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epistemic trust injustice

📖 Definitions

"Epistemic trust injustices occur when, due to the forces of oppression, the conditions required to ground one’s trust in experts cannot be met for members of particular subordinated groups. ... In the case of a subjugated group that has experienced a history of oppression, a preponderance of evidence against the epistemic trustworthiness of scientific communities (leading to responsibly-placed distrust rather than responsible trust) can result when those scientific communities have participated in and contributed to that very history of oppression." (Grasswick, 2017, 319)

💡 Examples

  • Scientific racism
  • Sexist biases and background assumptions in the history of research on women’s sexuality, resulting in mistaken understandings and areas of ignorance that can be damaging to women
  • Histories of ethical abuses as research subjects...

🔗 Relations

📚 References

  • Grasswick, Heidi. 2017. “Epistemic Injustice in Science.” In The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, edited by Ian James Kidd, José Medina, and Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., 313–23. London: Routledge.