Logical Injustice: A New Dimension of Wronging Reasoners

Epistemic injustice is to wrong someone in their capacity as a knower; hermeneutical injustice is to wrong them as an understander. What I propose is that logical injustice is to wrong them in their capacity as a reasoner. To wrong someone as a reasoner is to fail to appreciate the coherence in their thoughts. I want to discuss whether logical injustice is subject to the same problem as epistemic and hermeneutical injustice, namely that the injustice is neither genuinely epistemic nor hermeneutical, but rather reducible to prejudices and social injustice.

Kristie Dotson, for instance, distinguishes three levels of epistemic injustice, only one of which is genuinely epistemic; the other two are not because the reparation doesn’t require a change in the shared epistemic tools. It’s only when an injustice is propagated by the inertia of the dominant epistemic systems that resist change or accommodation that the injustice is genuinely epistemic. If the injustice is the historical exclusion of women from philosophy, the injustice is reducible to patriarchal injustice, not something specifically epistemological. Some women were given enough space to contribute to the growth of philosophical knowledge, and they could contribute without having to change or add to the dominant epistemological tools. Maybe a case like that is Émilie du Châtelet, who found a way to contribute to philosophy, not by changing how it’s done, but by breaking through the ranks. I’m simplifying here.

In contrast, I think a modern example of a proper epistemological injustice, one that is due to the inertia of the dominant theories, is the exclusion of trans people from contributing to knowledge. If I understand Dotson correctly, the exclusion is due to the resistance of established knowledge systems to change the conceptual space of sex and gender to appreciate the expression of alternative identities. Established epistemological tools can at best accommodate a trans person as being “both a man and a woman” or “neither a man nor a woman.” However, this is far removed from the knowledge, understanding, and reasoning that trans people have and can contribute, but aren’t allowed to because it doesn’t fit within the established epistemology. I believe this is what Dotson means by irreducible epistemic injustice due to the inertia of dominant epistemology.

Now that we can appreciate what irreducible injustice means, we can ask how epistemic, hermeneutical, and, what I wish to contribute, logical injustice, differ.

Reference: Dotson, Kristie. “Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression.” Social Epistemology 28, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2013.782585.