Sexual Epistemic Injustice

Abstract

Can predictable impairments of epistemic performance constitute injustice in the absence of harassment, manipulation, or prejudicial credibility deflation? I use this question to examine a case drawn from ordinary intellectual exchange: in mixed-sex settings, some male speakers may be distracted by the perceived attractiveness of a female interlocutor, with consequences for how their arguments are received. I argue that, in the stipulated case, the man has not suffered an injustice and the woman has not wronged him. The philosophical puzzle is why that verdict is correct, given a tempting inferential pattern in recent work on epistemic injustice from patterned epistemic disadvantage, especially when identity-linked, to an injustice verdict. I argue that injustice ascriptions require epistemic harm, wrong-making features, and accountability. The resulting framework distinguishes epistemic misfortune and thin unfairness from genuine epistemic injustice and helps assess contemporary disputes about the scope of the concept.