What is the epistemically appropriate response to the
discovery that one is implicitly biased against certain kinds of people?
Discuss in relation to Fricker’s chapter and the presentation on affirmative
action.
Fricker theorizes that biases and prejudice have their own epistemic
consequences. Thus to reduce epistemic injustice, would cause biases to
plummet. In clearer terms, she perceives epistemic injustice and bias as stark
opposites functioning on a similar paradigm. Injustice cripples the moment of
epistemic agency, making prejudice play a huge role in the analysis of an
individual’s credulity. The development of intellectual courage to fight
epistemic injustice, will cultivate enough awareness to steer clear of bias.
But this over emphasis on a single individual’s knowledge, will lead to the
suppression of other versions of reality shared by individuals who exist in
variance to the norm in that space. When an individual’s identity stands in
stark difference to familiar patterns, it becomes difficult to assign
credibility to their voice. This becomes particularly difficult when practiced
by institutions. Epistemic agents are intellectually biased and perceive their
own forms of understanding to be superior to others. Intellectual courage could
only create a surge in bias by raising the agent’s epistemic reliance on their
own perceptions.
Affirmative action becomes an uncomfortable choice when seen through
such a prism. It is almost a compensation for visible inequalities that have
been raised from hermeneutic injustice. A broken system, which has resulted in
the accumulation of injustice towards a certain section of people, tends to
seek out solutions to balance the status quo. But this fix is only temporary,
since the core inequality is never addressed. This conundrum can be seen from
an entirely different light, the stark inequality within the system could be a
result of preferential treatment levied on only a certain section of a
collective. This collective seems to fulfil certain criteria’s to garner
acceptance and preferential treatment.
Constant bias on a person shrivels their ability to be epistemically
assertive, they imbibe the negative stereotype. Prejudicial belief’s rule out
testimonial justice and reinforce a stereotype, which is then internalized by
the subject. Thus the subject gets categorized in this injustice, and this
further becomes the limitations with which the individual perceives themselves
according to perceptions held by external agents. Examples of this behavior can
include, female children being given the color pink, most stereotypes that are
perpetuated are biased and create a culture of internalized behavior patterns
that have their bases in bias. Thus affirmative action also becomes a
reinforcement of these stereotypes, by making allowances for those who are not
awarded preferential treatment. But does it really create a base for equal
opportunity, rather than momentarily fulfilling areas that manifest inequality
vocally.
Fricker conceptualizes social power as a social capacity to control
another individual’s actions; this capacity can be exercised by social agents
in passive or active forms that might also manifest itself in the structural. It
is essential to understand the scope of social power in relation to an
individual in order to draw an operational framework for bias. Social control
is derived by a subject’s ability in a society; this in turn causes a rise or
decline of social power. It is essential to understand the collectivity that
engenders independent agencies. Law and legality does not represent society as
a collective, but rather a collectivity of a particular cross section of
society who have internalized stereotyped ethics. Thus norms that are an
integral part of their social structure and ability, becomes a base
representation for other sections of society that may not share this norm on
ethics.
This raises a difficult question on epistemically just directions for an
individual to respond towards internalized bias. Negative spaces of epistemic
injustice should be drawn out to unearth a positive space for epistemic
justice. Patterns of bias are often taken out of resources for collective
consciousness. According to an individual’s ethical and social engendering
since birth, the collectivity is often identified as an integral pool of truth
and legitimacy. When this collective resource does not represent an individual,
they are then pushed towards the periphery. This exile to the outside is done
by external social agents acting on the individual, and also independently by
the individual who has internalized patterns of collective meaning making. When
the subject finds themselves not a part of the collective meaning making
process, then the identity they possess lacks legitimacy and hence is often
closeted. A good illustration of this can be seen in how homosexuality is
perceived by social agents, who are invariably influenced by institutions such
as the church and law. But this collective meaning making on homosexuality as
lacking legality pushes identity formation towards a closet, and sexuality for
them becomes an act of perversion.
Testimony is not given much credulity because the hearer is biased since
their epistemic leanings come from the collective and is often attested by
dominant social agents who influence social control. Prejudice causes an influx
in credibility leading to unhealthy epistemic practices. On the other hand, internalized
prejudice also produces dire epistemic consequences and can be categorized as
epistemic injustice that might have risen through testimonial or hermeneutical
structures. Bias on identity results in devaluation of credibility, but if the
hearer identified with the subject in a positive plain, credibility towards any
testimony that is borne results in an influx. Stereotypes are in a way
essential for immediate identification, human beings are complex to identify
with in a short span, and thus the mind is prone towards employing instant
patterns of identification through stereotypes. The epistemic source for these
stereotypes usually emanate from an individual’s past experience and the
collective social resource. Fricker draws out the problem with stereotypes, as
unwilling to change even when actual evidence is presented to suggest the
contrary about an individual. These biases thus start to hold permanent
meaning, making them independent social agents even though they are not animate
as living beings. Certain social biases become a set rule, when they are passed
down a group and in the long term this becomes a collective belief.
Stereotypes that have gained mobility and pervasiveness as to be shared
by a collectivity become epistemic authority. An epistemically apt response
towards bias would be to isolate markers of bias. When these elements are
looked in isolation, the root of their birth can be charted out. This is an
essential empirical experiment that has to be undertaken due to widening gaps
of social, racial and economic inequality. A case can be drawn out in relation to
migrants and the opportunities available to them. Fluency in English is seen as
a marker of competence and education, but migrants who possess high
qualification and skill levels are deemed to be lacking and given jobs
according to that bias. Groups that are targeted by affirmative action have
also internalized a prejudice. They perceive their identity from a third
person’s perspective and find that their deficits require preferential
treatment. This does not address the epistemic deficit that has caused the
inequality in the first place.
Fricker’s account brings to light some of the negative consequences of internalizing
epistemic injustice, but she does not analyse patterns of this internalization.
A group that is prone towards bias on economic and social spheres tends to internalize
accepted strands of collective norms in order to gain credibility. This in turn
alienates them from their identity, and creates a structure of reverse bias
where the subject of prejudice exercises bias on others in order to become a
part of the collectivity. When they are objectified, it prevents them from
becoming epistemic agents, because the subject becomes the object. Objects do
not perceive, they become inanimate and transpire as receivers.
Fricker conceptualizes that Hermeneutic justice involves an analysis of
those structures which are biased, this lends towards the widening scope of a
hermeneutic collective. The debate on injustice is far too complex to apply
Fricker’s ideal solution. She does not take into account, a subject’s conscious
adherence to bias despite awareness that it constitutes to injustice. She
fleshes out two paradigms for a subject that practices bias, that of a hearer
who is not conscious of the prejudice, and an individual who reacts towards creating
the stereotype from their collective social resource. There can also be a third
paradigm, where the social agent is
conscious of the prejudice they practice, but choses to further it.
An epistemically appropriate response cannot be highlighted in black and
white because the debate is far more complex. In order to bring out apt
patterns of epistemic responses, this paper would need to pull out case studies
which would make it fall beyond the scope of philosophy. To moderate injustice,
it is impossible to recommend solutions that are merely philosophical but the
need to build hypothesis that allows for experiments and policy conclusions
become essential. It is not merely an ethical dilemma, to perceive it this way
would entail dwelling into the subject in abstraction.
References
Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of
Knowing. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007. Print.
