Hypatia, Inc.

Review
Reviewed Work(s): <bold>Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing</bold> by
MIRANDA FRICKER
Review by: Rae Langton
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 25, No. 2 (SPRING 2010), pp. 459-464
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40602716
Accessed: 30-04-2017 08:07 UTC

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 Book Reviews 459

Lloyd, Elisabeth A. 2005. The case of the fem

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Pr
Sterelny, Kim, and Philip Kitcher. 1988. The
(7): 339-61.

Epistemic Injustice: Power and the

FRICKER. Oxford: Oxford University

Rae Langton

In this elegant and groundbreaking work, Miranda Fricker names the phenom-
enon of epistemic injustice, and distinguishes two central forms of it, with their
two corresponding remedies. As the title conveys, Fricker is working in the
newly fertile borderland between theories of value and of knowledge. We are
social creatures - something that tends to be forgotten by traditional analytic
epistemology. We are also knowers - something that tends to be forgotten by
power-obsessed postmodern theorizing. Fricker steers a careful passage between
the Scylla of the one and the Charybdis of the other. For epistemology, it turns
out to matter that we are social creatures; for ethics, it turns out to matter that
we are knowers.
The first form of injustice is "testimonial": perhaps you say something, and
you are not believed, because your hearer has a prejudice about people like you.
The second form of injustice is "hermeneutical": perhaps you can't find the
words, or even thoughts, to express what you are groping for, because there is a
lacuna in the biased conceptual resources available to you - a structural prej-
udice in your conceptual framework. In both cases your hearers miss out on
knowledge that you could give them, but Fricker thinks that a deeper dam-
age - at once epistemological and moral - is done, in such circumstances, to
you as a knowing subject.
Looking, first of all, at testimonial injustice: suppose a man dismisses a
woman's thoughts by saying, "Marge, there's female intuition, and then there
are facts." This is what the well-meaning Herbert Greenleaf says to his daughter-
in-law in Anthony Minghella's screenplay of The Talented Mr. Ripiey (1999).
In so doing, he writes Marge off as an informant, and incidentally writes off
the one possible route to knowledge about the murder of his son.1 Marge suffers
testimonial injustice: she suffers a credibility deficit because of her hearer's prej-
udice about the social type to which she belongs. Testimonial injustice is thus,
in its central case, a matter of credibility deficit, arising from prejudice about
someone's social identity. Flicker's argument about the connections between
credibility and social power is subtle and nuanced. She points out that a cred-
ibility excess is not always to someone's advantage: imagine an overworked

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 460 Hypatia

doctor, overburdened by the unr

upon him. All the same, it is the
cial interest to Fricker.
What is the harm of testimonial
in your capacity as a knower, y
human capacity. You are dama
a human being. Fricker draws he
it is to be a knower, according to
matters just as much as whether
draws on, inter alia, the work o
Alcoff.) She argues that this prim
objectification: when you are no
speaker, you are not treated as
Martha Nussbaum and Catharine
There are other harms too. Test
person who suffers it - includin
Not being believed can prevent
conversation that "steadies the m
your own beliefs, and thus your
ent, saying both that she doesn
believed can also literally affect
struction. Marge counts as an in
becomes the pathetic sort of crea
ironically, can bring a sort of e
father's initial dismissal, as she co
type he projected upon her. Fric
social construction is particularly
stantial empirical literature a
consequences.
Turning now to hermeneutical injustice, consider the experience of Carmi t
Wood, who was asked, on her unemployment insurance form, the reasons fo
quitting her job after eight years. She thought about what her employer had
been doing: he used to deliberately brush against her breasts while reaching fo
papers, corner her, plant unwanted kisses on her when no one was looking,
jiggle his crotch while standing near her desk, so that she was driven to avoi
him, apply (unsuccessfully) for a transfer, and eventually quit. She wrote: "pe
sonal." (She was refused insurance.) She couldn't find an adequate concept to
understand her own experience, let alone describe it. This sort of lacuna in
someone's conceptual resources can mean that however hard someone tries,
they can't make their experiences understood, even to themselves. What w
needed, in this case, was a conceptual revolution, filling the lacuna with an
entirely new concept - sexual harassment.2 If you are a member of a group sy

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 Book Reviews 461

tematically disadvantaged by lacunae of

of hermeneutical injustice - an injustic
trated by an individual, but just as dam
What is the harm of hermeneutical in
stemologically damaged, when there is
harasser nor the harrassee, in the abov
ing of what is going on. But there is an
manifests the hermeneutical marginaliz
the shared ignorance of all is in the in
Fricker puts it, "Hermeneutical lacuna
people who live under them that get bu
or make intelligible to others, someth
understand and make intelligible. And
harm, which Fricker calls "situated her
There are other harms too: Carmita e
of poverty as a result of this injustice
injustice may sometimes cramp self-dev
Fricker draws on Edmund White's eloq
gulf between his tentative apprehensi
the crude stereotypes of uthe Homosex
If these are the epistemic injustices,
view, the solution lies in virtue: in the
and hermeneutical justice. She offers
nature story about the point of such v
Aristotelian moral virtue as having a s
On an Aristotelian picture, the morall
moral, perceptual capacity, which is no
motivating, and intrinsically reason giv
all apply to "testimonial sensibility" as
tributes to traditional debates about th
is more than mere analogy here, betwee
morally virtuous is to be epistemically
likely impact of prejudice and stereotyp
correct for this by focusing attention o
"gestalt switch" whereby, for exampl
credible woman politician will be heard
tuous agent cultivates in addition a he
correct for whatever hermeneutical in
tiently waiting to hear someone out,
assumption that they may, despite app
ciple intelligible - if only there were t
reveal it.

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 462 Hypatia

Fricker's illustrations of how t

concretely spelled out and inform
should surely welcome her centr
essary to moral virtue as are the
full of admiration for Fricker's h
worry. Is virtue enough? Are thes
epistemic injustice be mended b
I wish I could share Fricker's opti
First, it is surely an empirical q
age to cultivate these epistemic v
cultivated, they would correct fo
much as I respect Aristotle, it is
pirical questions. It is a refreshin
many of the very virtues she talk
enlightenment - historical, phil
illuminatingly of the sociological
help create epistemic injustice. I
empirical data about the remedies
ity mostly up to the luck of a g
So there is a real question about
individual efforts can remedy the
start out with.
This connects with my second
abstract structures. On Fricker's
viduals, while hermeneutical inj
give credibility where it is due; a
lived experience unintelligible. Sh
virtue - in response to individua
may have more plausibility: nam
vidual and structural vice.
Note first that the domain of
far observed: in particular, ther
injustice. Herbert Greenleaf is n
particular shape by the concept
of this stereotype is not his own
refusal to give Marge credit is.
clude damaging presences, as
sometimes be implicated in test
of stereotypes is just a different s
injustice.
These wide-ranging, structural factors raise suspicions about the likely effec-
tiveness of individual reform, even if that reform involves the development

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 Book Reviews 463

of epistemic-moral virtue. If individua

injustice, this does not mean the in
best solution. Perhaps it would be slow
it may be subject to a backfiring phen
of hedonism: if you aim too hard for
generate injustice of its own, if it som
credible speaker, who really is the mo
be more promising. An example: think
girls in school exams has sometimes be
of inculcating virtue in examiners, bu
exams anonymous. Once the problem i
ever means, this in itself may help und
dividual vice. In this way, structural re
virtue.

What of the structural problem of hermeneutical injustice? Here it is

even harder to see how the inculcation of individual epistemic virtue will solve
the difficulty, when what is needed is, apparently, a conceptual revolution.
Again, though, a structural remedy has at least sometimes been effective.
For pioneer feminists, it was something structural that caused scales to fall
from eyes: altering the structure of women's environment to create conscious-
ness-raising groups, pooling common experiences about, for example,
harassment; brain-storming a name to match the common experience;
creating the social - and let's not forget, legal - momentum to make the name
stick, and to make actionable the behavior denoted by the name. How
that particular hole in the conceptual ozone layer was filled is a familiar and
still inspiring story, whose beginning Fricker tells with energy, but whose
finale she does not fully spell out. Suppose, instead, it had all been left to well-
meaning attempts at individual epistemic virtue? It hardly bears thinking
about.
On a final, and more sanguine note, let me conclude with a happy irony.
There is one individual effort, at least, that has promise of effecting a small
conceptual revolution and filling a lacuna in our shared conceptual resources,
and that is Fricker's book itself. The book is not only a wonderful, ambitious
attempt to bring ethics and epistemology together in a way that has rarely been
done before; it is also a beautiful, and powerful, attempt to name something
that matters. What progress, to be able to name the enemy, be it sexual harass-
ment or epistemic injustice! The concepts Fricker sets out for us, and illustrates
so eloquently, capture something we partly, inchoately, knew already: yes, tes-
timonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice are instantly recognizable. But,
like Shakespeare's poet, Fricker has managed to give to these inchoate, airy
nothings "a local habitation and a name." And knowing your enemy by name
is half the battle.

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 464 Hypatia

Notes

1. The screenplay is based on Highsmith 2000; first discussed by Fricker, 9, and

used as a central example thereafter.
2. Fricker's discussion of this example is at 149-56, quoting Brownmiller 1990,
280-81.

3. White 1983, discussed by Fricker, 163-67.

References

Brownmiller, Susan. 1990. in our time: Memoir of a revolution. New York: Dial Press.
Highsmith, Patricia. 2000. The talented Mr. Ripiey. London: Methuen.
Minghella, Anthony. 1999. The Talented Mr. Ripiey (screenplay based on Patricia
Highsmith's novel (q.v.)).
White, Edmund. 1983. A boy's own story. London: Picador.

Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities. By

SANDRA HARDING. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.

Kristen Intemann

Despite many well-intentioned Western projects aiming to "modernize" devel-

oping countries (such as introducing new technology that will purportedly end
world hunger, improve infrastructure, and promote environmental sustainabil-
ity), such projects have often led to greater ecological degradation (Shiva 1989;
Lacey 1999), increased economic disparities (Escobar 1995) - particularly for
women and children (Shiva 1989; Scott 1995) - and even more dependency
on those with power (Lacey 1991). Why have Western development projects
often failed to achieve their progressive promise or, even worse, contributed to
the very kinds of social injustices they seek to address? What does this tell us
about how we should conceive of "modernization" and "scientific or techno-
logical progress"? How can science and technology studies help promote
scientific and technological pursuits that better promote social justice?
These are the questions that Sandra Harding's Sciences from Below
ultimately seeks to answer. Toward this aim, Harding masterfully synthesizes
and evaluates three seemingly divergent, yet deeply related, bodies of literature
in science and technology studies. Illuminating the central contributions and
limitations of Northern post-Kuhnian, Western feminist, and postcolonial sci-
ence studies, Harding diagnoses how these traditions have failed to engage with
one another in ways that have led to problematic consequences for the con-
ceptions of "modernization" and "social progress" that guide many Western

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