scholarly journals Does False Consciousness Necessarily Preclude Moral Blameworthiness?: The Refusal of the Women Antisuffragists

Hypatia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Lee Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Structural Distortions ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural distortions of reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents. But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness enables us to see how having it does not in itself render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 antisuffragist manifesto “An Appeal against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterization is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal.

The Epistemology of Groups

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lackey
Keyword(s):  
Group Level ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Individual Group ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Normative Requirements ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Belief Justification ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Trump Administration

Groups are often said to bear responsibility for their actions, many of which have enormous moral, legal, and social significance. The Trump Administration, for instance, is said to be responsible for the U.S.’s inept and deceptive handling of COVID-19 and the harms that American citizens have suffered as a result. But are groups subject to normative assessment simply in virtue of their individual members being so, or are they somehow agents in their own right? Answering this question depends on understanding key concepts in the epistemology of groups, as we cannot hold the Trump Administration responsible without first determining what it believed, knew, and said. Deflationary theorists hold that group phenomena can be understood entirely in terms of individual members and their states. Inflationary theorists maintain that group phenomena are importantly over and above, or otherwise distinct from, individual members and their states. It is argued that neither approach is satisfactory. Groups are more than their members, but not because they have “minds of their own,” as the inflationists hold. Instead, this book shows how group phenomena—like belief, justification, and knowledge—depend on what the individual group members do or are capable of doing while being subject to group-level normative requirements. This framework, it is argued, allows for the correct distribution of responsibility across groups and their individual members.

Testimonial Smothering and Domestic Violence Disclosure in Clinical Contexts

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jack Warman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Personal Histories ◽  
Domestic Violence And Abuse

Abstract Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are at last coming to be recognised as serious global public health problems. Nevertheless, many women with personal histories of DVA decline to disclose them to healthcare practitioners. In the health sciences, recent empirical work has identified many factors that impede DVA disclosure, known as barriers to disclosure. Drawing on recent work in social epistemology on testimonial silencing, we might wonder why so many people withhold their testimony and whether there is some kind of epistemic injustice afoot here. In this paper, I offer some philosophical reflections on DVA disclosure in clinical contexts and the associated barriers to disclosure. I argue that women with personal histories of DVA are vulnerable to a certain form of testimonial injustice in clinical contexts, namely, testimonial smothering, and that this may help to explain why they withhold that testimony. It is my contention that this can help explain the low rates of DVA disclosure by patients to healthcare practitioners.

scholarly journals EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE IN THE SPACE OF REASONS

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Congdon
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Space Of Reasons ◽  
Miranda Fricker ◽  
Epistemological Framework

AbstractIn this paper, I make explicit some implicit commitments to realism and conceptualism in recent work in social epistemology exemplified by Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills. I offer a survey of recent writings at the intersection of social epistemology, feminism, and critical race theory, showing that commitments to realism and conceptualism are at once implied yet undertheorized in the existing literature. I go on to offer an explicit defense of these commitments by drawing from the epistemological framework of John McDowell, demonstrating the relevance of the metaphor of the “space of reasons” for theorizing and criticizing instances of epistemic injustice. I then point out how McDowell’s own view requires expansion and revision in light of Mills' concept of “epistemologies of ignorance.” I conclude that, when their strengths are used to make up for each others' weaknesses, Mills and McDowell’s positions mutually reinforce one another, producing a powerful model for theorizing instances of systematic ignorance and false belief.

scholarly journals Evolution of human signed networks

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-293
Author(s):  
Patrick Doreian
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
The Other ◽  
Balance Theory ◽  
Group Level ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Research ◽  
Human Actors

Two strands of empirical research were based on Heider’s work. One was experimental and remained true to idea that mental affect processes operating within human actors are central while the other jumped to the level of group dynamics and relegated the mental affect processes to the status of background phenomena. By the 1980s, both strands had petered out with little cumulated knowledge. Recently, the ‘group-level’ strand of research has received renewed attention. Much of the recent work, while vigorous, has fallen short precisely because it ignored some of the foundational ideas of Heider. Given this diagnosis, I suggest a new research agenda for structural balance theory that integrates the dynamics of mental affect processes with group-level dynamics.

The Production-Oriented Approach to the Ethical Criticism of Art

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Ethical Evaluation ◽  
Conceptual Space ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Oriented Approach

This chapter sketches the general argument for the production-oriented approach to the ethical criticism of art. It begins by noting that at least some artworks (of performance art, for example) are isomorphic with the actions by which they are created. Such artworks are open to ethical evaluation in the same way that any action of a moral agent is open to ethical appraisal. This clears the conceptual space for the production-oriented approach. The chapter goes on to show that the production-oriented approach has an advantage over the interpretation-oriented approaches advocated by Booth, Devereaux, and Gaut in virtue of its ability to assign praise or blame to real moral agents who are responsible for their artworks. The chapter then bolsters the rationale for the production-oriented approach by appealing to anti-empiricist arguments in the aesthetics literature before drawing upon an analogy to similar arguments in virtue ethics and virtue epistemology.

scholarly journals II. Electrical conductivity in gases traversed by cathode rays

1901 ◽  
Vol 195 (262-273) ◽  
pp. 49-77 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Conductivity ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Negative Ions ◽  
In Virtue Of

Though it has been known that a gas becomes a conductor when traversed by cathode rays, yet the laws connecting this electrical conductivity have not hitherto been studied. The theory has been put forward by J. J. Thomson and Rutherford* that when a gas becomes a conductor under a radiation, it does so in virtue of the production of positive and negative ions throughout its mass. This view has been established by their experiments on Röntgenised gases, and confirmed by those of Zeleny on the same subject. The recent work of Rutherford on Uranium Radiation also affords another example of such a process in the gases traversed.

The collaborative emergence of group cognition

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Theiner ◽  
John Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Group Cognition ◽  
Collaborative Memory ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Collaborative Emergence ◽  
Intelligent Action

AbstractWe extend Smaldino's approach to collaboration and social organization in cultural evolution to include cognition. By showing how recent work on emergent group-level cognition can be incorporated within Smaldino's framework, we extend that framework's scope to encompass collaborative memory, decision making, and intelligent action. We argue that beneficial effects arise only in certain forms of cognitive interdependence, in surprisingly fragile conditions.

scholarly journals Moral Explanations, Thick and Thin

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Cline
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Moral Explanations ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Cornell Realism ◽  
In Virtue Of

Cornell realists maintain that irreducible moral properties have earned a place in our ontology in virtue of the indispensable role they play in a variety of explanations. These explanations can be divided into two groups: those that employ thin ethical concepts and those that employ thick ethical concepts. Recent work on thick concepts suggests that they are not inherently evaluative in their meaning. If correct, this creates problems for the moral explanations of Cornell realists, since the most persuasive moral explanations are those that employ thick concepts. If thick concepts are not inherently evaluative, then the most plausible explanations on offer cannot support Cornell realism. Moral explanations employing thin concepts, however, are too flimsy to support the view. Unless proponents can develop a compelling story about thick concepts or thin explanations, Cornell realism is in trouble.

Responsibility and Explanations of Rape

2021 ◽  
pp. 95-118
Author(s):  
Hanna Pickard
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
Psychological Function ◽  
Causal Cognition ◽  
The Grotesque

This chapter examines the psychological function and consequences of responsibility ascriptions in relation to the crime of rape. Section 1 draws on recent work in the philosophy and science of causal cognition to argue that responsibility ascriptions, like explanations, are tethered to interests and perspectives: descriptive and prescriptive background norms affect not only what counts as a satisfying explanation of why something happened, but who is singled out as the bearer of responsibility for what happened. Section 2 draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with convicted rapists, together with empirical studies of the attitudes and factors that result in ‘victim-blaming’ within the general population, to detail the descriptive and prescriptive norms of rape culture. Section 3 brings these discussions together. Given the pervasive influence of rape culture norms, introducing a woman’s violation of any of them in court can serve to (implicitly or explicitly) focus attention on those violations as causally salient and explanatory of what happened, and hence on her—as opposed to him—as the bearer of responsibility for what happened. The psychological function and consequences of responsibility ascriptions may therefore contribute to the grotesque and persistent failure of the courts to convict and appropriately sentence rapists.

Ethics and Expert Authority in the Patient–Psychotherapist Relationship

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Guidry-Grimes ◽  
Jamie Carlin Watson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Therapeutic Relationship ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Shared Decision ◽  
Moral Failure

The consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement contends that individuals diagnosed with mental health conditions are routinely doubted or dismissed when they make claims about their needs, values, and interests. Too many therapists, the claim goes, take a parentalist stance toward their patients. Recent work on expertise shows how some patients can acquire competence with their medical condition sufficient for sophisticated participation in management of their care; that is, they can become “patient experts.” This chapter argues that many psychotherapy patients can become patient experts and, thereby, benefit from robust shared decision making (SDM). In these cases, attitudes of distrust and protectionism can lead to the moral failure of epistemic injustice, thereby harming both the patient and the therapeutic relationship. Drawing on recent literature on epistemic injustice, SDM, and expertise from epistemology, the authors contend that the success of SDM relies largely on the therapist’s appreciation of the varying types and degrees of expertise and epistemic advantage involved in decision making.

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