This paper aims to provide a philosophical and theoretical account of biological communication grounded in the notion of organisation. The organisational approach characterises living systems as organised in such a way that they are capable to self-produce and self-maintain while in constant interaction with the environment. To apply this theoretical framework to the study of biological communication, we focus on a specific approach, based on the notion of influence, according to which communication takes place when a signal emitted by a (...) sender triggers a change in the behaviour of the receiver that is functional for the sender itself. We critically analyse the current formulations of this account, that interpret what is functional for the sender in terms of evolutionary adaptations. Specifically, the adoption of this etiological functional framework may lead to the exclusion of several phenomena usually studied as instances of communication, and possibly even of entire fields of investigation such as synthetic biology. As an alternative, we reframe the influence approach in organisational terms, characterising functions in terms of contributions to the current organisation of a biological system. We develop a theoretical account of biological communication in which communicative functions are distinguished from other types of biological functions described by the organisational account (e.g. metabolic, ecological, etc.). The resulting organisational-influence approach allows to carry out causal analyses of current instances of phenomena of communication, without the need to provide etiological explanations. In such a way it makes it possible to understand in terms of communication those phenomena which realise interactive patterns typical of signalling interactions – and are usually studied as such in scientific practice – despite not being the result of evolutionary adaptations. Moreover, this approach provides operational tools to design and study communicative interactions in experimental fields such as synthetic biology. (shrink)

Abstract: Using a critical review of the literature, we study a challenge from philosophical anarchism to J. Raz's theory of legal authority: it would be irrational to follow an order with which one disagrees, since it would mean acting against what is considered more justified. Through references from decision theory and epistemology, and deploying examples about tools for assisting in routine decision-making, we sketch two possible answers: first, it may be justifiable to put yourself in a situation that leads to (...) irrationally acting; second, according to the “blindspots” theory, we outline some restrictions from a theory of rationality to the authority. (shrink)

This paper argues, through conceptual analysis, against an objection to the disapproval of banks for the 2007-8 crisis: the idea that they could not have acted otherwise (at least not rationally) and that no one should be blamed for a fact one could not have avoided. If true, it would threaten the justification of corporate social responsibility and the legal liability of managers. Identified as the ‘inevitability thesis’, this objection is illustrated by an analysis of the film Margin Call (2011) (...) and associated with other investigations on ethics and responsibility. The target thesis stems from a confusion between different notions of responsibility (for a task, for a decision, for causing an event and for repairing it) and leads to an incoherent form of fatalism. Finally, it is suggested that the invocation of ‘inevitability’ may be a way of rationalizing the decision, obscuring reasons to the contrary. (shrink)

This dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise – in the spirit of those of Carroll and Hofstadter – argues against the idea, identified with the “traditional” interpretation of Aristotle’s “sea battle argument”, that future contingents are an exception to the Principle of Bivalence. It presents examples of correct everyday predictions, without which one would not be able to decide and to act; however, doing this is incompatible with the belief that the content of these predictions lacks a truth-value. The cost (...) of using a non-classical logic to cope with that may be too high for Stagirite’s defenders, and they would still need to explain why our ordinary predictions seem to have a binary truth-value. In the end, the paper suggests that the problem of future contingents – and of free will – is not a logical problem at all, but rather a limit on what an agent can believe before taking a decision. (shrink)

O Judiciário moderno constitui um sistema hierarquizado e centralizado, em que cortes superiores, com um número pequeno de membros, têm a função de “dar a última palavra” para resolver desacordos doutrinários entre instâncias inferiores – e inclusive rever decisões das demais autoridades. Essa estrutura hierárquica implica uma fonte peculiar de instabilidade: o tribunal superior se torna como que um “ponto único de falha” suscetível à captura, à pressão indevida, à sobrecarga, e até a súbitas mudanças doutrinárias – pondo em risco (...) seu alegado papel de estabilizador do regime democrático. Isso é salientado quando tais cortes sofrem pressão, ou quando há reviravoltas decorrentes de uma maioria frágil no tribunal – a exemplo do debate sobre a prisão em segunda instância no Brasil. Analiso como o desenvolvimento tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TICs) poderia mitigar este problema por meio de um sistema que agregue decisões judiciais de instâncias inferiores a fim de resolver conflitos de jurisprudência numa determinada jurisdição; isso equivaleria a um sistema de votação que substituiria a atuação da corte de última instância na unificação de jurisprudência – como se a última instância fosse, na realidade, composta pelo judiciário como um todo. Isso alteraria a estrutura de decisão hierarquizada do judiciário, no que diz respeito a divergências entre magistrados, aumentando a descentralização do sistema – associada ao ideal da tradição de common law. Embora original, a proposta é modesta, e poderia ser atingida por meio de mudanças incrementais, sem ruptura institucional, a partir de práticas e tecnologias já existentes – e uso como exemplo ferramentas de legal analytics e o sistema de “repercussão geral de recursos extraordinários” do Brasil, no qual se utiliza processamento de linguagem natural para filtrar e classificar processos de acordo com o tema. Ao final, discutem-se possíveis vantagens e desvantagens dessa proposta, como características epistêmicas da descentralização e o risco de “rigidez” na evolução da doutrina jurídica – em especial no que se refere aos longos mandatos de membros de tribunais superiores. Concluímos que a descentralização da unificação da jurisprudência pode contribuir para mitigar o risco de, com o desenvolvimento da tecnologia, maior concentração de poder. (shrink)

Translation into Portuguese of SEP entries on Philosophy of Economics.

From a critical review of the literature, we analyze the incompatibility between the possibility of incorporating moral principles to the law and its authoritative nature, as argued by exclusive positivists, such as J. Raz. After presenting his argument in second section, we argue in the third section that it is incompatible with commonly accepted (even by Raz) premises of the theory of legal interpretation, or else it would lead to contradiction - unless one presupposes, within the premises, a strong version (...) of the sources thesis (which is what Raz intends to prove). In conclusion, we return to the arguments presented, concluding with a possible difficulty for the adoption of exclusive positivism by people inside a legal practice. (shrink)

The explanatory role of natural selection is one of the long-term debates in evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, the consensus has been slippery because conceptual confusions and the absence of a unified, formal causal model that integrates different explanatory scopes of natural selection. In this study we attempt to examine two questions: (i) What can the theory of natural selection explain? and (ii) Is there a causal or explanatory model that integrates all natural selection explananda? For the first question, we argue that (...) five explananda have been assigned to the theory of natural selection and that four of them may be actually considered explananda of natural selection. For the second question, we claim that a probabilistic conception of causality and the statistical relevance concept of explanation are both good models for understanding the explanatory role of natural selection. We review the biological and philosophical disputes about the explanatory role of natural selection and formalize some explananda in probabilistic terms using classical results from population genetics. Most of these explananda have been discussed in philosophical terms but some of them have been mixed up and confused. We analyze and set the limits of these problems. (shrink)

O escritor A. J. Jacobs (2018) decidiu agradecer todas os envolvidas na preparação de seu cafezinho diário; isso o levou a uma jornada épica para contatar milhares de pessoas, desde a barista que lhe vendia o expresso matinal, passando por designers e inventores, até os agricultores que plantaram e colheram o grão em outro continente. Não existe um único indivíduo ou grupo responsável pelo seu café: é preciso um mundo para produzi-lo; é resultado de uma cadeia produtiva, uma rede decentralizada (...) que envolve diversos serviços espalhados internacionalmente – e todas essas pessoas, por sua vez, consomem outros produtos, com outras cadeias. Como este livro. Contraste esse exemplo com a anedota do diplomata soviético que, visitando Londres, fica maravilhado com as padarias – e então pergunta pelo encarregado da distribuição de pães na cidade (Harari, 2016, p. 372). Para seu espanto, os economistas ingleses respondem que ninguém tem esse cargo: o fornecimento de pães é resultado de um agregado de decisões individuais, em que cada fornecedor de matéria-prima (como farinha, sal, fermento) e serviços (transporte, padaria, limpeza) regula sua oferta a partir do que espera que os consumidores querem consumir – e o quanto estes estão dispostos a pagar. É o caso clássico do funcionamento de uma economia de mercado – em contraste com uma economia de comando, onde um grupo de pessoas, conscientemente, toma decisões sobre produção e distribuição. Esses exemplos ressaltam as “vantagens” dos mercados; pode ser tentador pensar, a partir deles, que todos os bens e serviços deveriam ser fornecidos dessa forma, porque isso maximiza a liberdade individual ou tende a 553 levar ao bem-estar coletivo, e que o melhor a fazer é evitar interferências nesse sistema – ideias associadas ao liberalismo econômico, uma teoria política e econômica que tem por patrono Adam Smith (o primeiro economista clássico). No entanto, mesmo economistas liberais reconhecem que há falhas de mercado (como bens públicos e monopólios129). Voltemos a A. J. Jacobs, o qual frisa seu agradecimento ao serviço de fornecimento de água, um “milagre moderno”: ao longo da história, a imensa maioria das pessoas não teve acesso a água encanada – mesmo hoje, 2 bilhões de pessoas ainda carecem de condições sanitárias adequadas (água e esgoto), o que causa doenças que matam 829 mil por ano (WHO, 2015). É um problema que não pode ser resolvido só por mercados, nem por associações filantrópicas; na maior parte do mundo, é um serviço público, geralmente fornecido ou regulado por estados – e sua ausência decorre de falhas de governo. (shrink)

One of the explanations for the Great Crisis of 2007-2008 was that financial authorities should have issued stricter regulations to prevent the housing bubble. However, according to Alan Greenspan, President of the Federal Reserve System (FED) from 1987 to 2006, this is to judge with hindsight. No one can guess when a “bubble” begins, nor when it ends; they happen because of the “irrational exuberance” in investors’ behavior, which causes boom and bust cycles. Regulators are not in a better situation (...) for assessing risks, though: since market participants supposedly know their own risks better than the regulator (a kind of informational asymmetry), an intervention (except to ensure law-enforcement) would imply unjustified paternalism. However, a regulator does not have to be conceived as a paternalistic authority. We sketch an objection to Greenspan's argument, arguing that crises don’t require a defective reasoning such as the “irrational exuberance” – our usual bounded rationality might be enough to provide the kind of “self-fulfilling prophecy” observed in the rise and fall of bubble assets value. Given the possibility of grave externalities, authorities are justified in adopting measures to ensure investors behave in a prudent way, even if they supposedly know better their own risks. (shrink)

Social decisions are often made under great uncertainty – in situations where political principles, and even standard subjective expected utility, do not apply smoothly. In the first section, we argue that the core of this problem lies in decision theory itself – it is about how to act when we do not have an adequate representation of the context of the action and of its possible consequences. Thus, we distinguish two criteria to complement decision theory under ignorance – Laplace’s principle (...) of insufficient reason and Wald’s maximin criterion. After that, we apply this analysis to political philosophy, by contrasting Harsanyi’s and Rawls’s theories of justice, respectively based on Laplace’s principle of insufficient reason and Wald’s maximin rule – and we end up highlighting the virtues of Rawls’s principle on practical grounds (it is intuitively attractive because of its computational simplicity, so providing a salient point for convergence) – and connect this argument to our moral intuitions and social norms requiring prudence in the case of decisions made for the sake of others. (shrink)

After the 2008 crisis, there were several debates on the bail-out and the lack of accountability of financial institutions; this supposedly affects politica l values such as equality and responsibility: it implies transferring resources from the public (for instance, poor people) to specific economic agents who have chosen to incur certain risks. On the other hand, it is arguable that it would not be up to the regulators to protect investors’ interests, and that there would be more efficient and less (...) burdensome instruments associated with prudential regulation. Our goal is to provide a justification for the bail-out and for holding bankers accountable. In section 2, we present a brief description of the problem in the context of the crisis, followed by a justification for the bail-out through the incentives argument, based on Rawls’s difference principle. In section 3, we provide an ethical discussion over the corresponding moral hazards, and investigate how to mitigate it through coercive measures. (shrink)

Abstract: We face objections against punishing financial firms and managers for producing risks for the financial system – that it’s either paternalistic or inefficient. Against the first: financial crises are so damaging that governments and deposit insurance funds have to intervene – an implicit guarantee to creditors. This is controversial from the perspective of political morality: it implies using resources from the public for the benefit of better-off people who willingly incur risks. So, we begin by studying a possible justification (...) for this arrangement from the ‘incentives argument’ derived from the Rawls difference principle, in the light of G. Cohen’s criticisms. Against the second: we cannot completely dispense with coercive instruments - mainly for the moral hazard entailed by the implicit guarantee. Therefore, we conclude the threat of liability must have a punitive and a preventive character, extending to non-compliance with norms on risk even before generating major economic effects. Keywords: Incentives, Responsibility, Moral Hazard, Justice, Finances JEL Classification: D63, G28, K42 -/- Resumo: Enfrentamos duas objeções à punição de instituições financeiras e gestores pela produção de riscos ao sistema financeiro – que seria paternalista e ineficiente. Contra a primeira: crises financeiras prejudicam tanto a economia que governos e fundos garantidores são obrigados a intervir – uma garantia implícita aos credores. Isso é polêmico da perspectiva da moralidade política: implica utilizar recursos do público em benefício de pessoas em melhor situação que voluntariamente incorrem em riscos. Na primeira seção, estudamos justificar esse arranjo a partir do “argumento do incentivo”, decorrente do princípio da diferença de Rawls, à luz das críticas de G. Cohen. Contra (b), arguimos que não podemos prescindir completamente de instrumentos coercitivos – mormente pelo risco moral decorrente da garantia implícita. Logo, é preciso que a ameaça de responsabilização tenha um caráter punitivo e preventivo, se estendendo ao descumprimento de normas sobre risco mesmo sem gerar efeitos econômicos maiores. Palavras-chave: Incentivos, Responsabilidade, Risco Moral, Justiça, Finanças JEL Classification: D63, G28, K42 -/- (This is a translation of the working paper "Equality and Responsibility"). (shrink)

This essay argues, through conceptual analysis, against an objection to reproaches addressed to financiers after the Crisis of 2007-8: the idea that they could not have acted otherwise (at least, not rationally) and that no one should be blamed for a fact one could not have avoided. If correct, this would threaten the justifiability of corporate social responsibility and legal responsibility of directors. Identified as the “thesis of inevitability”, this objection is illustrated by an analysis of the film Margin Call (...) (2011) and associated with other investigations on ethics and responsibility. This target-thesis follows from a confusion between different notions of responsibility (for an assignment, for a judgment, and causal and liability responsibility) and leads to an inconsistent form of fatalism. It is suggested, finally, that invoking the “inevitability” can be a way to rationalize the decision, obscuring reasons against it. (shrink)

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker argues of an injustice that is distinctly epistemic though it was born out of societal discrimination, identity power, and racial prejudice. More so, Fricker attempts to establish a theoretical space, where ethics, epistemology, and socio-politics can converge. An epistemology which concerns knowledge not for knowledge’s sake alone, but the kind of knowledge that can morally awaken a knowing subject and which can hopefully influence or bring forth a collective social and political change. I will further argue (...) in this paper that aside from moral awakening, the theory of epistemic injustice also attempts to correct our moral appropriations towards social phenomena as it aims to provide an unbiased epistemic basis on issues of social identities, namely: gender, race, religion, financial, economic, and social status, rank or position in work and institutions, among other factors. Epistemic injustice is a hybrid social theory that presupposes social ethical responsibility and epistemic justice among individuals, as well as in social institutions. It initially arose as part of the developments in virtue epistemology, a new trend in epistemology that emphasizes the role of virtue in knowledge, which sprung from the epistemic debates in virtue epistemology of the Anglo-American analytic philosophers. Epistemic injustice finds its own development of the theory now known as vice epistemology, which have special emphasis on non-virtuous acts, namely—vices. This paper is fundamentally aimed to introduce Miranda Fricker’s concept of “epistemic injustice,” including its possible indications within Philippine societal happenings. I then attempt to appropriate the phenomena of epistemic injustice as theorized by Fricker in the context of the Filipino social experience. This essay attempts to tackle the gaps between the apparent disparity in Philippine societies, particularly on issues that concerned the imperial Manila, the Bangsamoro, and other marginalized minorities, such as, transgender people, farmers, and fisher folks, as well as issues regarding the national language. (shrink)

Fricker‘s Epistemic Injustice discusses the idea of testimonial injustice, specifically, being harmed in one‘s capacity as a knower. Fricker‘s own theory of testimonial injustice emphasizes the role of prejudice. She argues that prejudice is necessary for testimonial injustice and that when hearers use a prejudice to give a deficit to the credibility of speakers hearers intrinsically harm speakers in their capacity as a knower. This paper rethinks the connections between prejudice and testimonial injustice. I argue that many cases (...) of prejudicial credibility deficits do not intrinsically harm speakers. Further, I suggest that prejudice is not necessary for harming speakers. I provide my own proposal on which testimonial injustice occurs when speaker‘s capacity as a giver of knowledge is interfered with in important ways. My proposal does not give prejudice any essential role. (shrink)

Why did such highly abstract ideas as truth, knowledge, or justice become so important to us? What was the point of coming to think in these terms? This book presents a philosophical method designed to answer such questions: the method of pragmatic genealogy. Pragmatic genealogies are partly fictional, partly historical narratives exploring what might have driven us to develop certain ideas in order to discover what these do for us. The book uncovers an under-appreciated tradition of pragmatic genealogy which cuts (...) across the analytic-continental divide, running from the state-of-nature stories of David Hume and the early genealogies of Friedrich Nietzsche to recent work in analytic philosophy by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker. However, these genealogies combine fictionalizing and historicizing in ways that even philosophers sympathetic to the use of state-of-nature fictions or real history have found puzzling. To make sense of why both fictionalizing and historicizing are called for, the book offers a systematic account of pragmatic genealogies as dynamic models serving to reverse-engineer the points of ideas in relation not only to near-universal human needs, but also to socio-historically situated needs. This allows the method to offer us explanation without reduction and to help us understand what led our ideas to shed the traces of their practical origins. Far from being normatively inert, moreover, pragmatic genealogy can affect the space of reasons, guiding attempts to improve our conceptual repertoire by helping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having. (shrink)

Why would philosophers interested in the points or functions of our conceptual practices bother with genealogical explanations if they can focus directly on paradigmatic examples of the practices we now have?? To answer this question, I compare the method of pragmatic genealogy advocated by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker—a method whose singular combination of fictionalising and historicising has met with suspicion—with the simpler method of paradigm-based explanation. Fricker herself has recently moved towards paradigm-based explanation, arguing that (...) it is a more perspicuous way of reaping the same explanatory pay-off as pragmatic genealogy while dispensing with its fictionalising and historicising. My aim is to determine when and why the reverse movement from paradigm-based explanation to pragmatic genealogy remains warranted. I argue that the fictionalising and historicising of pragmatic genealogy is well motivated, and I outline three ways in which the method earns its keep: by successfully handling historically inflected practices which paradigm-based explanation cannot handle; by revealing and arguing for connections to generic needs we might otherwise miss; and by providing comprehensive views of practices that place and relate the respects in which they serve both generic and local needs. (shrink)

Can genealogical explanations affect the space of reasons? Those who think so commonly face two objections. The first objection maintains that attempts to derive reasons from claims about the genesis of something commit the genetic fallacy—they conflate genesis and justification. One way for genealogies to side-step this objection is to focus on the functional origins of practices—to show that, given certain facts about us and our environment, certain conceptual practices are rational because apt responses. But this invites a second objection, (...) which maintains that attempts to derive current from original function suffer from continuity failure—the conditions in response to which something originated no longer obtain. This paper shows how normatively ambitious genealogies can steer clear of both problems. It first maps out various ways in which genealogies can involve non-fallacious genetic arguments before arguing that some genealogies do not invite the charge of the genetic fallacy if they are interpreted as revealing the original functions of conceptual practices. However, they then incur the burden of showing that the conditions relative to which practices function continuously obtain. Taking its cue from the genealogies of E. J. Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker, the paper shows how model-based genealogies can avoid continuity failures by identifying bases of continuity in the demands we face. (shrink)

A theme running through Katherine Hawley’s recent works on trust and trustworthiness is that thinking about the relations between these and Miranda Fricker’s notion of testimonial injustice offers a perspective from which we can see several limitations of Fricker’s own account of testimonial injustice. This paper clarifies the aspects of Fricker’s account that Hawley’s criticisms target, focusing on her objections to Fricker’s proposal that its primary harm involves a kind of epistemic objectification and her characterization of (...) testimonial injustice in terms of prejudicial credibility deficits. I also offer an assessment of the potency of Hawley’s objections, concluding that they do point to genuine limitations of Fricker’s account, but that we can appreciate Hawley’s points without adopting her trust-centric approach to testimonial injustice, or her specific commitment-based accounts of trust and trustworthiness. However, in the last section I examine the positive picture of testimonial injustice that emerges from Hawley’s discussion of unequally distributed obstacles to both being trustworthy and maintaining a reputation for trustworthy testimony in her recent book How To Be Trustworthy, considering how this picture contrasts with Fricker’s account and where it might have important affinities with other accounts in the literature. (shrink)

Research in the psychology of deception detection implies that Fricker, in making her case for reductionism in the epistemology of testimony, overestimates both the epistemic demerits of the antireductionist policy of trusting speakers blindly and the epistemic merits of the reductionist policy of monitoring speakers for trustworthiness: folk psychological prejudices to the contrary notwithstanding, it turns out that monitoring is on a par (in terms both of the reliability of the process and of the sensitivity of the beliefs that (...) it produces) with blind trust. The consequence is that while (a version of) Fricker’s argument for the necessity of a reduction succeeds, her argument for the availability of reductions fails. This does not, however, condemn us to endorse standard pessimistic reductionism, according to which there is no testimonial knowledge, for recent research concerning the methods used by subjects to discover deception in non-laboratory settings suggests that only a more moderate form of pessimism is in order. (shrink)

In this paper, I make explicit some implicit commitments to realism and conceptualism in recent work in social epistemology exemplified by Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills. I offer a survey of recent writings at the intersection of social epistemology, feminism, and critical race theory, showing that commitments to realism and conceptualism are at once implied yet undertheorized in the existing literature. I go on to offer an explicit defense of these commitments by drawing from the epistemological framework of John (...) McDowell, demonstrating the relevance of the metaphor of the “space of reasons” for theorizing and criticizing instances of epistemic injustice. I then point out how McDowell’s own view requires expansion and revision in light of Mills' concept of 'epistemologies of ignorance'. I conclude that, when their strengths are used to make up for each others' weaknesses, Mills and McDowell’s positions mutually reinforce one another, producing a powerful model for theorizing instances of systematic ignorance and false belief. (shrink)

I argue that influential recent discussions have whitewashed blame, characterizing it in ways that deemphasize or ignore its morally problematic features. I distinguish “definitional,” “creeping,” and “emphasis” whitewash, and argue that they play a central role in overall endorsements of blame by T.M. Scanlon, George Sher, and Miranda Fricker. In particular, these endorsements treat blame as appropriate by definition (Scanlon), or as little more than a wish (Sher), and infer from blame's having one useful function that it is a (...) good practice overall (Fricker). I use an analogy with revenge to illustrate the mechanisms of whitewashing, including broadening a concept to include available alternatives to it and inference from one feature of a practice to an overall conclusion about that practice. Several features of blame make it particularly prone to whitewashing, including blamers' personal or emotional stake in blaming and widespread disagreement about the nature of blame. I argue that a non‐whitewashing treatment of blame must pay closer attention both to blame's harms, and to comparisons between blame and alternative, non‐blaming reactions. (shrink)

In this paper I critically discuss Miranda Fricker’s ‘trust-based’ view of collective testimony—that is, testimony that comes from a group speaker. At the heart of Fricker’s account is the idea that testimony involves an ‘interpersonal deal of trust’, to which the speaker contributes a commitment to ‘second-personal epistemic trustworthiness’. Appropriating Margaret Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment, Fricker suggests that groups too can make such commitments, and hence that they, like individuals, can ‘enter into the second-personal relations of (...) trust that characterise testimony’ (Fricker 2012: 272). I argue that this choice to appropriate Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment betrays a deep problem in Fricker’s account—a misconstrual of both the object and the subject(s) of the commitment a speaker makes in testifying. After developing this criticism, I outline an alternative way of construing the speaker’s commitment, which can be applied to both collective and individual testimony. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustices, according to Miranda Fricker, are injustices that occur “when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences” (Fricker 2007, 1). For Fricker, the relevant injustice in these cases is the very lack of knowledge and understanding experienced by the subject. In this way, hermeneutical injustices are instances of epistemic injustices, the kind of injustice that “wrongs someone in their capacity as a (...) subject of knowledge” (Fricker 2007, 5). In this paper, however, I identify different means by which our hermeneutic activities lead to social injustices, of both a practical and epistemic kind, and I identify different ways in which those injustices manifest themselves. Since Fricker’s use of the notion of “hermeneutical injustices” to denote a well-defined kind of injustice is rightfully well-established, I here refer to the more general kinds of injustices I have in mind as “hermeneutic injustices” instead. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker’s insightful work on epistemic injustice discusses two forms of epistemic injustice—testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Hermeneutical injustice occurs when the victim lacks the interpretative resources to make sense of her experience, and this lacuna can be traced down to a structural injustice. In this paper, I provide one model of how to fill the conceptual gap in hermeneutical injustice. First, I argue that the victims possess conceptual resources to make sense of their experiences, namely phenomenal concepts. Second, (...) I show how one might work the way up in a two-step process from a subjective, phenomenal concept to a novel, public concept. Finally, I discuss the conditions that have to be met for this process to be successful. The resulting model shows a way how the victims might alleviate hermeneutical injustice by developing novel concepts, given that the dominant group does not care about their predicament. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice and remedies for this injustice are widely debated. This article adds to the existing debate by arguing that theories of recog- nition can fruitfully contribute to Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice and can provide a framework for structural remedy. By pairing Fricker’s theory of hermeneutical injustice with theories of recognition, I bring forward a modest claim and a more radical claim. The first concerns a shift in our vocabulary; recognition theory can (...) give a name to the seriousness of the long-term effects of hermeneutical injustice. The second claim is more radical: thinking of hermeneutical injustice as preventing what I call “self-recogni- tion” provides a structural remedy to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice. Because hermeneutical injustice is first and foremost a structural injustice, I contend that every virtue theory of hermeneutical justice should be complemented by structural remedies in terms of recognition. Finally, what I argue sheds light on the seriousness of cases of exclusion of and discrimination against women in academia and helps to draw our attention to new ways to combat such problems. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker's original presentation of Hermeneutical Injustice left open theoretical choice points leading to criticisms and subsequent clarifications with the resulting dialectic appearing largely verbal. The absence of perspicuous exposition of hallmarks of Hermeneutical Injustice might suggest scenarios exhibiting some – but not all – such hallmarks are within its purview when they are not. The lack of clear hallmarks of Hermeneutical Injustice, moreover, obscures both the extent to which Fricker's proposed remedy Hermeneutical Justice – roughly, virtuous communicative (...) practices – adequately addresses the injustice, and the accuracy of criticisms suggesting that Hermeneutical Justice is insufficient to the task. In what follows, after briefly defending necessary and sufficient conditions for what I take to be the best candidate interpretation of Hermeneutical Injustice, I build on recent work on moral responsibility to construct and defend a rigorous explication of Hermeneutical Justice. (shrink)

According to Miranda Fricker, a hermeneutical injustice occurs when there is a deficit in our shared tools of social interpretation, such that marginalized social groups are at a disadvantage in making sense of their distinctive and important experiences. Critics have claimed that Fricker's account ignores or precludes a phenomenon I call hermeneutical dissent, where marginalized groups have produced their own interpretive tools for making sense of those experiences. I clarify the nature of hermeneutical injustice to make room for (...) hermeneutical dissent, clearing up the structure of the collective hermeneutical resource and the fundamental harm of hermeneutical injustice. I then provide a more nuanced account of the hermeneutical resources in play in instances of hermeneutical injustice, enabling six species of the injustice to be distinguished. Finally, I reflect on the corrective virtue of hermeneutical justice in light of hermeneutical dissent. (shrink)

I defend Fricker’s virtue-theoretic proposals for grappling with epistemic injustice, arguing that her account is both empirically oriented and plausible. I agree with Fricker that an integral component of what we ought to do in the face of pervasive epistemic injustice is working to cultivate epistemic habits that aim to consistently neutralize the effects of such prejudices on their credibility estimates. But Fricker does not claim that her specific proposals constitute the only means through which individuals and (...) institutions should combat epistemic injustice. I therefore build on Fricker’s account by beginning to sketch a fuller picture of the structure of cultivating epistemic virtue. Virtue cultivation must, I argue, occur on two broad but interrelated fronts: first, the direct retraining of more automatic and unreflective patterns of thinking, feeling, and reacting to epistemic social reality, and second, the cultivation of more reflective, metacognitive virtues, such as the ability to swiftly identify contexts in which our first-order epistemic intuitions are likely astray. Although I articulate a range of individual-level obligations, my account is not individualistic. With Fricker, I argue that individual self-transformation is a necessary but not sufficient component of the struggle for epistemic justice. Accordingly, I sketch several ways in which individual virtue cultivation must be a socially and institutionally embedded process. Moreover, I argue that this process is ongoing. While most individuals cannot actually achieve such moral-epistemic ideals, many can (and therefore should try to) get much closer than they already are. (shrink)

Structural gaslighting arises when conceptual work functions to obscure the non-accidental connections between structures of oppression and the patterns of harm they produce and license. This paper examines the role that structural gaslighting plays in white feminist methodology and epistemology using Fricker’s (2007) discussion of hermeneutical injustice as an illustration. Fricker’s work produces structural gaslighting through several methods: i) the outright denial of the role that structural oppression plays in producing interpretive harm, ii) the use of single-axis conceptual (...) resources to understand intersectional oppression, and iii) the failure to recognize the legacy of women of color’s epistemic resistance work surrounding the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. I argue that Fricker’s whitewashed discussion of epistemic resistance to sexual harassment in the United States is a form of structural gaslighting that fails to treat women of color as knowers and exemplifies the strategic forgetting that is a central methodological tactic of white feminism. (shrink)

Anger gaslighting is behavior that tends to make someone doubt herself about her anger. In this paper, I analyze the case of anger gaslighting, using it as a paradigm case to argue that gaslighting can be an affective injustice (not only an epistemic one). Drawing on Marilyn Frye, I introduce the concept of “uptake” as a tool for identifying anger gaslighting behavior (persistent, pervasive uptake refusal for apt anger). But I also demonstrate the larger significance of uptake in the study (...) of affective injustice: just as the concept of credibility names the epistemic behavior whereby we take someone seriously as an epistemic being, the concept of uptake names the uniquely affective cooperative behavior whereby we take someone seriously as an affective being. I answer Miranda Fricker’s epistemic notion of a prejudicial credibility economy with the affective notion of prejudicial uptake economies: uptake, like credibility, can be produced in a deficit for one social group relative to a surplus for another. Deviating from the parallels with Fricker, for whom the injustice of epistemic injustice is due to prejudice in the motives or character of individuals, as well as from accounts that ground it in aptness or affective goods, I suggest that the injustice of anger gaslighting behavior can be located at the structural scale of power relationships between social groups, in the tradition of Iris Marion Young. Anger gaslighting behavior counts as unjust wherever it (re)produces prejudicial uptake economies. Adapting sociological concepts of feeling rules and the emotion work they demand, I introduce the concepts of “uptake rules” and “uptake work” to further enable analysis of uptake economies as affective social structures, and to suggest a site for resistant or reparative affective agency. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that not all norms that govern belief and assertion are epistemic. But not enough attention has been paid to distinguishing epistemic norms from others. Norms in general differ from merely evaluative standards in virtue of the fact that it is fitting to hold subjects accountable for violating them, provided they lack an excuse. Different kinds of norm are most readily distinguished by their distinctive mode of accountability. My thesis is roughly that a norm is epistemic if and only (...) if its violation makes it fitting to reduce epistemic trust in the subject, even if there is no doubt about their sincerity, honesty, or other moral virtues. That is, violations of epistemic norms don’t merit resentment or other forms of blame, but rather deduction of credibility points in internal scorekeeping and related attitudinal and behavioral changes. As Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice shows, such distrust is undesirable from the point of view of an epistemic agent. Consequently, when one manifests epistemic distrust towards a subject in suitable circumstances, it amounts a way of holding her accountable. Since this form of accountability involves no opprobrium, there is good reason to think it is not linked to voluntary control in the same way as moral accountability. Finally, I make use of this account of what makes epistemic norms distinctive to point out some faulty diagnostics in debates about norms of assertion. My aim is not to defend any substantive view, however, but only to offer tools for identifying the right kind of evidence for epistemic norms. (shrink)

We argue that stereotypes associated with concepts like he-said–she-said, conspiracy theory, sexual harassment, and those expressed by paradigmatic slurs provide “normative inference tickets”: conceptual permissions to automatic, largely unreflective normative conclusions. These “mental shortcuts” are underwritten by associated stereotypes. Because stereotypes admit of exceptions, normative inference tickets are highly flexible and productive, but also liable to create serious epistemic and moral harms. Epistemically, many are unreliable, yielding false beliefs which resist counterexample; morally, many perpetuate bigotry and oppression. Still, some normative (...) inference tickets, like some activated by sexual harassment, constitute genuine moral and hermeneutical advances. For example, our framework helps explain Miranda Fricker’s notion of “hermeneutical lacunae”: what early victims of “sexual harassment” — as well as their harassers — lacked before the term was coined was a communal normative inference ticket — one that could take us, collectively, from “this is happening” to “this is wrong.”. (shrink)

We argue that the interaction of biased media coverage and widespread employment of the recognition heuristic can produce epistemic injustices. First, we explain the recognition heuristic as studied by Gerd Gigerenzer and colleagues, highlighting how some of its components are largely external to, and outside the control of, the cognitive agent. We then connect the recognition heuristic with recent work on the hypotheses of embedded, extended, and scaffolded cognition, arguing that the recognition heuristic is best understood as an instance of (...) scaffolded cognition. In section three, we consider the double-edged sword of cognitive scaffolding. On the one hand, scaffolds can reduce the internal processing demands on cognitive agents while increasing their access to information. On the other hand, the use of scaffolding leaves cognitive agents increasingly vulnerable to forming false beliefs or failing to form beliefs at all about particular topics. With respect to the recognition heuristic, agents rely on third parties (such as the media) to report not just what’s true but also what’s important or valuable. This makes cognitive agents relying on these third parties vulnerable to two erroneous influences: 1) because they don’t recognize something, it isn’t important or valuable, and 2) because they do recognize something, it is important or valuable. Call the latter the Kardashian Inference and the former the Darfur Inference. In section four, we use Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice to characterize the nature and harm of these false inferences, with special emphasis on the Darfur Inference. In section five, we use data-mining and an empirical study to show how Gigerenzer’s population estimation task is liable to produce Darfur Inferences. We conclude with some speculative remarks on more important Darfur Inferences, and how to avoid them by scaffolding better. One primary way to accomplish this it to shift the burden of embodying the virtue of epistemic justice from the hearer or consumer of media to the media themselves. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenon of epistemic injustice within contemporary healthcare. We begin by detailing the persistent complaints patients make about their testimonial frustration and hermeneutical marginalization, and the negative impact this has on their care. We offer an epistemic analysis of this problem using Miranda Fricker's account of epistemic injustice. We detail two types of epistemic injustice, testimonial and hermeneutical, and identify the negative stereotypes and structural features of modern healthcare practices that generate them. We claim that these (...) stereotypes and structural features render ill persons especially vulnerable to these two types of epistemic injustice. We end by proposing five avenues for further work on epistemic injustice in healthcare. (shrink)

This paper examines Miranda Fricker’s method of paradigm-based explanation and in particular its promise of yielding an ordered pluralism. Fricker’s starting point is a schism between two conceptions of forgiveness, Moral Justice Forgiveness and Gifted Forgiveness. In the light of a hypothesis about the basic point of forgiveness, she reveals the unity underlying the initially baffling plurality and brings order into it, presenting a paradigmatic form of forgiveness as explanatorily basic and other forms as derivative. The resulting picture, (...) she claims, is an ‘explanatorily satisfying ordered pluralism.’ But what is this ordered pluralism and how does Fricker’s method deliver it? And to what extent can this strategy be generalised to other conceptual practices? By making explicit and critically examining the conception of ordered pluralism implicit in Fricker’s procedure, I assess the promise that her approach holds as a way of resolving stand-offs between warring conceptions of ideas or practices more widely. I argue that it holds great promise in this respect, but that if we are to avoid reproducing just the schismatic debates that the pluralism of paradigm-based explanation is supposed to overcome at the level of what is to be regarded as a paradigm case, we need to take seriously the thought that what counts as a paradigm is partly determined by our purposes in giving a paradigm-based explanation. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created by the default (...) skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

Recently, I have proposed an extension of the framework of the ethics of collegiality (Berber & Subotić, forthcoming). By incorporating an anti-individual perspective and the notion of epistemic competence, this framework can reveal the epistemic virtue/vice relativism, which, in turn, charts the tension between being a good colleague and an efficient, loyal employee. In this paper, however, I want to sketch how the ethics of collegiality could be applied to practical domains, such as the historical accountability and atonement of corporations (...) that participated in the anti-Semitic policies of the Third Reich and contributed to the Holocaust by using slave or forced labor. New studies suggest that corporations ought to engage in deeper historical reflection and ethical dialogue between Shoah survivors and top managers to address the issue of industrial compliance (Federman 2021), whereas most of the work on this topic traditionally focused on the issue of reparations litigation (Kelly 2016, Neuborne 2003). Through the notions of collective institutional epistemic vice and institutional ethos (Fricker 2021), the upshot is to assess whether it is feasible for corporations to be genuinely repentant regarding their role in the Holocaust thanks to the ethics of collegiality instead of merely offering compensation. I will argue that instead of emphasizing ethical leadership and the top-down approach to the (re-)implementation of values in corporate conduct, the spotlights should be on the bottom-up approach grounded in collegial solidarity among all employees. (shrink)

Chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis remains a controversial illness category. This paper surveys the state of knowledge and attitudes about this illness and proposes that epistemic concerns about the testimonial credibility of patients can be articulated using Miranda Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice. While there is consensus within mainstream medical guidelines that there is no known cause of CFS/ME, there is continued debate about how best to conceive of CFS/ME, including disagreement about how to interpret clinical studies of (...) treatments. Against this background, robust qualitative and quantitative research from a range of countries has found that many doctors display uncertainty about whether CFS/ME is real, which may result in delays in diagnosis and treatment for patients. Strikingly, qualitative research evinces that patients with CFS/ME often experience suspicion by health professionals, and many patients vocally oppose the effectiveness, and the conceptualization, of their illness as psychologically treatable. We address the intersection of these issues and healthcare ethics, and claim that this state of affairs can be explained as a case of epistemic injustice. We find evidence that healthcare consultations are fora where patients with CFS/ME may be particularly vulnerable to epistemic injustice. We argue that the marginalization of many patients is a professional failure that may lead to further ethical and practical consequences both for progressive research into CFS/ME, and for ethical care and delivery of current treatments among individuals suffering from this debilitating illness. (shrink)

In this chapter, we address the roles that exemplars might play in a comprehensive response to epistemic injustice. Fricker defines epistemic injustices as harms people suffer specifically in their capacity as (potential) knowers. We focus on testimonial epistemic injustice, which occurs when someone’s assertoric speech acts are systematically met with either too little or too much credence by a biased audience. Fricker recommends a virtue­theoretic response: people who do not suffer from biases should try to maintain their disposition (...) towards naive testimonial justice, and those who find themselves already biased should cultivate corrective testimonial justice by systematically adjusting their credence in testimony up or down depending on whether they are hearing from someone whom they may be biased against or in favor of. We doubt that the prominent admiration­emulation model of exemplarism will be much use in this connection, so we propose two ways of learning from negative exemplars to better conduct one’s epistemic affairs. In the admiration­emulation model, both the identification of what a virtue is and the cultivation of virtues identified thusly proceed through the admiration of virtuous exemplars. We show that this model has serious flaws and argue for two alternatives: the envy­agonism model and the ambivalence­avoidance model. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged that testifiers can play a central role in the production of knowledge and other valuable epistemic states in others. But does such a role warrant any form of epistemic credit and is an agent more successful qua epistemic agent insofar as she is a successful testifier? I here propose an affirmative answer to both questions. The core of the current paper consists in a sustained defence of this proposal against a series of objections. I further argue (...) that the proposal allows us to recognize an important additional epistemic harm that arises in cases of testimonial injustice beyond those described by Miranda Fricker. Finally, I conclude by distinguishing between four kinds of credit - distinctions that allow us to avoid inappropriately attributing epistemic credit in problematic cases. If the current proposal is correct, our understanding of successful epistemic agents needs to be significantly modified in order to take into account their role in producing epistemically valuable states in others. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to investigate how sexist ideology distorts our conceptions of sexual violence and the hermeneutical gaps such an ideology yields. I propose that we can understand the problematic issue of hermeneutical gaps about sexual violence with the help of Fricker’s theory of hermeneutical injustice. By distinguishing between hermeneutical injustice and hermeneutical misfire, we can distinguish between the hermeneutical gap and its consequences for the victim of sexual violence and those of the perpetrator of (...) such violence. I then argue that perpetrators are both morally responsible and accountable for their acts, even if they are the result of a hermeneutical misfire. Ultimately, I show that with regard to sexual violence, we should opt for accountability to change the behaviour of the perpetrator and the social structure. Content warning: The paper discusses sexual violence and difficulties conceptualising experiences of such violence. (shrink)

There is an under-appreciated tradition of genealogical explanation that is centrally concerned with social functions. I shall refer to it as the tradition of pragmatic genealogy. It runs from David Hume (T, 3.2.2) and the early Friedrich Nietzsche (TL) through E. J. Craig (1990, 1993) to Bernard Williams (2002) and Miranda Fricker (2007). These pragmatic genealogists start out with a description of an avowedly fictional “state of nature” and end up ascribing social functions to particular building blocks of our (...) practices – such as the fact that we use a certain concept, or live by a certain virtue – which we did not necessarily expect to have such a function at all. That the seemingly archaic device of a fictional state-of-nature story should be a helpful way to get at the functions of our actual practices must seem a mystifying proposal, however; I shall therefore endeavor to demystify it in what follows. My aim in this chapter is twofold. First, by delineating the framework of pragmatic genealogy and contrasting it with superficially similar methods, I argue that pragmatic genealogies are best interpreted as dynamic models whose point is to reveal the function – and non-coincidentally often the social function – of certain practices. Second, by buttressing this framework with something it notably lacks, namely an account of the type of functionality it operates with, I argue that both the type of functional commitment and the depth of factual obligation incurred by a pragmatic genealogy depend on what we use the method for: the dynamic models of pragmatic genealogy can be used merely as heuristic devices helping us spot functional patterns, or more ambitiously as arguments grounding our ascriptions of functionality to actual practices, or even more ambitiously as bases for functional explanations of the resilience or the persistence of practices. By bringing these distinctions into view, we gain the ability to distinguish strengths and weaknesses of the method’s application from strengths and weaknesses of the method itself. (shrink)

Epistemic injustices are wrongs that agents can suffer in their capacity as knowers. In this article, I offer a conceptualisation of a phenomenon I call anticipatory epistemic injustice, which I claim is a distinct and particularly pernicious type of epistemic injustice worthy of independent analysis. I take anticipatory epistemic injustice to consist in the wrongs that agents can suffer as a result of anticipated challenges in their process of taking up testimony-sharing opportunities. I distinguish my account from paradigmatic cases of (...) epistemic injustice, such as Miranda Fricker’s concepts of testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice; additionally, I differentiate my view from Kristie Dotson’s account of testimonial smothering. I argue, ultimately, that anticipatory epistemic injustice is a useful addition to our current taxonomy of epistemic injustices, as it has promising explanatory potential for a range of non-standard cases of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

This paper argues that underlying social biases are able to affect the processes underlying linguistic interpretation. The result is a series of harms systematically inflicted on marginalised speakers. It is also argued that the role of biases and stereotypes in interpretation complicates Miranda Fricker's proposed solution to epistemic injustice.

Proponents of epistemic partiality in friendship argue that friendship makes demands of our epistemic lives that are at least inconsistent with the demands of epistemic propriety, and perhaps downright irrational. In this paper, I focus on the possibility that our commitments to our friends distort how we respond to testimony about them, their character, and their conduct. Sometimes friendship might require us to ignore (or substantially underweight) what others tell us about our friends. However, while this practice might help promote (...) your friendship and protect your friends, refusing someone’s testimony can constitute a special kind of insult towards them, according to Allen Hazlett (2017) and Finlay Malcolm (2018). It seems to follow that friendship can require us to insult people by refusing their testimony. This should count against treating your friends with epistemic partiality, one might think. It’s plausible that we have moral reasons not to insult other people, whether they’re our friends or not. The risk of insulting non-friends, it turns out, is just the beginning of the problems for the epistemic partiality in friendship. Recent discussions in social epistemology, led by Miranda Fricker (2007), Kristie Dotson (2011) and José Medina (2012), among others, have brought renewed attention the distinctly epistemic nature of some kinds of injustice. Drawing on this work, I’ll suggest a principled way to determine when epistemic partiality in friendship is morally impermissible because of the genuine risk of harmful epistemic injustice. -/- The paper proceeds as follows. First, I’ll argue that treating our friends with epistemic partiality can involve insulting other people by refusing their testimony. Then I’ll consider whether we ever ought to commit more morally serious testimonial injustices in the name of friendship. After considering some putative cases, I’ll introduce the concept of testimonial injustice, referring primarily to the work of Dotson (2011). I’ll explain how and why the epistemic bias which I’ve prescribed in friendship could be thought to cause such injustice. Drawing on the work of Sheila Lintott (2015), I’ll consider some ways in which the extent of the testimonial injustice caused by bias in friendship might be worse yet, namely, because of the role that homophily plays in determining who we become (and remain) friends with. In particular, I’ll consider whether epistemic partiality perpetuates racist or sexist forms of testimonial injustice. Finally, I’ll attempt to alleviate some of these concerns and determine when we’re morally required to treat friends with epistemic partiality. I’ll argue that whilst protecting a friend’s well-being might require you to cause testimonial injustice, such injustice would be morally unjustified. Accordingly, if you commit such injustice in the name of friendship, you’re morally blameworthy for doing so. This, I suggest, imposes an additional limit on epistemic partiality in friendship. (shrink)