Maitra, I. (2010). The Nature of Epistemic Injustice. Philosophical Books, 51(4), 195–211. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0149.2010.00511.x.
Read from the author’s draft of 14 July 2010, marked “please do not cite without author’s permission”. The record cites the published version above.
Key takeaways
- Fricker’s testimonial injustice, as Maitra reports it, requires a credibility deficit caused by the hearer’s identity prejudice, which Fricker defines as resistance to counter-evidence owing to an affective investment (book p. 35). Epistemic bad luck with a reliable, non-prejudicial stereotype is excluded (book p. 42).
- Fricker’s hermeneutical injustice, as reported, is a matter of structural identity prejudice (book p. 155): a significant area of social experience obscured from collective understanding by hermeneutical marginalization (book p. 158), which may be systematic or incidental. The central case is systematic.
- Maitra argues a credibility deficit wrongs a speaker only where the hearer owes it to her to judge her credibility correctly, as a juror or a near relative does, and that structural prejudice can produce testimonial injustice with no individual prejudice in the hearer.
Why this is here
THEORY-317 states Fricker’s two definitions from her précis alone and waits on a reading of the book (LIT-1004), which is Unavailable. This critical study reports the book’s definitions with page references.