbc035d69" alt="A woman stands in the street holding a poster with the words “All Lives Can’t Matter Until Black Lives Matter” written on it." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="533" height="800" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="533">
	<strong>Figure 7.12</strong> Interpreting the phrase “Black lives matter” to mean “only Black lives matter” is an instance of testimonial injustice. (credit: “Black Lives Matter” by Taymaz Valley/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxH3>Hermeneutical Injustice</OpenstaxH3>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Hermeneutical injustice</OpenstaxTerm> occurs when language and concepts cannot adequately capture an individual’s experience, resulting in a lack of understanding of that individual’s experience by both the individual and those around them. The classic example of hermeneutical injustice focuses on sexual harassment. Before the concept and phrase <OpenstaxEm>sexual harassment</OpenstaxEm> was introduced and understood by society, women had a difficult time describing certain experiences in the workplace. Women experienced unwanted attention and focus, exclusion, comments concerning their bodies and looks, and different treatment based on negative assumptions about their gender. Many women were fired for not going along with such treatment. But there was no word for their experience, so many women could not understand or explain their discomfort. Furthermore, accounts of their distressing experience ran the risk of not being taken seriously by others. The phrase <OpenstaxEm>sexual harassment</OpenstaxEm> was coined to fill a gap in the concepts used to explain and describe experience. Perhaps you have had the experience of being introduced to a word or concept that suddenly illuminated a part of your experience in a way that greatly increased your understanding of yourself and your ability to explain yourself to others.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

7.5.3 Epistemic Injustice

1 Introduction to Philosophy

1.1 What Is Philosophy?

1.1.1 Historical Origins of Philosophy

1.1.2 How It All Hangs Together

1.2 How Do Philosophers Arrive at Truth?

1.2.1 Sources of Evidence

1.2.2 Logic

1.2.3 Conceptual Analysis

1.2.4 Trade-offs

1.3 Socrates as a Paradigmatic Historical Philosopher

1.3.1 “The Life Which Is Unexamined Is Not Worth Living”

1.3.2 Human Wisdom Is Worth Little or Nothing

1.3.3 The Importance of Doing No Harm

1.4 An Overview of Contemporary Philosophy

1.4.1 What Can You Do with a Philosophy Major?

1.4.2 An Overview of Your Philosophy Textbook

2 Critical Thinking, Research, Reading, and Writing

2.1 The Brain Is an Inference Machine

2.1.1 The Brain’s Adaptive Ability to Plan Ahead

2.1.2 The Evolutionary Advantage of Shortcuts

2.2 Overcoming Cognitive Biases and Engaging in Critical Reflection

2.2.1 Critical Reflection and Metacognition

2.2.2 Cognitive Biases

2.3 Developing Good Habits of Mind

2.3.1 Strive for Objectivity

2.3.2 Adopt Epistemic Humility

2.4 Gathering Information, Evaluating Sources, and Understanding Evidence

2.4.1 Start with a Strong Foundation

2.4.2 The SIFT Method (Four Moves for Student Fact Checkers)

2.5 Reading Philosophy

2.5.1 Prepare to Read

2.5.2 Engaging with Philosophical Texts

2.5.3 Pre-reading

2.5.4 First Read

2.5.5 Close Read

2.6 Writing Philosophy Papers

2.6.1 Identify Claims

2.6.2 Collect Evidence and Build Your Case

2.6.3 Organize Your Paper

3 The Early History of Philosophy around the World

3.1 Indigenous Philosophy

3.1.1 Challenges in Researching Indigenous Philosophy

3.1.2 Indigenous African Philosophy

3.1.3 Indigenous North American Philosophical Thought

3.1.4 Mesoamerican Philosophy

3.2 Classical Indian Philosophy

3.2.1 The Vedic Tradition

3.2.2 Classical Indian Darshanas

3.3 Classical Chinese Philosophy

3.3.1 Early Chinese Philosophical Thought prior to Confucius

3.3.2 Confucianism

3.3.3 Daoism

3.3.4 Mohism

4 The Emergence of Classical Philosophy

4.1 Historiography and the History of Philosophy

4.1.1 Presentist Approach

4.1.2 Contextualist Approach

4.1.3 Hermeneutic Approach

4.2 Classical Philosophy

4.2.1 Egyptian Origins of Classical Philosophy

4.2.2 Ancient Greek Philosophy

4.2.3 The Presocratics

4.2.4 Socrates and Plato

4.2.5 Aristotle

4.2.6 Epicureans

4.2.7 Roman Philosophy

4.3 Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

4.3.1 Defining Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

4.3.2 Early Jewish Philosophy

4.3.3 Early Christian Philosophy

4.3.4 Islamic Philosophy

4.3.5 Late Medieval Philosophy in Christian Europe

4.3.6 Jewish Philosophers in the Christian and Islamic Worlds

4.3.7 The Rise of Reason in the Early Modern Era

5 Logic and Reasoning

5.1 Philosophical Methods for Discovering Truth

5.1.1 Dialectics and Philosophical Argumentation

5.1.2 The Use of Reason to Discover Truth

5.1.3 Testing Hypotheses

5.1.4 Laws of Logic

5.1.5 Normativity in Logic

5.2 Logical Statements

5.2.1 Conditionals

5.2.2 Universal Statements

5.3 Arguments

5.3.1 Getting to the Premises

5.3.2 The Difference between Truth and Logic

5.4 Types of Inferences

5.4.1 Deductive Reasoning

5.4.2 Inductive Inferences

5.4.3 Abductive Reasoning

5.5 Informal Fallacies

5.5.1 Fallacies of Relevance

5.5.2 Fallacies of Weak Induction

5.5.3 Fallacies of Unwarranted Assumption

5.5.4 Fallacies of Diversion

6 Metaphysics

6.1 Substance

6.1.1 Fundamentality: The One and the Many

Question	Answer
injustice that arises from or is related to epistemological issues.	Epistemic injustice
a type of epistemic injustice that occurs when a society’s language and concepts cannot adequately capture the experience of people, thereby limiting understanding of their experiences.	Hermeneutical injustice
a type of epistemic injustice that occurs when the opinions of individuals or groups are unfairly ignored or treated as untrustworthy.	Testimonial injustice