2.1. Verbal disputes, conceptual gaps, and extension

Fricker (Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016) clarified “collective” was to be understood as the intersection of epistemic resources any member of the relevant community could be expected to have access to. This allows that marginalized communities may have local epistemic resources not shared by the larger community, and so avoids concerns of the first sort. To address concerns of the second sort, Fricker extendedFootnote ² the initial characterization of HI to a spectrum of species of the phenomena. On one boundary are paradigmatic cases of HI – Carmita Wood experiencing sexual harassment before coining the term – called maximal HI, since the gap in collective epistemic resources is global. On the other boundary are cases where the gap in collective resources is local, called minimal HI, which involve marginalized individuals sufficiently equipped with hermeneutical resources to understand their harmful experiences, but who are unable to be understood by those lacking the same resources. Fricker claims Joe from the novel Enduring Love exhibits minimal HI: Joe is being stalked by a religious zealot, but is unable to articulate his harmful experiences to police, as his stalker has not – strictly speaking – committed a crime.Footnote ³

The preceding disputes, it seems, stemmed largely from ambiguity in Fricker's initial presentation of HI; Fricker's clarifications seem adequate to address the concerns. More clarification seems needed, however, as evidenced by recent discussion of whether scenarios involving certain types of abuse exhibit HI. One concern is that HI involving individuals ‘unable to render a harmful experience intelligible’ is ambiguous. It might be understood as suggesting HI is present even if an individual does not attempt to render harmful experiences intelligible as long as they would have difficulty were they to try. It might alternatively be understood as suggesting HI is present only when there are attempts to render a harmful experience intelligible. Clearing this up is important since, as one example, Jose Medina has claimed marginalized individuals who are persistently and extensively excluded from participating in meaning-making and meaning-sharing, may experience a species of HI he calls hermeneutical death, the loss of the capacity to participate in these practices (Medina Reference Medina2017a, Reference Medina, Kidd, Medina and Pohlhaus2017b). But if HI as Fricker understands requires an individual actually struggle to make sense of such experiences, then it seems hermeneutical death does not count as HI. From another direction, even assuming the relevant gap is understood as the intersection of collective hermeneutical resources, it is unclear whether Fricker's characterization of HI requires a literal absence of resources, or allows that gaps might arise due to a surplus of resources, some being obscured by others. Katherine Jenkins, for example, recently applied Fricker's account of HI to cases of domestic abuse and sexual violence, arguing that when persistent social misunderstandings of, say, domestic abuse conflict with relevant legal definitions – as often occurs during domestic abuse trials – victims may struggle to render experienced harms intelligible (Jenkins Reference Jenkins2017: 191–2). Jenkins concludes such cases exhibit HI. However, if HI requires a literal absence of hermeneutical resources – rather than allowing the gap may exist due to a surplus of resources obscuring those needed to understand the harmful experience – then the phenomenon Jenkins identifies does not, in fact, count as HI.Footnote ⁴ From yet another direction, Fricker claims the relevant gap in collective hermeneutical resources must stem from hermeneutical disadvantage to count as HI, but this runs the risk of overlooking that individuals often have hermeneutical disadvantages and advantages, as well as the importance of how such asymmetries arise and are sustained.Footnote ⁵

So, though our main goal in this article is explication of the remedy of HI, it is worth clarifying hallmarks of the injustice, so we have the target phenomenon in full view. Given the remaining ambiguity in Fricker's presentations of HI, it is not enough to simply quote Fricker. We must instead excavate some of these hallmarks ourselves.Footnote ⁶

2.2. Manifestation condition and hermeneutical marginalization

Consider a paradigmatic case of HI:

Reflection on Case 1 reveals hallmarks of HI.Footnote ⁸ In various places, Fricker maintains HI arises only when an agent struggles to make sense of an experience.Footnote ^9, Footnote ¹⁰ The when and where of HI is tethered to those affected who try and fail to render their experiences intelligible. This implies if an agent is not attempting to render their harmful experience intelligible, there is no HI. Fricker thus accepts what I will call the Manifestation Condition (MC):

MC might initially appear problematic. Suppose Sue is busy at work, momentarily distracted, or sleeping, and so not attempting to make sense of her harmful experiences. If MC is true, Sue is not subjected at those times to an injustice that undermines her abilities to render her experiences intelligible. That seems false.

But this is too quick.Footnote ¹² Fricker distinguishes HI from Hermeneutical Marginalization HM: a state of affairs exhibiting non-accidental inequality between individuals or groups that provides the background condition against which instances of HI manifest.Footnote ¹³ An analogy makes the point clear: Salt is disposed to initiate a dissolving process, if placed in background conditions, but salt being so disposed does not entail it ever will; dispositions and associated processes are only correlated (Lowe Reference Lowe2006; Smith et al. Reference Smith, Spear and Ceusters2016; Williams Reference Williams2019). Analogously, Fricker seems to hold: agents are to salt as HM is to water and as manifesting HI is to dissolving. This analogy makes sense of Case 1, which exhibits HM, dispositions to manifest HI, and manifestation of HI. Hence, this counts as an instance of HI. And it also makes sense of why nearby scenarios which exhibit HM but not MC, do not count as instances of HI. Individuals in such cases are more like iron than salt, in a cup of water. And neither HI nor dissolving necessarily manifests in such respective setups. If the preceding analogy correctly describes the relationship between HI and HM, then it seems Fricker is committed to:

Which links manifestations to background conditions and makes all the difference when responding to the above objection. While Sue is not struggling to render her harmful experiences intelligible to herself or others, she nevertheless operates against this background condition which would undermine her attempts at doing so, and in that way is marginalized.Footnote ¹⁴ Our objector may be unmoved, and insist Sue in Case 1 exhibits HI even when, say, sleeping.Footnote ¹⁵ But it is not clear what is gained in claiming HI in this case over mere HM. Moreover, rejecting MC suggests there is little to distinguish HI and HM making it unclear what role this distinction plays in Fricker's theory. Altogether then: Reflection on Case 1 suggests two hallmarks of HI, namely, that relevant individuals must at least attempt to render harmful experiences intelligible and this must operate against a background of hermeneutical marginalization.Footnote ¹⁶

2.3. Coercion, hermeneutical disadvantage, and advantage

Consider next:

Let us further suppose there is no gap in the collective hermeneutical resources, but that Sally is unable to access those resources owing to coping mechanisms. Importantly, Sally is not struggling to render her experience intelligible, so Case 2 is not an instance of HI. However, it is plausible Case 2 exhibits HM. Moreover, there is a positive reason for treating Case 2 as at least exhibiting HM. Since Sally self-imposed coping mechanisms, rejecting Case 2 as exhibiting HM seems close to victim blaming,Footnote ¹⁸ i.e. claiming Sally is not hermeneutically marginalized, but perhaps inappropriately self-imposes coping mechanisms making her epistemically culpable. Of course, rejecting Case 2 as HM does not entail characterization of Sally in a way that supports victim-blaming. Still, it seems plausible if there is an alternative characterization of Case 2 that does not so easily lend itself to such a reading, then we should prefer that alternative. I will thus assume our task in what follows is to discover how to classify Case 2 as exhibiting HM while remaining consistent with Fricker's commitments.

Yet, there may be reasons to think Case 2 does not exhibit HM. Fricker claims one cannot simply “opt in” (Fricker 2007: 153) to HM, e.g. become a hermit. Sally self-imposing coping mechanisms seems rather close to opting in. But Sally is not simply opting into HM. Sally is coerced into developing coping mechanisms. The importance of coercion to HM is supported by observing Fricker claims in cases of HI – and so HM – the absence of resources needed for mutual understanding of harmful experiences is not accidental,Footnote ¹⁹ suggesting coercion is involved in HI. And since HI is a structural phenomenon (Fricker Reference Fricker2007, Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016), lacking obvious perpetrators in paradigm cases, it is plausible to locate this “local marshalling of forces against attempts to render intelligible harmful experiences” in the background conditions against which HI manifests, i.e. HM. If correct, we should expect to find coercion associated with HM too.

We can appeal to Fricker's recent discussion of the potential overlap between HI and White Ignorance (Fricker Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016: 174–5) for guidance here. The relevant case Fricker examines for our purposes is:

Fricker claims Ignore exhibits both white ignorance and HI. But note, if coercion alone were sufficient for HM, then it is plausible members of the relevant white population might also be subjected to HM too, since it is not difficult to imagine, say, the suppression of relevant concepts and knowledge needed to understand the experiences of marginalized individuals is coerced, e.g. through education, parents, propaganda, etc. Even under such conditions, however, it seems incorrect to say the ignorant members of the white population are subject to HM. This suggests a way to understand the role of coercion in Fricker's account of HI. While ignorant white individuals in the relevant cases do not exhibit HM, they exhibit Hermeneutical Disadvantage (HD), i.e. a deficit in subjects’ abilities to contribute to collective epistemic resources (Fricker Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016: 173–5):Footnote ²⁰

In addition to HD, ignorant whites in these cases also exhibit significant Hermeneutical Advantage HA, i.e. a surplus in subjects’ abilities to contribute to collective epistemic resources. HA alone is insufficient to show a case does not exhibit HM Footnote ²¹ since groups often exhibit both HA and HD. What seems crucial to determining whether HM is exhibited is the ratio of quantity/quality of HA to HD. We need not attempt to make this precise.Footnote ²² Let P denote a quantitative and qualitative combination of HA; let Q denote a quantitative and qualitative combination of HD; let T denote some fixed positive real number. It suffices to say a case counts as HM with respect to HA and HD if T < P/Q, and a case does not count as HM if T > P/Q. In other words, in a given context, a case counts as HM if the hermeneutical advantages weighed against disadvantages results in a number below a certain threshold which – perhaps – allows for indeterminate or borderline cases. So, ignorant white individuals in Ignore do not exhibit HM, since the ratio of advantages to disadvantages is plausibly greater than any reasonable specification of T and non-white individuals in Ignore are plausibly more disadvantaged than they are advantaged, so there is HM. Altogether: To exhibit HM, local marshalling of forces must play to the coerced disadvantage of a group. These observations provide an explanation for why Case 2 exhibits HM: Sally is coerced resulting in a proportion of HA to HD below some reasonable specification of T.

Fricker's discussion of White Ignorance reveals one more hallmark of HI, illustrated by reflection on the following (Fricker Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016: 173):

Fricker claims members of the relevant marginalized population attempting to render their harmful experiences intelligible to ignorant members of the white population in Disbelief are not subjected to HI since the inability of the white individuals to make sense of these harmful experiences stems from epistemically culpable behaviors,Footnote ²³ e.g. failing to infer from existing concepts needed conceptual resources to understand. Contrast this result with Ignore – which exhibits HI – where marginalized individuals fail to render their experiences intelligible to white individuals due to a literal gap in the collective conceptual resources. This is to say, whether HI is present trades on whether communication or understanding breaks down due to needed concepts for comprehension being obscured or being absent. If the former, there is not HI; if the latter, there may be HI.Footnote ²⁴

2.4. Hallmarks of HI

Combining these observations provide necessary and sufficient conditions for HI:

1. (1) C exhibits HM Footnote ²⁵

2. (2) S struggles to render a harmful experience intelligible to S’

3. (3) S’ fails to understand S due to S’ lacking conceptual resources

4. (4) Gap in (3) is not due to epistemically culpableFootnote ²⁶ behaviors by either S or S’.

Where S and S’ may be the same individual, e.g. Carmita Wood; Sue in Case 1. Having identified necessary and sufficient conditions for HI, we turn next to explicating Fricker's proposed remedy to this injustice, which has received far less attention than the injustice.

3.1. Moral aspect of HJ: first pass

Fricker (Reference Fricker2007: 163–5) divides the harms of HI into primary (always present with the phenomenon) and secondary (often present with the phenomenon). The primary harm of HI is that agents are unable to render harmful experiences intelligible; secondary harms include practical consequences of the primary harm, e.g. doubting oneself, denial of unemployment claims, etc. Secondary harms may in term compound primary harms. HJ is meant to remedy both primary and secondary harms. Indeed, understanding the harms of HI in this manner leads naturally to observing a way to address the primary harm, namely, creating space in which marginalized individuals may safely engage in the difficult task of understanding and communicating relevant harmful experiences. And if HJ adequately addresses the primary harm of HI then it is plausible to think the secondary harms will be addressed too. This is, broadly speaking, Fricker's characterization of HJ. At the same time, however, understanding harms associated with HI in terms of this dichotomy leads less naturally to reflection on what responsibilities individuals have to address primary and secondary harms, beyond merely cultivating good listening habits and – perhaps more importantly – leads less naturally to reflection on how responsible parties might address these harms. It is, moreover, no surprise Fricker does not examine in detail responsibilities of individuals while discussing HJ, since HI is a structural injustice often lacking individual perpetrators.

An alternative characterizationFootnote ²⁸ of HI harms – as moral or epistemic – is both broader than the primary/secondary distinction Fricker indexes to HI and provides an obvious link to responsibility. In broad outline, moral harms are harms to an individual insofar as they are an autonomous moral agent, epistemic harms are harms to an individual insofar as they are a source or creator of knowledge, and the presence of either harm suggests the presence of some corresponding moral or epistemic responsibility. The utility of framing harms in this manner is best illustrated by examining how they both align with Fricker's understanding of HJ while explaining what responsible parties can do to address HI more specifically than simply cultivating listening habits. So, we will do just that.

Specifically, in what follows we frame HI as both moral and epistemic harms, and consequently, understand HJ as involving corresponding moral and epistemic responsibilities. Unfortunately, this framing alone does not get us far in understanding Fricker's HJ, since Fricker provides little specification of this putative remedy. Fortunately, we can make progress on the moral aspect by relying on recent literature (Beverley Reference Beverley2016) supporting context-dependent principles underwriting widely accepted (Beverley and Beebe Reference Beverley and Beebe2017) judgments of moral responsibility. Independent of Fricker's discussion of HJ it seems the following is true:

This hardly needs defending. We seem to have a default moral responsibility not to harm others, and whether we have such a responsibility appears to vary by context. If James learns that whenever he taps his feet in class it causes Sally tremendous pain, then James in this context plausibly has a moral responsibility to refrain from that behavior. In such a context, Non-malfeasance applies to James. On the other hand, if James taps his feet to alleviate his own tremendous discomfort at having to sit in seminar, and this merely causes Sally slight discomfort, it seems plausible James does not have a moral responsibility to refrain. In this context, the responsibility adverted in Non-malfeasance does not apply to James. These observations suggest certain features of context are relevant to whether an agent has a moral responsibility in that context, namely, perceived degree of harm done by an action and cost to an agent for refraining from that action.

Judgments of moral responsibility vary with respect to other contextual features, often intimately tied to the preceding. For example, it seems mistaken to attribute moral responsibility to refrain from a given action to agents who are genuinely unable to refrain from that action. This suggests judgments that an individual is morally responsible for refraining from some action track whether the agent is perceived as able to refrain or not.Footnote ²⁹ Similarly, it seems mistaken to attribute moral responsibility to agents who are able to refrain from actions that cause harm to others, but who are genuinely unaware that they are able to refrain from those actions. Related, agents who know they can refrain from such actions but who do not realize those actions are harmful to others also seem outside the scope of moral responsibility as codified in Non-malfeasance. What these brief outlines of philosophical and empirical results defended elsewhere suggest is that judgments of moral responsibility are sensitive not only to perceived harm to individuals and cost to the potential bearer of responsibility, but also to the knowledge of the bearer's ability and bearer's knowing a given action is harmful.

Though Non-malfeasance is motivated independently of Fricker's discussion of HJ, it is an easy fit. Presumably, each of us has a moral responsibility to refrain from, say, contributing to difficulties marginalized individuals have when attempting to communicate harmful experiences, since such contribution is often harmful. Non-malfeasance, moreover, fits with Fricker's characterization of HI as structural, and so generating limited responsibility with respect to individuals. Non-malfeasance does not exactly capture Fricker's characterization of HJ, however. Fricker (Reference Fricker2012: 259–60; Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016) suggests HJ may also involve active dissemination of information concerning the causes of marginalization, e.g. implicit bias, and Fricker has adopted a “whatever works” approach to addressing structural marginalization (Fricker Reference Fricker2010: 166). Non-malfeasance does not provide sufficient responsibility to underwrite active involvement in addressing the injustice.

3.2. Moral aspect of HJ: second pass

Reflecting further on the preceding observations reveals the lines along which to motivate stronger moral principles. Each of the preceding contextual features may magnify moral responsibility across contexts, as again strongly suggested by recent philosophical (Beverley Reference Beverley2016) and empirical research (Beverley and Beebe Reference Beverley and Beebe2017) exploring patterns of judgments of moral responsibility. Consider, if James can save Sally's life by donating blood plasma, which has little cost to James, then it seems James has a moral responsibility to accept this minimal cost to himself to prevent a substantial harm to Sally. James thus appears to bear a responsibility to accept a minimal cost to himself to prevent great harm – independent of his involvement in generation of that harm – and this moral responsibility is more than simply refraining from engaging in a harmful action, i.e. more substantial than Non-malfeasance.Footnote ³⁰ On the other hand, if the only way James can save Sally's life is by sacrificing his own, then it does not seem James has a moral responsibility to do so, again suggesting judgments of moral responsibility are sensitive to tradeoffs of harms to individuals in relevant contexts. Adjusting harm from Sally's perspective follows a similarly predictable pattern. If Sally is simply congested, then it seems incorrect to say James has a moral responsibility to sacrifice his life or limbs to clear up Sally's mild illness. Indeed, it is questionable whether James has a moral responsibility to even, say, donate blood plasma for the same end despite it being a minimal cost. These observations strongly suggest various judgments of moral responsibility are underwritten by a principle stronger than Non-malfeasance, codifying responsibility not simply to refrain from harmful actions, but to in fact provide aid to others in need.

The following – which we might think of as a magnification of Non-malfeasance – then appears to obtain in certain contexts:

What counts as providing aid to another here is broad; it may include substantial investment of time and energy in the cultivation of virtuous listening skills, but it also might consist in simply directing those in need to experts better able to offer assistance. As before, judgments of moral responsibility to provide aid in various contexts appear sensitive to one's ability to provide that aid, one having knowledge of one's ability to provide aid, and knowledge of the effects of that aid. If James's blood will clearly not affect Sally's health, then it seems he has no moral responsibility to provide it for her. Similarly, if James's blood will in fact save Sally's life, but neither he nor anyone else knows that, then it seems again he has no moral responsibility to provide blood plasma to that end. Same for – rather artificial – contexts in which James's blood could save Sally's life and he knows this, but he is unaware Sally (or anyone else) needs or will need his blood plasma for that purpose.

Returning to HJ, note Beneficence involves moral responsibility substantial enough, it seems, to underwrite taking action to disseminate information concerning recently observed harms associated with implicit bias (Fricker Reference Fricker, Peels and Blaauw2016). In that respect, this principle fits better with Fricker's characterization of HJ. This fit becomes clearer when examining the sorts of conversational contexts Fricker targets in her discussion of HJ. Beneficence appears to apply, say, to privileged listeners in circumstances in which marginalized speakers are attempting to render intelligible harmful experiences. Privileged listeners carry with them authority to validate or invalidate – broadly speaking – communicative attempts by marginalized speakers, as evidenced by Fricker's detailed exposition of testimonial injustice (Fricker Reference Fricker2007), Dotson's articulation of testimonial smothering, etc. (Dotson Reference Dotson2011). Put another way, privileged conversational partners have the ability to help or harm marginalized speakers in relevant conversations. Moreover, moral harms associated with HI may be severe, undermining knowledge of oneself, affecting lives of loved ones, undermining autonomy, etc., and it appears in many contexts privileged listeners experience little cost in helping marginalized individuals understand harmful experiences. It is thus reasonable that privileged individuals listening to the difficulties marginalized speakers have in rendering harmful experiences intelligible are under at least a moral responsibility as strong as Beneficence. This seems good motivation for understanding the moral aspect of HJ in part along the lines of this stronger moral principle.

There are, as one should expect, caveats. Consider, privileged listeners who are legitimately unaware of the abilities they have in conversation with marginalized speakers may not bear moral responsibility to provide aid along the lines of Beneficence. This may appear a cost to the principle since that suggests Beneficence does not apply in contexts where privileged individuals are ignorant. Given the prevalence of, say, white ignorance this might make Beneficence and the codified responsibility appear inapplicable in most contexts. To be sure, I think it is plausible Beneficence does not apply to privileged individuals who are genuinely ignorant of their privilege and who are presented with marginalized speakers attempting to render intelligible harmful experiences. But most real-world contexts involve privileged individuals who have significant evidence that they are privileged, even in cases of white ignorance. True, privileged individuals are often motivated to disregard, ignore, or explain away such evidence, but they are nevertheless exposed to ample evidence of race, sex, disability, and age discrimination, among other forms. In that respect, they have reasons to suspect they bear privilege, insofar as they do not fall into such classes of individuals. Hence, they have reasons to suspect they bear such authority in conversation with marginalized individuals attempting to render harmful experiences intelligible.Footnote ³¹ Privileged individuals with such ample evidence are within purview of Beneficence, and this condition seems met in most contexts involving privileged individuals.

One might grant the preceding but remain concerned that privileged listeners in relevant contexts may be outside the scope of Beneficence even if they recognize they are able to help marginalized speakers avoid serious harm at little cost to themselves. If privileged individuals do not know how to provide aid to marginalized speakers exhibiting HI, it seems incorrect to say they nevertheless have a responsibility to provide aid. Indeed, privileged listeners may worry – rightly – that they might do more harm than good, and since Non-malfeasance plausibly applies to them in such contexts, they bear a responsibility to refrain from action that is harmful to the speaker. To be sure, privileged individuals in such contexts might stumble upon a way to provide just the right help to marginalized speakers in contexts exhibiting HI. But toy soldiers are toys, not soldiers, and accidental virtues, mere accidents. The risk of potential harm in such contexts seems too great to leave to chance. This suggests Beneficence does not apply to privileged agents in such contexts. Rather, privileged individuals bear responsibility underwritten by Beneficence when they have evidence of the efficacy of aid they attempt to provide. Unfortunately, this requirement sharply delimits the number of contexts in which privileged individuals bear responsibility to aid marginalized speakers exhibiting HI, since it is plausible given the nature of HI, many privileged individuals presented with a marginalized individual struggling to make sense of harmful experiences will – rightly – lack confidence in the efficacy of help they might provide.

In sum: Our independently motivated contextual principles Non-malfeasance and Beneficence appear to line up with Fricker's characterization of the moral aspect of HJ, yet the latter seems to exclude from responsibility agents who do not know how to provide aid effectively to those in need. Rather, given the potential harm one might expect arising from trying and failing to provide aid in such a scenario, and the force of Non-malfeasance in such contexts, it seems agents should not, in fact, attempt to provide aid. What is needed to address this issue, it seems, is agents bearing a responsibility to learn to provide aid in future contexts. This, moreover, seems needed to capture Fricker's choosing to describe HJ as a cultivated virtue (Fricker Reference Fricker2007). Virtues take time to develop, and cultivating virtue often involves intentional, deliberative, learning.

3.3. Moral aspect of HJ: third pass

We make some progress by again reflecting on the above contextual features which influence judgments of moral responsibility. Privileged individuals who recognize they lack skills needed to provide aid to marginalized speakers in such contexts, gain evidence of an educational gap. This evidence, coupled with awareness of authority one has to (in)validate marginalized speakers in conversational contexts, and awareness of the significant harms associated with HI, creates a somewhat rare context for the privileged individual, and it has been shown judgments of moral responsibility are sensitive to rarity of provider's ability to offer aid (Beverley Reference Beverley2016; Beverly and Beebe Reference Beverley and Beebe2017).

Consider, Rhesus disease kills millions of infants around the world, and there is – at present – not a cure that can be synthesized in a lab without the blood plasma of John Harrison. Harrison's donations have saved the lives of approximately 2.4 million infants worldwide. It seems plausible he has a responsibility to donate. But it also seems Harrison is uniquelyFootnote ³² positioned to help, and thus carries great responsibility to do so. To see this, consider if each of us knew we were able to provide blood plasma that could be used to synthesize a vaccine for Rhesus disease, but none of us donated, then we would have all done something morally wrong, but none of us would have obviously done anything worse than anyone else in this context. In contrast, in our context where John Harrison is uniquely able to provide this aid and is aware of that fact, John refraining from donating blood plasma seems morally worse than it would be in the context where everyone – himself included – could donate but decided not to. Perceived rarity to provide aid thus seems to influence judgments of moral responsibility, and as with other features of contexts discussed, this influence has been supported empirically.

Since it seems rarity magnifies moral responsibility generally speaking and privileged individuals in contexts exhibiting HI who realize they are ill-equipped to provide aid find themselves in a rare position to help, there seems motivation for a moral responsibility beyond that found in Beneficence, namely, to learn to provide aid. We might characterize this as:

With Moral Education, we have an explanation based on contextual features for agents having a moral responsibility to learn to provide aid to others in various contexts. In particular, we have an explanation for privileged individuals in contexts exhibiting HI having a moral responsibility to cultivate virtuous listening skills, among others. This much aligns with Fricker's brief characterization of HJ. Still, we might nevertheless worry that moral responsibility codified in Moral Education is too easily undermined. Even if we fix contextual features so that privileged individuals in contexts exhibiting HI are aware of their own privilege and associated abilities to help, are confident in those abilities, and recognize how helpful they can be, there is still the question of cost to the provider. This is worrisome not because learning to provide efficacious aid to marginalized speakers in such contexts would itself be a great cost to privileged individuals, but because it seems it may in many cases be just costly enough to undermine responsibility given the fact that each of us have various projects, life goals, etc. that should be considered when evaluating overall cost. A privileged individual devoting most of her life to finding a cure for cancer, while raising a family, volunteering at various causes, practicing yoga for mental health, etc., might find little time to effectively learn to and develop confidence in providing aid to marginalized individuals in contexts exhibiting HI. Learning to provide aid to marginalized speakers in such contexts may not be a negligible investment when weighed against other investments one has; as a result, the tradeoff between costs to oneself and benefits of providing aid to others might result in the responsibility adverted as applying to privileged individuals in Moral Education being overridden in such contexts.

How forceful this worry ultimately is depends largely on judgments of how costly education and practice is to a potential privileged provider. This in turn depends on how much time and effort learning strategies for providing aid in such context takes. Depending on the context, it may be as simple as learning to listen attentively, asking questions to keep conversation flowing, recognizing and attending to silences, or directing marginalized individuals to experts better able to help. In other contexts, in contrast, it may be as complicated as developing skills often found among clinical psychologists. At this point, I can only offer my intuition that privileged individuals in the former contexts more often than not bear the responsibility adverted in Moral Education, while those in the latter – unless they, in fact, are clinical psychologists – do not obviously bear such substantial responsibilities.Footnote ³³ We revisit how moral and epistemic responsibilities may be magnified in institutional contexts in some detail below, but before then we turn to the epistemic aspect of HJ to provide a full picture of the putative remedy for HI.

3.4. Epistemic aspect of HJ: first pass

Fricker's initial presentation of HJ provided a starting point for reflections on contextual features relevant to epistemic responsibility, though it seemed little more than a species of the sort of epistemic responsibility each of us already owes to one another:

Insofar as one intends to engage in conversation with another, Suspend seems true. This is not, of course, to say we each have a responsibility to assume struggling interlocutors are never confused, nonsensical, etc. Indeed, in some cases it seems we should make such assumptions, e.g. students having trouble articulating questions about difficult philosophical material. Further, reflecting on differences between contexts in which this principle applies and when it does not reveals contextual features relevant to judgments of epistemic responsibility. To sharpen the analysis, focus on contexts where the speaker is attempting to, say, articulate an experience to themselves. As an example of a context in which the principle plausibly applies, consider a physicist encountering data suggesting a well-confirmed physical theory is false. This physicist would – rightly – be reluctant to immediately jettison the theory, but may nevertheless have difficulty explaining the new data; it seems incorrect to count them as confused or nonsensical, suggesting the responsibility adverted in Suspend applies to the physicist in this context. On the other hand, as an example of a context in which the principle does not seem to apply, consider an individual raised in a racist environment who acquires evidence that conflicts with his racist ideology. This individual might also struggle to make sense of this new evidence given his existing beliefs; but here it seems correct to count this individual as confused or nonsensical, suggesting the responsibility adverted in Suspend in this context is overridden. Roughly speaking, the epistemic difference between these cases seems to depend on a tradeoff between evidence one has for a set of beliefs that typically get the right results, and the amount and extent of counterevidence to those beliefs. A well-confirmed physical theory met with minimal counterevidence seems worth holding on to; racist beliefs learned from one's environment are more frequently met with counterevidence than such physical theories.

This tradeoff between contextual features influencing judgments of epistemic responsibility can be illustrated further by reflecting on a childhood anecdote shared by W.E.B. Du Bois (Reference Du Bois1903: 16) which suggested an early struggle to understand why white children treated him differently. In this brief story, Du Bois suggests having considered several explanations for this different treatment, e.g. he was not as smart as other children, he was not as athletic, etc., and having formed such hypotheses, he tested them, e.g. attaining academic excellence, becoming a star athlete, disconfirming each. Ultimately, Du Bois concluded he was treated differently due to the color of his skin, given so many other putative explanations failed. Important for our purpose, is how epistemically responsible it would seem – at least initially – for Du Bois to attempt to explain why white children treated him differently based on obvious, available metrics, e.g. athleticism, intelligence, which no doubt often provided adequate explanations for differential treatment he witnessed among and between white children. These metrics likely seemed adequate for many purposes and confirmed to that extent. Du Bois on this reading is not – at least initially – concluding from his struggles that he is confused or nonsensical. Of course, Du Bois eventually acquired sufficient evidence suggesting these metrics were inadequate, at which point it seems plausible to say that he – as a matter of fact – was confused and realized this was so. This confusion, however, owed to inculcation into widespread privileged norms that circumscribed and emphasized certain explanations for experiences over others. In contexts with such mounting counterevidence to his previous beliefs, Du Bois no longer had an epistemic responsibility to refrain from considering himself confused, at least with respect to the beliefs and explanations he left behind. And this realization of confusion gave wayFootnote ³⁴ to adequate understanding of his experiences employing an explanation based on color divisions, an explanation notably neither obvious nor widely available in his environment. Again, this suggests judgments of epistemic responsibility are sensitive to tradeoffs between confirmations of one's, say, beliefs and counterevidence to those beliefs.Footnote ³⁵

Returning to HJ, initially presented the epistemic aspect of this phenomenon seems simply a specific instance of Suspend involving privileged and marginalized interlocutors. While interpreting HJ in this manner fits comfortably with Fricker's insistence that HI – a structural injustice – does not have epistemically culpable perpetrators, understanding HJ in only this manner simply amounts to a reminder that we should be better communicators with respect to marginalized individuals. To be fair, given the prevalence of HI, there is value in emphasizing HJ even if it is little more than Suspend. Still, one might expect a more robust remedy to HI. As when examining the moral aspect, attention to contextual features which appear to influence judgments of epistemic responsibility motivates more substantial epistemic responsibilities in contexts exhibiting HI.

3.5. Epistemic aspect of HJ: second pass

Specifically, more substantial epistemic responsibilities than those found in Suspend apply to privileged individuals in cases exhibiting HI because they have much to gain – epistemically speaking – in precisely these contexts (Medina Reference Medina2017a, Reference Medina, Kidd, Medina and Pohlhaus2017b). As argued by Medina, among others, marginalized individuals provide insight into epistemic blind-spots, meta-resistance, etc. learning of which would be epistemically beneficial for non-marginalized individuals. It is plausible that in contexts where privileged individuals may reap significant epistemic benefits, they have greater epistemic responsibility than that adverted in Suspend. Medina (Reference Medina, Kidd, Medina and Pohlhaus2017b: 48) has suggested a preliminary list of critical reflective capacities and strategies virtuous listeners exhibiting HJ might employ, e.g. recognize when to remain silent, suspend judgment about another's intelligibility, listen for silences, let others set discussion dynamics, etc. which may result in such epistemic benefits. And some of Medina's suggestions seem motivated independent of contexts exhibiting HI. Suppose a graduate student meets with his dissertation committee chair to brainstorm an idea for a dissertation chapter.Footnote ³⁶ If the advisor – an expert in the relevant field – immediately offers a rather complete suggestion and attempts to begin working through the details of the idea with the student, this might – rightly – upset the student, who may feel they came to a meeting intending to brainstorm and share their own ideas, but is now in a position where they feel compelled to either engage with the advisor's detailed idea or explain why they do not want to engage with the suggestion. Either way, it seems in such a context alternative ideas are obscured in part due to, say, the completeness of the advisor's suggestion, the epistemic authority of the advisor as a source of knowledge, and the conversational setting. Such an outcome might have been avoided had the advisor let the student set the conversational agenda, noticed the student's silence or discomfort if there was either, etc.

The potential for obfuscation is magnified when marginalized speakers are addressing those with privilege. Suppose Du Bois had confided in a white advisor who proceeded to offer plausible, coherent, explanations for the behavior of the white children, such as those Du Bois himself actually considered. It is plausible such explanations might have carried more weight coming from outside, and in particular from a white adult advisor, and so may have caused Du Bois serious epistemic harm insofar as they obscured the more likely explanation from consideration. Du Bois would have found himself defending why these alternative explanations were inadequate, rather than seeking out an alternative to these suggested alternatives. Here we have epistemic authority combined with plausible, complete, rather widespread explanations for a harmful experience, which obscure exploration of alternative explanations.

We might codify Medina's independently motivated suggestions in the following principle, capturing a more robust epistemic responsibility than that found in Suspend:

Much as with Beneficence, this principle does not address contexts in which agents lack the needed skills. Fortunately, in this case the stronger principle appears motivated already, given the epistemic benefits of rooting out blind spots and meta-resistance. That is, assuming a privileged individual lacking virtuous listening skills is aware that contexts involving HI might be opportunities to reap significant epistemic benefits in the form of identifying and overcoming epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance, they have an epistemic responsibility to acquire those virtuous listening skills for use in similar future contexts.

3.6. Epistemic aspect of HJ: third pass

One might worry requiring privileged listener awareness – in contexts exhibiting HI – of opportunities to overcome epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance, is too restrictive. Epistemic blind spots for our purposes arise when privileged individuals either do not see certain evidence of the existence of marginalization as actually evidence of marginalization (Medina Reference Medina2013: 66). Meta-resistance understood here amounts to privileged individual difficulties in recognizing they have blind spots (Medina Reference Medina2013: 66–9). The worry is that the very nature of epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance makes such awareness difficult. This in turn might undermine any epistemic responsibility many privileged individuals might have to cultivate virtuous listening skills for use in relevant contexts. Du Bois appears to provide an example of the possibility of overcoming meta-resistance and recognizing epistemic blind spots, and examining this success sharpens the concern with respect to privileged individuals. Du Bois experienced harm resistant to readily available explanations, leading to recognition of an epistemic blind spot and adoption of an alternative perspective through which to understand his experience. But this success depended largely – it seemed – on failures to make sense of harmful experiences given dominant, readily available, cultural resources. In contrast, the white children in his environment likely felt no need to appeal to explanations for their experiences outside those readily available in dominant, prevalent, cultural norms at the time. This might suggest privileged individuals often will not recognize contexts exhibiting HI as opportunities to overcome epistemic blind spots, indeed perhaps due to those very blind spots. If so, Charity seems inapplicable to privileged individuals in such contexts.

At this point, many have suggested strategies and tactics for providing sufficient evidence to privileged individuals with epistemic blind spots exhibiting meta-resistance, e.g. Medina (Reference Medina2017a, Reference Medina, Kidd, Medina and Pohlhaus2017b) suggests we engage in hermeneutical friction and sometimes respond to micro-aggression with counter micro-aggression; Lorde (Reference Lorde1981) suggests a plausible use of anger along similar lines, etc. These suggestions aside, it seems nevertheless plausible privileged individuals with such blind spots and meta-resistance have sufficient evidence of these epistemic problems to bear responsibility. Indeed, focusing on privileged individuals in, say, the present U.S., it is hard to see how most do not have sufficient evidence of blind spots and meta-resistance to recognizing them. Simply put, there is enough of a predictable pattern of marginalized individuals already exhibiting anger, claiming privileged individuals have blind spots and exhibit meta-resistance, and discussion of harms stemming from discrimination, throughout the history of this country to suggest the presence of both epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance among privileged individuals.Footnote ³⁷ Moreover, it is a short step from recognition of the possibility of epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance concerning issues of marginalization, to recognizing opportunities to overcome these epistemic problems in discussion with marginalized individuals. This is all to say, one might worry Charity is too restrictive since application requires privileged individuals be aware of epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance, but it seems most privileged individuals in our present society have ample evidence suggesting the presence of such epistemic problems, and so Charity seems – as a matter of fact – applicable in such contexts.

Moreover, once this concern over constraints on Charity is removed, given the obvious benefits one might acquire in overcoming epistemic blind spots and meta-resistance, it seems plausible relevant individuals have an epistemic responsibility to learn skills that might assist in overcoming such epistemic problems. Restricting attention to scenarios that might exhibit HI, the following principle seems supported:

As with the moral principles discussed earlier, we can understand the relationships among Suspend, Charity, and Epistemic Education in terms of context-sensitivity, where the first provides a base epistemic responsibility sensitive to and so potentially magnified by tradeoffs between evidence and counterevidence, as well as potential epistemic gains associated with the context.

3.7. Combining moral and epistemic aspects of HJ

With these epistemic principles, we seem close to what Fricker appears to have in mind by suggesting HJ involves cultivation of virtuous listening strategies. Indeed, combining these principles with Non-malfeasance, Beneficence, and Moral Education provides an independently motivated explication of both the moral and epistemic aspects of HJ, which offers a general explanation for judgments of moral and epistemic responsibilities we seem to have in scenarios exhibiting HI. Privileged individuals in contexts exhibiting HI plausibly either bear moral and epistemic responsibilities to employ strategies to aid marginalized speakers, or moral and epistemic responsibilities to learn such strategies and cultivate associated virtues. Moreover, appealing to such contextual features allows a clear distinction between moral and epistemic of responsibility in relevant contexts. An avowed racist may recognize the epistemic benefits of helping marginalized individuals render harmful experiences intelligible, since this may provide insights into epistemic blind spots, meta-resistance, etc., but they may engage in this behavior in an effort to promote those blind spots, etc., in others. That is, they might develop and employ virtuous listening strategies for immoral purposes. Such an individual would align with the above epistemic responsibilities while failing to satisfy the moral responsibilities.

We turn next to resistance one might have in adopting these principles, replies, and two applications which strengthen the case for adopting them.

4.1. Resistance to substantial responsibility

Fricker should grant principles at least as strong as Suspend and Non-malfeasance underwrite HJ, but also that in contexts exhibiting HI, these principles may be magnified and consequently may generate significant epistemic and moral responsibilities for privileged listeners exposed to communicative attempts by marginalized speakers. However, Fricker might protest adopting, say, some combination of Charity, Beneficence, Epistemic Education, and Moral Education runs the risk of imposing too much responsibility on individuals who are perpetuating the structural injustice of HI, but who are not themselves obviously culpable. In addition to the reasons provided in the previous section, there are at least two further reasons for Fricker to adopt this proposal. First, Fricker provides conceptual space for great responsibility in certain contexts,Footnote ³⁸ by claiming agents might be morally/epistemically responsible for behaviors even if they are not blameworthy for those behaviors. An individual, for instance, who takes great precautions against implicit bias, whose behavior is nevertheless non-culpably influenced by such bias, upon realization of the subsequent harms stemming from the associated harmful behavior, is not blameworthy – Fricker urges – but is responsible for that behavior. Fricker suggests regret the individual might feel, and later actions that individual might take to prevent engaging in similarly harmful behavior, are best described by recognition of responsibility, even absent blame. This suggests room for attributing perhaps significant responsibility in certain contexts, in accordance with principles stronger than Suspend and Non-malfeasance, even absent blame.Footnote ³⁹ For even epistemically innocent privileged individuals are often in positions of relative power when communicating with members of marginalized groups, and this is particularly true when the latter are struggling to render harmful experiences intelligible to the former. Whether they are or are not at epistemically or morally blameworthy is beside the point; plumbers fix leaks because they can, not because they cause the leak.

Second, HJ is meant to address HI, but as discussed in section 2, the latter phenomenon is a symptom of an underlying disease, namely, HM. Absent some way of treating the disease, it seems likely the symptoms will continue to manifest. Fricker seems aware HJ should in some way address HM. She claims (Fricker Reference Fricker2007: 154) with enough instances of HJ addressing instances of HI, even the underlying HM will be remedied. This proposal has been met with several criticisms (Dotson Reference Dotson2011; Medina Reference Medina2013). Simply put, the problem is that HM is structural and resistant to change if limited to the cultivation of individual virtues underwritten by principles as minimal as Suspend and Non-malfeasance; indeed, if Fricker's proposed remedy to HI is to treat more than merely the symptoms of the disease, then more substantial responsibility should be expected at the level of individuals.Footnote ⁴⁰ The context-sensitive epistemic and moral principles defended here seem fitting in this respect, and to that extent should be accepted by Fricker as constitutive of HJ. The principles and responsibilities codified in them are broader than HI, and so may extend beyond HI to address the underlying conditions.Footnote ⁴¹

4.2. Proofs of concept

Two further applications of the epistemic and moral principles I claim should be constitutive of HJ strengthen the case. Observe, Fricker (Reference Fricker2012) is amenable to extensions of HJ in institutional contexts in which clinical psychologists treat patients, marginalized or otherwise. Specifically, Fricker includes under the purview of HJ agents inhabiting institutional roles carrying significant responsibilities comparable to those codified in Charity, Beneficence, Epistemic Education, and Moral Education, such as investing time to build trust, guiding patients towards understanding cognitive dissonance, and the importance of struggling to render harmful experiences intelligible to oneself. The fact that clinical psychologists willingly enter into these roles with the purpose of aiding others, coupled with Fricker's willingness to accept such agents may have substantial responsibilities to aid their clients, motivates accepting magnifications of the context-sensitive principles underwriting HJ, associated with institutional roles:

And:

The moral harms prevented in relevant contexts seem sufficient to motivate Moral Professional. The epistemic benefits (Beverley and Reischer Reference Beverley and Reischer2019; Reischer and Cowan Reference Reischer and Cowan2020) clinical therapists might acquire through such training and how those benefits align with occupational role goals, strongly suggest Epistemic Professional applies as well. And with these principles in mind as targets, we might even extend responsibility to cases of mere HM in certain contexts.Footnote ⁴² For example, in Case 2 – which exhibited HM but not HI owing to the fact that Sally did not attempt to render her experiences intelligible to herself or others – we might expect HJ as a partial remedy.Footnote ⁴³ And given the significant harm Sally experiences in this case, it seems plausible more than the rather limited Suspend and Non-Malfeasance would apply to clinical psychologists working with Sally. This is precisely what one should expect; for it is unclear how waiting to interpret a marginalized speaker charitably would be helpful if they are not inclined to speak at all. What seems needed is not just virtuous listening, but attention to behavior correlated with cognitive coping mechanisms, e.g. anxiety, inability to maintain long-term relationships, substance abuse, etc. Relatedly, institutional roles aside, it seems plausible family and friends occupy roles sufficient to ground responsibilities more substantial than Charity, Epistemic Education, Beneficence and Moral Education, but even if one is skeptical about attributing such significant responsibility to these individuals, they at least seem to bear a responsibility to direct Sally to experts better equipped to help. Moreover, I suspect they would implicitly acknowledge such responsibility to do so if, as seems a plausible thought, they ever wished they knew how they might help Sally.Footnote ⁴⁴

Consider nextFootnote ⁴⁵ an application of these moral and epistemic principles to marginalized individuals confronted with privileged individuals unable to understand marginalized experiences. This is a case of what Fricker calls minimal-HI, where the conceptual gap in the collective hermeneutical resources owes to speaker and listener operating with non-overlapping conceptual resources. Above, we focused on the perspective of privileged individuals to motivate epistemic and moral responsibilities. Of the former sort, we urged that privileged individuals had much to gain epistemically speaking, by engaging with marginalized individuals since this might uncover blind spots and meta-resistance. But we should take care not to venture into epistemic exploitation in such scenarios (Berenstain Reference Berenstain2016). Marginalized listeners knowingly able to help privileged individuals render their own harmful experiences intelligible do not necessarily have a responsibility to do so. Specifically, if assisting in this manner makes marginalized listeners more vulnerable to exploitation, oppression, discrediting, etc., then the costs to provide aid seem too high to correctly claim a responsibility to provide that aid (Baldwin Reference Baldwin1997; Medina Reference Medina2013: 116). In such contexts the tradeoff between benefits provided and costs to the provider seems paramount, and sufficient in many cases to override even the rarity of a given marginalized individual in a given conversation to educate a privileged individual. For marginalized individuals have much evidence that such assistance is often ineffective, underappreciated, and liable to generate harmful stereotypes, among other costs.Footnote ⁴⁶ In short, to the question of whether marginalized individuals bear moral and epistemic responsibility to educate privileged individuals when given the opportunity, I say this largely depends on the costs associated with providing such education and the confidence providers have that offering such education will be effective. Moreover, it seems there are good reasons to think both of those conditions weigh against moral and epistemic responsibilities attaching to marginalized individuals in many such contexts. Hence, the context-sensitive moral and epistemic principles defended here seem insulated from charges of justifying epistemic exploitation. They also reveal, as should be obvious, the deep complexity of determining responsibility in such contexts.