Hermeneutical Injustice and the Problem of Authority

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss a problem for Miranda Fricker's notion of 'hermeneutical injustice'-harm done to a social group by the fact that their culture's shared hermeneutical resources are skewed towards the experiences of its more powerful members. The problem I raise here is revealed when we consider how to remedy these hermeneutical wrongs. Fricker characterizes hermeneutical injustice as involving a lack of concepts. But what has not been properly appreciated in the literature to date is that it is really competing views of the world that are at stake. Fricker's account then seems to imply that the disadvantaged group's understanding of the world (or at least that bit of it, where their understanding is contested by the dominant group, and where that difference in interpretation is harmful to the disadvantaged group) should be treated as authoritative, and taken up by the wider culture. The worry is that, in some cases, the disadvantaged group's view of things is not one that we think should be accepted. Having presented this problem, I will then show that it bears some similarities to another debate: the dispute over feminist critiques of alien cultural practices. I will then argue that lessons drawn from the latter can help overcome the problem of authority in Fricker's case.

Research collaboration with older people as a matter of scientific quality and ethics: a focus group study with researchers in ageing and health

“…The importance of creating a trusting, tolerant, and relaxed environment cannot be stressed enough if you want to get older people to share their experiences and knowledge. Being with others in a non-judgmental and permissive environment can empower older people to express their perspectives and thus distribute power between researchers and older people [ 43 ].…”

“…The challenge for a researcher, as we see it, is to be a good navigator; to avoid the dominant social group imposing its worldview on the more vulnerable group, and at the same time avoid the risk of relativism that arises from treating the social group with less power only based on its minority position. A fruitful way forward [ 43 ] is an open dialogue to try to develop a way of understanding the world together. It means collaborating across boundaries to develop ways of thinking about important issues that we can all agree on.…”

Telling the Stories of Others

“…some social experiences through a glass darkly, with at best ill-fitting meanings to draw on in the effort to render them intelligible" (2007: 148). There is much discussion regarding the extent to which explanatory resources are lacking amongst the oppressed or whether, in most instances, they do possess the interpretive resources they need to make sense of their experiences, but that the oppressive social forces prevent these from attaining a collective status in the social imagination (Mason 2011;Polhaus 2012;Romdenh-Romluc 2017). But it is not a leap to suggest that these interpretive gaps, and an overreliance on the interpretation of reality present in the (dominantly structured) social imagination, is common amongst dominantly situated artists.…”

Whose Hermeneutical Marginalization?

“…By contrast, on my picture both incidental and systematic hermeneutical injustices result from the hermeneutical marginalization of the same groups – for instance, women. Hence both incidental and systematic hermeneutical injustices can be systematically prevented by diminishing and eventually eliminating the hermeneutical marginalization of these groups – something we have a responsibility to do in any case, given the intrinsic badness of hermeneutical marginalization (Romdenh-Romluc 2017: 12; Crerar & Goetze 2022: 100). Notably, in carrying out this responsibility we can systematically prevent incidental hermeneutical injustices while keeping systematic hermeneutical injustices ‘central from our point of view’ as both theorists and political actors (Fricker 2007: 158) – a desirable feature, given that systematic hermeneutical injustices are both more prevalent and play a role in patterns of oppression.…”

“…First, Fricker means to include not just the events of a person's life but also such things as their moods, desires and social identities among their ‘social experiences’ (Fricker 2007: Ch. 7; Romdenh-Romluc 2017: 3). I have chosen to replace Fricker's talk of the wronged party's ‘social experience’ with more capacious talk of ‘something about’ them in the main text to more explicitly include such things.…”