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contributory injustice

📖 Definitions

"Contributory injustice is caused by an epistemic agent’s situated ignorance, in the form of willful hermeneutical ignorance, in maintaining and utilizing structurally prejudiced hermeneutical resources that result in epistemic harm to the epistemic agency of a knower" (Dotson 2012, 31).

"Contributory injustices occur when knowers utilize epistemic resources that are inapt for understanding the potential contributions of particular knowers to our collective knowledge pool and thereby engage in a form of willful hermeneutical ignorance that refuses to employ more apt epistemic resources for receiving and appropriately responding to those contributions (Dotson 2012, 31–32). In such cases, the knower who commits the wrong may treat other knowers as competent and trustworthy. Moreover, the knower who commits the wrong may be open to adjusting and developing currently shared epistemic resources" (Pohlhaus 2012, 20).

💡 Examples

  • "For example, rather than shift one’s conception of workers and the workplace to more adequately attend to workers who are also child-bearers, one might seek to understand the concerns of this group of workers by further developing already existing systems such as understanding maternity leave as a sort of disability leave. But these remedies mistake the problem. Instead, a whole new approach is required, one in which axiomatic features of the previous collective epistemic resources may need to be abandoned" (Pohlhaus 2012, 20).

🔗 Relations

📚 References

  • Dotson, Kristie. 2012. "A Cautionary Tale: On Limiting Epistemic Oppression." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 33 (1): 24-47. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/fro.2012.a472779.
  • Pohlhaus, Gaile Jr. 2017. "Varieties of Epistemic Injustice." In The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, edited by I. J. Kidd, L. Medina, G. Jr. Pohlhaus. Routledge. https: doi.org/10.4324/9781315212043.