In this article I analyse two complaints of white vilification, which are increasingly occurring in Australia. I argue that, though the complainants (and white people generally) are not harmed by such racialized speech, the complainants in fact harm Australians of colour through these utterances. These complaints can both cause and constitute at least two forms of epistemic injustice (willful hermeneutical ignorance and comparative credibility excess). Further, I argue that the complaints are grounded in a dual misrecognition: the complainants misrecognize themselves (...) in their own privileged racial specificity, and they misrecognize others in their own marginal racial specificity. Such misrecognition preserves the cultural imperialism of Australia’s dominant social imaginary—a means of oppression that perpetuates epistemic insensitivity.Bringing this dual misrecognition to light best captures the indignity that is suffered by the victims of the aforementioned epistemic injustices. I argue that it is only when we truly recognize difference in its own terms, shifting the dominant social imaginary, that “mainstream Australians”can do their part in bringing about a just society. (shrink)

Many ameliorative projects aim at moral goods such as social equality. For example, the amelioration of the concept MARRIAGE forms part of efforts to achieve equal rights for the LGBT+ community. What does implementation of such an ameliorated concept consist in? In this paper, I argue that, for some ameliorated concepts, successful implementation requires that individuals eschew semantic deference, at least with respect to relevant dimensions of the concept. My argument appeals to consideration of the aims of conceptual engineers engaged (...) in this type of ameliorative project: they seek conceptual change in order to contribute to the dismantling of oppressive social structures, institutions, and systems of belief. I argue that, for such aims to be achieved, it must be the case that individuals who come to endorse the concept do so for the right reasons---because they have gained an understanding of why the ameliorated concept is morally preferable to its ancestor. Once they have acquired such reasons, however, they are no longer correctly described as semantically deferential; they will treat moral reasons to employ the concept as overriding of semantic considerations. (shrink)

Cappelen proposes a radically externalist framework for conceptual engineering. This approach embraces the following two theses. Firstly, the mechanisms that underlie conceptual engineering are inscrutable: they are too complex, unstable and non-systematic for us to grasp. Secondly, the process of conceptual engineering is largely beyond our control. One might think that these two theses are peculiar to the Austerity Framework, or to metasemantic externalism more generally. However, Cappelen argues that there is no reason to think that internalism avoids either commitment. (...) Cappelen argues that to do so she must provide arguments for 3 claims: there are inner states that are scrutable and within our control; concepts supervene on these inner states; and the determination relation from supervenience base to content is itself scrutable and within our control. In this paper, I argue that internalist conceptual role theories of content can meet Cappelen’s challenge. (shrink)