PHL367 Philosophy of Feminism

Affective injustice (Srinivasan)

Emerges when a victim of an injustice faces a dilemma between expressing an emotional response to their situation, like anger, pain, or sadness, but is told (indirectly or directly) that expressing these emotions will only make their situation worse.

Standpoint theory (Toole)

Argues that our place in society shapes what we can know, and that people in marginalized positions possess unique advantages in understanding the world

Situated Knowledge Thesis (a pillar of standpoint theory, Toole)

• Claims that what a person is able to know depends on facts about their social identity.

  • Our social status (class, race, gender, disability status, etc.) influences our ways of thinking and the mental tools we use (known as epistemic resources, like concepts and language). These tools are not evenly distributed because they are formed within power structures of the dominant group.

Achievement Thesis (a pillar of standpoint theory, Toole)

A standpoint is not something automatically granted by one’s social identity, it must be achieved through a process of collective political effort, "consciousness-raising."

• This effort helps a group realize that the dominant ways of thinking do not accurately describe their experiences.

• Through this process, marginalized groups create new tools and concepts (like "sexual harassment" or "microaggression") that better explain the world that they live in.

• These concepts are not labels but newly acquired resources that allow marginalized communities to discuss experiences that were previously silenced or misunderstood.

Epistemic Privilege Thesis (a pillar of standpoint theory, Toole)

The most controversial claim is that knowledge developed from marginalized standpoints is somehow "better" or "more objective" than knowledge from the dominant center.

• This doesn't mean that marginalized perspectives are infallible. But because their survival requires understanding their own lived experiences and the dominant world, they develop more comprehensive resources for analyzing their social structures.

• Dominant groups can afford ignorance, but marginalized groups can't because understanding both perspectives is necessary for their survival.

Willful hermeneutical ignorance (Pohlhaus)

Occurs when dominantly situated knowers actively refuse to recognize, learn, or use epistemic resources developed from marginalized experiences.

Relativism critique against standpoint theory

If all knowledge is simply a reflection of social position, then the theory risks falling into a "trivial pluralism," where every group's viewpoint (no matter how distorted, prejudiced, or oppressive) is equally validated.

• If everyone has their own "truth," then there is no way to judge between competing claims, including those advanced by oppressive groups that marginalized groups aim to oppose.

  • A racist, misogynistic, or colonial perspective could be placed on the same epistemic footing as the standpoint of a marginalized community resisting oppression.

Epistemic Injustice (Fricker)

A specific harm done to someone as a knower.

Testimonial Injustice (Fricker)

This occurs when a speaker receives an unfair deficit of credibility from a listener due to identity prejudice.

The injustice is primarily focused on the harm caused by the hearer's biased judgment.

Hermeneutical Injustice (Fricker)

When a person from a marginalized group lacks access to the shared interpretive tools needed to articulate certain experiences because society lacks the concepts or language to understand them.

• The absence of early concepts for sexual harassment exemplifies how collective epistemic resources can fail those excluded from meaning-making practices.

  • Different than Pohlhaus’ conception

Racial Contract (Mills)

creates an "inverted world," a world in which those who benefit from injustice are systematically protected from recognizing it.

White Ignorance (Mills)

a targeted ignorance from white people that is sustained by the collective social power of the dominant institutions.

Situatedness (Pohlhaus)

refers to how a person's social position (e.g., marginalized or dominant) shapes their focus, concerns, and lived experiences.

Interdependence (Pohlhaus)

refers to the fact that knowledge is collective and never individual; the necessary epistemic resources (concepts, language, standards) must be maintained and developed collectively

Strong objectivity (Toole)

a more accurate account of social reality that incorporates (not denies) the effects of social positions

Epistemic justice

• includes a strong understanding of objectivity that accounts for the effects. of social positioning.

• dominant hearers have an ethical responsibility to develop the virtue of testimonial justice, which helps the hearer avoid unfairly doubting someone’s credibility because of identity-based prejudice

Situated Knowledge Example (Toole)

A student who uses a wheelchair notices problems with a college building (like missing access buttons) that a student without a disability might fail to see, proving that what one notices in the world is tied to their social position.

Response to Relativism critique (Toole, Standpoint theory)

• The perspective of the marginalized is not just different, but epistemically superior because it provides a better picture of the whole social system.

  • Traditional epistemology mistakenly assumes that dominant groups are neutral, but their perspectives are often shaped by biases of the groups that created them, obscuring power.

  • Marginalized people must navigate both their own experience and the dominant world because they are vulnerable to both.

Response to relativsm critique (Mills)

• Mills insists on retaining normative standards while still recognizing that knowledge is socially situated.

  • The diversity of standpoints (across race, class, and gender) requires evaluation, not relativism.

• Mills proposes a synthesis of alternative epistemologies, where integrating marginalized perspectives produces a more accurate picture of social reality.

  • For example, an account of subordination that includes the experiences of women and Black people is epistemically stronger than one that ignores them.

Sub-knowers (Pohlhaus)

Systematically positioned as less credible or less competent.

Ideal Knowers (Pohlhaus)

White european men

Epistemic Injustice (Mills/Pohlhaus)

embedded in social structures and institutional practices that sustain relations of domination.

Exclusions (Pohlhaus)

Includes both formal and informal barriers that prevent certain individuals or groups from participating in shared epistemic practices, such as education, research, or public discourse, thereby hindering both individual and collective knowledge production.

Epistemic trust injustice (Pohlhaus)

historically justified distrust of institutions prevents marginalized populations from accessing or benefiting from epistemic goods.

Epistemic Exploitation (Pohlhaus)

The coercive extraction of epistemic labor from marginalized knowers by dominant groups. This occurs when marginalized knowers are compelled to perform epistemic labor for the benefit of others, rather than by choice.

Epistemic labor (Pohlhaus)

cognitive work necessary for knowing, inquiring, attending, and making sense of the world. When this labor is unjustly manipulated, it results in specific harms.

Double-bind in proving harms (Pohlhaus)

This exploitative practice compels the oppressed to "prove" the harm they endure, creating a double bind.

• They are left with the choice of either engaging in tiresome, often fruitless epistemic labor or appearing to be complicit in the view that their experiences do not exist.

• Furthermore, continually needing to "prove" harm reinforces the background assumption that the experience of harm by marginalized groups is not plausible or reliable on its own.

Forced education labor (Pohlhaus)

A common form of exploitation occurs when individuals harmed by oppression are continually called upon to educate those who benefit from their oppression.

• This burdens the marginalized knower with the cognitive effort of explanation and justification for the benefit of the dominant group.

Fricker vs. Pohlhaus

• Fricker argues that hermeneutical injustice as a purely structural phenomenon, rooted in gaps within collective epistemic resources.

• Pohlhaus argues that Fricker’s account doesn’t capture forms of injustice that are willful and agential

  • Comes up with willful hermeneutical ignorance to decribe cases where dominantly situated knowers actively refuse to learn or engage with epistemic resources.

    • Epistemic injustice can persist even when relevant interpretive tools are available.

A common objection to standpoint theory (not relativsm) and response

• A strong objection is that marginalized positions might foster biases, resentment, or a narrow focus on oppression, leading to a distorted, rather than a clearer, view of social reality.

  • One could argue that no perspective is free from bias, but marginalized standpoints are forced to understand their own perspective and the dominant one to survive, leading to a more complete and objective view.

Willful hermeneutical ignorance example

• When a white jury in the Tom Robinson trial (To Kill a Mocking Bird) heard him express sympathy for a white woman, the racist ideology of white supremacy caused them to misinterpret his feelings as an indicator of that he thought he was superior to a white woman

  • Their interpretation reflects biased ways of thinking, not neutral, objective judgment

  • The marginalized viewpoint (Robinson's own understanding) was the best interpretation, but the dominant group willfully refused to recognize the resources needed to understand his experiences accurately.