Social Exclusion, Epistemic Injustice, and Intellectual Self-Trust

ABSTRACT

This commentary offers a coherent reading of the papers presented in the special issue ‘Exclusion, Engagement, and Empathy: Reflections on Public Participation in Medicine and Technology’. Focusing on intellectual self-trust it adds a further perspective on the harmful epistemic consequences of social exclusion for individual agents in healthcare contexts. In addition to some clarifications regarding the concepts of ‘intellectual self-trust’ and ‘social exclusion’ the commentary also examines in what ways empathy, engagement, and participatory sense-making could help to avoid threats to intellectual self-trust that arise form being excluded from participation in communicative practices in the context of healthcare.

KEYWORDS:

• Social exclusion
• hermeneutical injustice
• self-trust
• patient involvement

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the editors of this special issue for the possibility to contribute this commentary.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The final episode of the tale of ʻClever Elsieʼ can also be framed as a case of ʻgaslightingʼ, viz. the practice of manipulating a person such that their self-conception as an independent locus of judgment and deliberation is undermined. For a discussions of the epistemic dimensions of gaslighting see also (Spear 2019).

2. Some earlier accounts of intellectual self-trust identified self-trust with reliance on the deliverances of one’s epistemic faculties (e.g. Foley 2001) and thus, what I take to be the first condition of intellectual self-trust. Taking into account questions about the aptness of intellectual self-trust in various social contexts and social mechanisms that undermine epistemic self-trust, more recent accounts have shown that self-trust, just like interpersonal trust, involves more than mere reliance, (for example see Dormandy 2020).

3. This component of intellectual self-trust is important for practically coping with skeptical scenarios. It seems that one must at least presume the reliability of sense perception under normal circumstances in order to get ahold on the Cartesian evil deamon.

4. The example is instructive because, as Jones shows, the urge to recheck whether one has packed the passport is not responsive to epistemic reasons. The person does not have reasons to believe she lost her passport. Rather the mere imagination that she could have lost the passport seems to motivate the doubt.

5. This condition will probably be the most contested one because intellectual self-trust could be seen as a purely mental attitude. However, conceptualizing intellectual self-trust in this way would render the concept practically useless. The purpose of having a concept of intellectual self-trust is to explain certain patterns of a person’s behavior and therefore the concept should include a condition addressing behavioral dispositions as well.

6. Interestingly the literature on intellectual self-trust traditionally focused on the rationality of trusting one’s intellectual capacities. This concern is independent of social enabling conditions for self-trust. It was argued on an abstract level that there is an independent demand of rationality to trust one’s epistemic faculties as an inevitable ʻleap of faithʼ needed to escape the skeptical challenge, cf. (Foley 2001).

7. Reconsidering the tale of Clever Elise, this is obviously the mechanism Hans takes advantage of when he falsely asserts that Elisie is in the house. Elisie’s belief that she is outside the house is not confirmed when he gives her a reason to think of herself as intellectually untrustworthy.

8. I distinguish between groups that are tied together by shared aims and intentions of their members and collectives that are held together by a normative structure that is independent of individual aims and intentions. Groups are constituted by individuals that act together to realize shared interests. Collectives are social systems constituted by norms whose prevalence shapes the behavior of individuals within the system. For the interdisciplinary readership of this commentary it might be helpful to note that this terminology differs from the terminology that is sometimes applied in empirical social science research where ʻgroupʼ is simply meant to denote a number of people that happen to share certain properties, and where ʻcollectiveʼ seems to denote a number of people that have shared intentions and act together in order to achieve a shared aim, i.e. what I termed a ʻgroupʼ; for an example cf. (Beier et al. 2016)

9. Fricker distinguishes between a hearer’s third-personal and second-personal relation to a speaker. If one relates to a speaker in the former way one gathers information by way of observing and analyzing the speaker’s expressions. One then treats the speaker as a source of information as one would treat a measuring device from which one reads off data points. If one relates to a speaker in the second-personal way, one recognizes the speaker as an informant, i.e. as someone who communicates with intention. Treating the speaker as an informant implies presuming to be addressed by the speaker. In treating a speaker as an informant, one does not merely read off information from the speakers behavior but takes oneself as being provided with information by someone who communicates intentionally; cf. (Fricker 2012) for further development of the related assurance view of testimony cf. also (Hinchman 2005; Moran 2005).

10. This point has also been made by (Jones 2012), who diagnoses an escalating problem. If a person’s view is affirmed due to privileged rather than competence, this will lead to a perpetuation of the established social hierarchy. Excess intellectual self-trust of the privileged conditions further corrosion of the disadvantaged’s intellectual self-trust.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), project number [396775817].

Notes on contributors

Jon Leefmann

Jon Leefmann is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Applied Philosophy of Science and Key Qualifications (ZiWiS), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg where he works on a project on trust in testimony from scientific experts. In his research and teaching he combines social epistemology, applied ethics, and general philosophy of science.