3,590 research outputs found
The Epistemology of Collective Testimony
No full textIn this paper, I explore what gives collective testimony its epistemic credentials, through a critical discussion of three competing accounts of the epistemology of collective testimony. According to the first view, collective testimony inherits its epistemic credentials from the beliefs the testimony expresses—
where this can be seen either as the beliefs of all or some of the group’s members, or as the beliefs of group itself. The second view denies any necessary connection to belief, claiming instead that the epistemic credentials of collective testimony derive from the reliability or truth-conduciveness of the statement that expresses the testimony. Finally, the third view claims that the epistemic credentials of collective testimony derive from the fact that it involves undertaking a collective commitment to trustworthiness, which makes the group susceptible to rebuke and blame if its testimony is not trustworthy. I argue that this last account holds the most promise for preserving what is distinctive about testimonial knowledge while still underwriting a robust epistemology of collective testimony
Discursive paternalism
No full textAccording to an influential tradition in speech act theory, it takes more than linguistic mastery and normative entitlement to do things with words; one's words must also be given a suitable reception or social uptake. Working within this tradition, I identify and characterize the phenomenon of discursive paternalism. Discursive paternalism occurs when a party to a speaker's act takes control of the uptake the act receives, with the aim of curating the speaker's commitments. This is done without the prior consent or knowledge of the speaker, and for the perceived good of the speaker. I describe three distinct forms of discursive paternalism, which differ in terms of the role played by the paternalist, and the kind of authority he lays claim to in performing that role
Joint Commitment and Collective Belief: a Revisionary Proposal
No full textAccording to Margaret Gilbert, two or more people collectively believe that p if and only if they are jointly committed to believe that p as a body. But the way she construes joint commitment in her account – as a commitment of and by the several parties to “doing something as a body” – encourages the thought that the phenomenon accounted for is not that of genuine belief. I explain why this concern arises and explore a different way of construing joint commitment, in order to avoid the concern. This leads me to propose a revised Gilbertian account of collective belief, according to which two or more people collectively believe that p if and only if they are jointly committed to p as true
Trust and commitment in collective testimony
No full textIn this paper I critically discuss Miranda Fricker’s ‘trust-based’ view of collective testimony—that is, testimony that comes from a group speaker. At the heart of Fricker’s account is the idea that testimony involves an ‘interpersonal deal of trust’, to which the speaker contributes a commitment to ‘second-personal epistemic trustworthiness’. Appropriating Margaret Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment, Fricker suggests that groups too can make such commitments, and hence that they, like individuals, can ‘enter into the second-personal relations of trust that characterise testimony’ (Fricker 2012: 272). I argue that this choice to appropriate Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment betrays a deep problem in Fricker’s account—a misconstrual of both the object and the subject(s) of the commitment a speaker makes in testifying. After developing this criticism, I outline an alternative way of construing the speaker’s commitment, which can be applied to both collective and individual testimony
Groups with Minds of Their Own Making
No full textAccording Philip Pettit, suitably organised groups not only possess ‘minds of their own’ but can also ‘make up their minds’ and 'speak for themselves'--where these two capacities enable them to perform as conversable subjects or 'persons'. In this paper I critically examine Pettit's case for group personhood. My first step is to reconstruct his account, explaining first how he understands the two capacities he considers central to personhood – the capacity to ‘make up one’s mind’, and the capacity to ‘speak for oneself’ – before showing how he thinks these can be manifested in groups. With Pettit’s account duly reconstructed, I then turn to criticism, arguing that Pettit’s construal of making up one’s mind does not do proper justice to our first-personal self-understanding, nor to our characteristic interpersonal forms of engagement. This leads me, finally, to consider an alternative construal of ‘making up one’s mind’ and ‘speaking for oneself’ that is associated with the work of Richard Moran and whichargue, could usefully be exteextended to groups
Representation and epistemic violence
No full textSometimes an individual gets taken as speaking for a wider group without laying claim to any such authority – they are thrust unwillingly, and sometimes even unknowingly, into the role of that group’s representative. Especially for members of subordinated social groups in certain contexts, this can be hard to shake: despite their best efforts to disavow any authority to speak in the name of others, their voice might be taken as the voice of their group. In this paper we explore the intuitive injustice involved in such cases. After establishing the felicity conditions of speaking for a group, we argue that certain forms of pernicious ignorance often stand in the way of the fulfilment of these conditions. The result is a distinctive kind of ‘epistemic violence’, which can result in the silencing of both the group that is taken to be spoken for, and the spokesperson who is taken to speak for them
Consultation, Consent, and the Silencing of Indigenous Communities
No full textOver the past few decades, Indigenous communities have successfully campaigned for greater inclusion in decision-making processes that directly affect their lands and livelihoods. As a result, two important participatory rights for Indigenous peoples have now been widely recognized: the right to consultation and the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). Although these participatory rights are meant to
empower the speech of these communities—to give them a proper say in the decisions that most affect them—we argue that the way these rights have been implemented and interpreted sometimes has the opposite effect, of denying them a say or ‘silencing’ them. In support of this conclusion we draw on feminist speech act theory to identify practices of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary group silencing that arise in the context of consultation with Indigenous communities
Introducing the Leadership in Enabling Occupation (LEO) Model
No full textBackground. Occupational therapy is a broad profession yet access to services remains restricted and uneven across Canada. Access to the potential breadth of occupational therapy is severely restrained by complex supply, retention, and funding challenges. To improve access to occupational therapy, widespread leadership is needed by all practitioners.Purpose. This brief report introduces the Leadership in Enabling Occupation (LEO) Model, which displays the inter-relationship of four elements of everyday leadership as described in “Positioning Occupational Therapy for Leadership,” Section IV, of Enabling Occupation II: Advancing a Vision of Health, Well-being and Justice through Occupation (Townsend & Polatajko, 2007).Key Issues. All occupational therapists have the power to develop leadership capacity within and beyond designated leadership positions.Implications. LEO is a leadership tool to extend all occupational therapists' strategic use of scholarship, new accountability approaches, existing and new funding, and workforce planning to improve access to occupational therapy
Epistemic injustice and indigenous peoples in the inter-American human rights system
No full textIn this paper we examine the epistemic treatment of Indigenous peoples by the Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights, two institutions that have sought to affirm the rights of Indigenous peoples in the wake of colonialism and industrial encroachment onto Indigenous land. The Court and Commission have sought to do this in two ways. First, they have insisted on a right to consultation, according to which any Indigenous peoples who would be affected by industrial activity must be given a say in the decision-making process. Second, they have given an expansive interpretation of the right to property in order to encompass Indigenous relations to land. We argue that although the right to consultation and the expanded right to property have led to a number of landmark legal victories for Indigenous peoples, they nonetheless have an epistemic dark side in that they foster forms of epistemic injustice. What happens in the course of consultation often involves a kind of epistemic objectification of Indigenous testimony that amounts to radical testimonial injustice. And the requirement that Indigenous peoples frame their relation to land in the language of ‘property’ stifles their ability to articulate that relation, thus amounting to a hermeneutical injustice
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