2. Virtues of the oppressed, vices of the privileged

José Medina (Reference Medina2013) argues that social privilege usually comes with the epistemic vices of close-mindedness, arrogance, and laziness. Epistemic close-mindedness means that one is impervious to updating one’s beliefs in face of credible new information. Members of privileged groups tend to be epistemically close-minded, according to Medina, because they do not see the point of learning from those who may have different social experiences. This is because they have no perceived need to correct, or update, their knowledge; their worldview aligns nicely with how the world responds to them.

Epistemic arrogance means that one automatically believes that one is an epistemic authority and/or fails to recognize the epistemic authority of others. Social elites tend to be epistemically arrogant, according to Medina, as they are used to being treated as a credible and authoritative speakers by default, and they thereby also have fewer opportunities to discover their cognitive and epistemic limitations. This makes it harder to learn from mistakes, and to discover biases, which leads to further epistemic arrogance (Medina Reference Medina2013, 31).

Epistemic laziness entails failing to make the requisite epistemic effort. Privileged groups tend to be epistemically lazy, according to Medina, as there are many things about the social world they do not need to know. Conceivably, neither their well-being nor survival depends on it. One such example is that members of the upper classes, as well as men of most social classes (at least until quite recently) did not have to concern themselves with the minutiae of domestic labour (Medina Reference Medina2013, 33). In some cases, the well-being of privileged groups may be contingent on actively not knowing. For instance, being too knowledgeable about how to do the laundry or change a nappy could in certain social contexts be read as emasculating. Further, often the well-being of privileged groups is maintained through this kind of ignorance, as it is upsetting to become aware of and acknowledge the ways in which one’s privileges are directly contingent on the struggles and suffering of others (Medina Reference Medina2013, 34).

Conversely, socially disadvantaged groups, according to Medina, are disposed to possess the epistemic virtues of humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness (Medina Reference Medina2013, 42). Epistemic humility entails recognizing one’s personal epistemic limitations. Members of marginalized groups tend to be epistemically humble, according to Medina, as they are not used to being treated as epistemic authorities. While lack of self-confidence may erode one’s ability to seek knowledge, humility may entail the following epistemic advantages: “qualifying one’s beliefs and making finer-grained discriminations; identifying one’s cognitive gaps and what it would take to fill them; being able to formulate questions and doubts for oneself and others; and so on” (Medina Reference Medina2013, 43). Further, epistemic curiosity entails making the required epistemic effort, and epistemic open-mindedness entails being open to new information. Oppressed subjects tend to be epistemically curious and open-minded, according to Medina, as they often find themselves needing to acquire forms of expertise that no one else has. For instance, they are often forced to anticipate outcomes and moves in the social game in order to identify and counter threats to their own well-being, and possibly even survival (Medina Reference Medina2013, 44).

Medina’s account provides a plausible epistemic framework that explains how differently socially situated groups are likely to obtain different epistemic capacities. This is not a project unique to Medina as such; it is also the focus of feminist standpoint epistemology more broadly.Footnote ² Although feminist standpoint epistemology has many strands and conflicting interpretations, it is unified in aiming to show how unequal power influences the production of knowledge, such that people in different social positions inhabit different epistemic standpoints. A consequence of this, according to standpoint epistemologists, is that members of marginalized and oppressed groups are epistemically privileged in accessing knowledge of the marginalization and oppression they are subject to (Collins Reference Collins2002; Crasnow Reference Crasnow2009; Rolin Reference Rolin2009). For instance, most standpoint epistemologists hold that women have an epistemic standpoint that gives them an advantage in understanding sexist oppression, and a person of colour has an epistemic standpoint that gives her an advantage in understanding racist oppression.

The aim of standpoint epistemology is not only to explain why knowledge about injustice and oppression often tend to be epistemically obscured to us, but also to show that knowledge about injustices and oppression can be uncovered, and that we thereby also have a duty to make this effort in order to effectively challenge injustice and oppression. The main point of contention for standpoint epistemology, then, is how to cash in this claim in a way that is neither trivially true, nor obviously false (Intemann Reference Intemann2010). The trivially true view would be the observation that people with different experiences will know about different things, without also saying something stronger about the ways in which our social position shapes the experiences and bodies of knowledge we have access to, and our capacities for exploiting this access. The obviously false view, on the other hand, is the socially determinist one, namely that certain types of knowledge are automatically conferred based on social background (Intemann Reference Intemann2010, 784). For example, this view would implausibly hold that a woman of colour will automatically and by default have the correct and authoritative understanding of the intersections of racism and sexism simply because she is a woman of colour.

There are certain specific benefits to Medina’s account that make it unique in this context. First of all, in using the language of epistemic virtue and vice, the account steers clear of social determinism. This is because having a predisposition for epistemic virtue does not guarantee better knowledge; it may simply just make it more likely. Moreover, the account leaves room for there to be broad epistemic variations within a social group. While members of a marginalized group may, on the whole, be more predisposed to epistemic virtue as a result of the social and epistemic obstacles they regularly encounter, it is fully possible for some members of this group to not respond to these challenges and obstacles in a virtuous way. Thus, we can simultaneously acknowledge that social structures shape the epistemic characters who inhabit a certain social position, while leaving room for a complex interplay between various epistemic forces, character traits and predispositions, which again leads to a variety in epistemic dispositions and behaviours.

Another benefit of Medina’s account is that epistemic vices and virtues are potentially revisable; we can learn to become epistemically virtuous even if we inhabit a social standpoint that makes us prone to epistemic vice. Conversely, an otherwise epistemically virtuous person might occasionally err and behave in an epistemically vicious manner. The revisability of virtues and vices therefore has implications for whether we take people to be responsible for their ignorance.Footnote ³ Emily Tilton (Reference Tilton2024) argues that some versions of standpoint epistemology give members of privileged groups an excuse to remain ignorant and complacent about oppression, as they can claim that given their privileged social standpoint they could not have known better. Medina’s account does not let ignorant people off the hook so easily. He rejects a one-size-fits-all account of responsibility; and seeks instead to establish an account that is flexible and context-sensitive. Specifically, according to Medina, epistemic deficiencies prompted and protected by situations of oppression undermine one’s status as a responsible agent. However, this does not mean that all ignorant members of an unjust society are equally irresponsible. The responsibility at hand depends to a large degree on social position, context, and one’s ability to have done otherwise (Medina Reference Medina2013, 129–31). Moreover, ultimately, the purpose of discussing responsibility in this context is not to identify faults with specific individuals,Footnote ⁴ but instead to identify the mechanisms that perpetuate systematic bodies of ignorance that reveal which communities we respect or neglect.

Despite all its established strengths, in the remainder of this paper I seek to complicate and nuance Medina’s account of the social distribution of epistemic vices and virtues, especially as it pertains to obtaining knowledge about oppression and marginalization. Aidan McGlynn (Reference McGlynn2019, 270) points out that Medina offers a symmetrical account of epistemic advantage and disadvantage based on social position. On Medina’s account, marginalized groups are predisposed to epistemic virtues that are the symmetrical opposite of the epistemic vices towards which privileged groups are predisposed. In this paper, I pick apart this symmetry. Specifically, I will argue that marginalized groups are not only disposed to epistemic virtue, but also to epistemic vice as a result of their marginalization. Moreover, I identify one specific epistemic vice that I take to be unique to marginalized groups, which I name “epistemic hopelessness.” However, despite establishing a more complicated picture of the social distribution of epistemic virtue and vice, I go on to show that there is still scope within this framework to retain the idea that marginalized groups have an epistemic advantage over privileged groups in accessing knowledge about oppression and marginalization. I elaborate on the specific circumstances in which marginalized groups are able to develop their particular predisposition to epistemic virtue, and develop the tools to suppress their tendency toward epistemic vice.

3. The distribution of vices and virtues

Extensive empirical data suggest that marginalized groups tend to, at least implicitly, evaluate their own social group in the same prejudicial terms as non-members tend to. This may seem surprising from a standpoint epistemological perspective. This is because we expect victims of oppression to be better equipped to resist prejudices, at least against their own social group, simply because their experiences of themselves and their peers do not generally match the stereotypes held against that group. However, John Jost (Reference Jost2019) argues that we cannot rely on this to be the case; as much as 40 or 50 percent of members of disadvantaged groups, and sometimes even more, exhibit implicit (or unconscious) biases against their own group and in favor of more advantaged social groups (Jost Reference Jost2019, 277–78). Jost provides the following examples to illustrate his findings: poor people and obese people implicitly evaluate rich people and normal weight people more favorably than their own social groups (Horwitz and Dovidio Reference Horwitz and Dovidio2017; Rudman et al. Reference Rudman, Feinberg and Fairchild2002); many members of the LGBTQ community implicitly evaluate straight people more favorably (Hoffarth and Jost Reference Hoffarth and Jost2017; Jost et al. Reference Jost, Banaji and Nosek2004); in Chile, Hispanics and dark-skinned Morenos implicitly evaluate Caucasians and light-skinned Blancos more favorably (Uhlmann et al. Reference Uhlmann, Dasgupta, Elgueta, Greenwald and Swanson2002); Black and Coloured Children favor Whites in South Africa (Newheiser et al. Reference Newheiser, Dunham, Merrill, Hoosain and Olson2014); and in the United States, minority college students implicitly evaluate white students more favorably (Ashburn-Nardo et al. Reference Ashburn-Nardo, Knowles and Monteith2003; Jost et al. Reference Jost, Pelham and Carvallo2002, Reference Jost, Banaji and Nosek2004).

Moreover, evidence shows that a surprisingly high number of members of marginalized groups implicitly and explicitly hold beliefs that justify the political status quo, even though it is this very status quo that ensures their continued marginalization (Jost et al. Reference Jost, Becker, Osborne and Badaan2017; Manstead Reference Manstead2018).Footnote ⁵ This is a belief set that one would primarily expect from privileged groups, who benefit from the political status quo, and see no particular reason to question it. One possible explanation for why this attitude is prevalent within marginalized groups this is that members of marginalized groups may be particularly susceptible to narratives that justify the political status quo for palliative reasons. For instance, Rutjens and Loseman (Reference Rutjens and Loseman2010) show how people who feel like they lack control tend toward conservative values as a form of self-regulation. Susan Brison poignantly illustrates this mechanism through the example of sexual violence:

Another explanation for this attitude is that, to challenge a political status quo, one must be willing to tolerate a great deal of uncertainty, and potential threats to one’s safety and security, as well as risk of being cut off from disapproving family and friends. If one already finds oneself in a precarious situation, one may seek certainty where it is available. A final explanation is that the sheer cognitive load of challenging the political status quo may be too demanding if one is already spending one’s time and cognitive resources struggling to figure out how to keep one’s head above water. For instance, Eidelman et al. (Reference Eidelman, Crandall, Goodman and Blanchar2012) show how the feeling of cognitive overload increase one’s likelihood of endorsing conservative values. Hansson, Keating, and Terry (Reference Hansson, Keating and Terry1974) show how people under time pressure tend to endorse conservative values. Skitka et al. (Reference Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson and Chamberlin2002) and Van Berkel et al. (Reference Van Berkel, Crandall, Eidelman and Blanchar2015) show how liberals tend to capitulate their values more easily, as it requires a higher cognitive load to be system critical. In sum, members of marginalized groups may, in principle, based on their social experiences, have the right resources to resist prejudices against their own social groups, as well as beliefs that justify an unjust status quo. However, there are also added reasons why marginalized people lack the motivation or energy to break through this epistemic barrier. Victims may well be too tired, risk averse, or cognitively overloaded to epistemically exploit their social position, and they may be in more immediate need of a palliative narrative than an insurgent one,Footnote ⁶ just to get through the day.

What does this mean for Medina’s account of marginalization and epistemic virtue? Specifically, can the above described phenomenon be explained on his framework, and what does that entail for how we think of the distribution of epistemic virtues and vices based on social standpoint? As I will show below, a strength of the virtue epistemological view is that it has the capacity to explain both why we often see little resistance to oppression from both privileged and marginalized groups, while also retaining that marginalized groups might have some epistemic advantages when it comes to understanding the social structure that oppresses and marginalizes them. However, this picture needs fleshing out in order to specify both where the vulnerability to epistemic vice comes from, as well as under what conditions it becomes possible for marginalized groups to tap into their capacity for epistemic virtue, despite the epistemic obstacles that stand in the way.

The idea that victims of oppression may be prone to epistemic vice, just as they may be prone to epistemic virtue, has to partly been developed by Alessandra Tanesini (Reference Tanesini2021). She explains that low self-esteem may prevent us from considering challenging issues (Tanesini Reference Tanesini2021, 150), feelings of doubt can lead to procrastination (Tanesini Reference Tanesini2021, 151), and shameful and self-abasing individuals do not tend to rely on their epistemic capacities, and instead spend a heightened effort monitoring their own performance (Tanesini Reference Tanesini2021, 155). Moreover, timid people are guided by a wish to avoid rejection. Belief is therefore not updated in light of evidence as their key influencing factor is not motivated by accuracy (Tanesini Reference Tanesini2021, 157). Finally, fear of reproach may lead to self-silencing. One might therefore be aware of one’s own cognitive dissonance, but never spell it out or take it seriously (Tanesini Reference Tanesini2021, 162). Low self-esteem, self-abasement, timidity, and fear of reproach are all character traits that may be caused by one’s experiences of social marginalization, namely of systematically being treated as inferior, of not being taken seriously, of not being treated as capable, and systematically being treated with disrespect. These tendencies toward epistemic vice could be one way to explain the tendency of members of marginalized groups to endorse (rather than challenge) mainstream narratives that are prejudiced against their own marginalized groups, and favor the political status quo.

Moreover, Tanesini’s account is coherent with Medina’s, who acknowledges that members of marginalized and oppressed groups are exposed to practices and processes that can erode their epistemic character, even though they might also have access some epistemic advantages in the form of distinctive epistemic virtues (Medina Reference Medina2013, 42). However, on a closer look, it may seem that the above discussion undermines Medina’s idea that there are certain vices that privileged groups are prone to that oppressed groups tend to avoid. First of all, Medina argues that resistance to update one’s belief in light of new perspectives is an epistemic vice, namely the epistemic vice of close-mindedness (Medina Reference Medina2013, 56). He argues that being close-minded is a feature likely to manifest in those standing in a privileged social standpoint, as one experiences no severe consequences of this close-mindedness, and has no motivation to challenge a belief system that aligns nicely with a world that overall works in one’s favor. Members of marginalized groups, however, are supposedly not likely to be epistemically close-minded, according to Medina, because their experiences are usually incongruous with mainstream social narratives. This therefore motivates a search for alternative explanations.

Yet, what the evidence presented above suggests is that marginalized groups may be broadly resistant to update their beliefs, and instead show a preference for conservative narratives. The reason behind this disposition for epistemic close-mindedness, however, is not privilege. Instead, the disposition can be explained by the low self-esteem that comes with constantly finding oneself at the bottom of the social order, paired with an energy-saving disposition to go with the simplest or most immediately available explanation for how the social world works. Thus, while low self-esteem could function as a counterbalance to the epistemic vice of arrogance, which privileged groups are prone to by virtue of being consistently treated with deference, excessive low self-esteem might have analogous epistemically vicious effects. It may make members of marginalized groups prone to excessive epistemic deference to the perceived epistemic authority of privileged groups.

Secondly, marginalized groups may be as prone to what Medina calls “epistemic laziness” as he argues that privileged groups are, but for different reasons. The cognitive effort that is required to cash in on the epistemic advantage that the social standpoint confers is not worth it if one’s epistemic efforts are already exhausted with the effort of day-to-day survival. Indeed, it is a feature of prejudices and stereotypes that we are prone to them because they offer the cognitive path of least resistance. We rely on them to make quick and effortless judgments about the world around us. It therefore also seems like, for these reasons, members of marginalized groups may be particularly vulnerable to prejudices and stereotypes as a result of their marginalization. Perhaps instead of dubbing this phenomenon “epistemic laziness,” we could dub it “epistemic exhaustion” from surviving within a hostile environment, though the epistemic effects appear to be broadly the same.Footnote ⁷

In sum, the empirically established tendency of marginalized groups toward negative self-evaluation and status quo bias complicates the idea that many groups might have an epistemic advantage in accessing knowledge of the oppression they are subject to. If we are to stick with a virtue epistemological framework in explaining this, it seems that the marginalized predisposition for epistemic virtue in this context might be outweighed by the tendency toward epistemic vice, and that these vices are causally different, but epistemically similar to those that privileged groups are subject to. Certainly, there does not at this stage seem to be an obvious and reliable connection between social marginalization and epistemic virtue that puts members of marginalized groups in an overall better epistemic position than members of privileged groups.

4. Epistemic hopelessness as a vice of the oppressed

In what follows, I show that especially traumatic or sustained experiences of injustice, oppression, and marginalization may lead to a further kind of epistemic vice which I name “epistemic hopelessness.” I argue that this epistemic vice is unique to those who experience oppression and social marginalization. This further requires a more nuanced account of the standpoint epistemological claim about the privileged access to knowledge of the social world held by marginalized groups.

The idea goes as follows: with social privilege comes the privilege of encountering a world that makes sense, and that is predictable. This in turn enables us to reliably identify our needs and wishes, how to meet them under normal circumstances, and thereby to acquire more knowledge about the world. The reverse is often the case if one finds oneself at the bottom of the social hierarchy (Stauffer Reference Stauffer2015, 22). One possible reason for this is that experiences of injustice or oppression are often traumatic, and the trauma can be psychologically disorienting. Susan Brison powerfully describes how being the victim of rape and attempted murder shattered her understanding of the world as a world that makes sense:

Brison thus explains how, through trauma, the world that she thought she knew unravelled, and it is difficult to piece back together an understanding of reality that makes sense. Being a member of a marginalized or oppressed group dramatically increases one’s risk of being subjected to traumatic experience, such as being subject to sexual and racial violence (Kearns et al. Reference Kearns, D’Inverno and Reidy2020; Barlow Reference Barlow2020), and other kinds of hate crimes, bullying, and social ostracism. This again dramatically increases the likelihood of finding oneself in a position where the world appears confusing, unpredictable, and devoid of purpose and meaning.

However, crucially, the experience of disorientation that is often experienced by members of marginalized groups can also be explained without relying on the specific psychological disposition of individuals and their response to trauma. In other words, while trauma might be one reason for a commonly experienced sense of disorientation among members of marginalized groups, there are other reasons disorientation might be endemic within many marginalized groups that might exist instead of (or in addition to) trauma. Jeffrey Spinner-Halev argues that, when people suffer injustices over time, the world does not feel like a place where one’s needs matter or can be accommodated for; it is a hostile place (Spinner-Halev Reference Spinner-Halev2012, 8). This sense of alienation is in itself disorienting with respect to understanding one’s position in the world, locating one’s needs, and thereby forming justified claims that one is a victim of injustice and why. The explanation for this has little to do with the psychology of specific individuals. It is instead concerned with the fact that often one of the reasons a group of people suffers injustices, and these injustices are enduring, is because the world is not built to be responsive to them, their needs, or way of life (Christiano Reference Christiano2008, 65). It therefore becomes difficult to navigate this world, to understand one’s role within it, and it becomes difficult to plan for one’s future in any coherent way. For instance, society at large is not structured to accommodate for the needs and autonomy of disabled people; there is no scope for future planning for refugees waiting for residency in another country; in certain ghettoized areas in the US the education system is of such poor quality, and work opportunities are so low, that there is little hope for any legal income streams or social mobility out of the ghetto (Shelby Reference Shelby2007).

To add to this, radical changes, such as being suddenly subject to violence, exile, or being uprooted from one’s community, may exacerbate this sense of disorientation. While these experiences in themselves may be traumatic, the key here is the rapidity of the change in experience. When people must make sense of immediate and drastic changes to their existence, they move from the realm of cultural change, which every community undergoes, to cultural breakdown (Spinner-Halev Reference Spinner-Halev2012, 9). This can be deeply epistemically disorienting; one moves from a world that makes sense in terms of one’s cultural concepts and expectations to one that by no means makes sense in these terms. As an illustration of this, we can draw on Jonathan Lear’s (2006) example of the Native American Crow tribe, and their forced move into reservations which actively prevented them from continuing their traditional way of life, such as hunting buffalo or waging ritual warfare against neighbouring tribes.Footnote ⁸ These activities were essential not only to the sustenance of the tribe, but also to the ways in which they developed their social hierarchy, and organized their social and practical activities. Thus, not only was this forced move into a reservation a material loss, but it also meant that the Crow tribe was at loss in terms of how to make sense of their new existence, which did not allow for buffalo hunting or ritual warfare.

In this situation, then, the Crow tribe was in a worse than normal epistemic position to explain what was wrong in terms of the new reality of their situation, and how it could be better. There was no return to an old way of life, and there were no one inside or outside the group who fully understood what this new life consisted in, and what gave it meaning. Moreover, given the sense of despair and hopelessness experienced, it made little sense to make the effort to try to identify the specific issues with the situation within the reservation, such as lack of food or housing resources; no one felt a particular need to make the reservation itself better, and they otherwise felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and directionlessness that often found destructive rather than constructive outlets.

In what follows, I show how this discussion of disorientation that only exists under certain conditions of oppression, injustice, or marginalization highlights a specific kind of epistemic vice that only members of marginalized groups may be prone to.Footnote ⁹ I name this epistemic vice “epistemic hopelessness.” This can be defined as the sense that there is not even any point trying to make an epistemic effort to get at knowledge about the social world, or about one’s own oppression and marginalization. The world is not responsive in the way one might have expected, and any previous efforts have fallen flat. To explain this concept, I first discuss hope itself before I tease out the specific features of epistemic hopelessness as a distinctive epistemic vice that has marginalization or oppression as a necessary condition.

According to Katie Stockdale (Reference Stockdale2021), our disposition for hope is shaped by socialization and by experience, and hence also by political context and power structures. Not only do we learn this way what is normally possible to achieve within our specific social confines, but also what outcomes are perceived as desirable and worth pursuing (Stockdale Reference Stockdale2021, 24). Oppression can thus be understood as a threat to hope, as it both threatens people’s ability to hope for happy outcomes, given the social and political restrictions that they are managing on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, hoping for a fundamentally better state of affairs might undermine one’s pursuit of basic day-to-day welfare and survival, thereby making the hope itself potentially undesirable (Stockdale Reference Stockdale2021, 27–28). For instance, protesting an oppressive regime might achieve little, and one could run the risk of being imprisoned or worse. It might therefore be more rational to not pin one’s hopes on a regime change, and instead focus one’s attention on how to survive under conditions of oppression.

Thus, it is worth noting here that oppression often systematically threatens hope, even if it does not necessarily succeed in fully damaging or destroying it. This systematic threat to hope can have the effect, under certain circumstances of oppression, of undermining the epistemic motivations of oppressed groups to seek knowledge about their environment and their conditions of oppression. This is what I mean by “epistemic hopelessness.” According to Cheshire Calhoun (Calhoun Reference Calhoun, Mackenzie and Atkins2008), this is particularly likely to happen when we lose a sense of agency, namely the sense that one’s actions matter or make a difference to one’s own life. If such a sense of agency is lost, so is the agent’s taking charge of their own life, as well as their confidence in their capacity for instrumental reasoning, i.e. confidence that one’s actions will produce their intended effects (Calhoun Reference Calhoun, Mackenzie and Atkins2008, 198). Jonathan Lear explains how this sense of hopelessness and loss of agency has underpinned much of indigenous experience in the US, and can be seen in combination with the increased abuse of drugs and alcohol in these communities (Lear Reference Lear2006, 140). Moreover, indigenous communities tend to suffer from devastatingly high suicide rates.Footnote ¹⁰ According to Lear, in this context, life fails to provide meaning in every possible sense, and there is no obvious way in which there is space for any tangible hope for a different kind of life, and thereby for sense-making. There is seemingly nowhere to direct one’s epistemic efforts, and so one does not try. Add the disorientation that often accompanies trauma, or the disorienting effects of undergoing sudden radical life changes, and one’s capacity and motivation to make an epistemic effort are further undermined.

It is at this point necessary to untangle hopelessness as an epistemically appropriate and rational response to a hopeless situation and epistemic hopelessness as an epistemic vice. In a truly hopeless situation, believing that the situation is hopeless is the appropriate epistemic response; one is not lulled into unfounded optimism, and can therefore make realistic epistemic assessments (Stockdale Reference Stockdale2021, 137). This kind of epistemically appropriate hopelessness is not the same as epistemic hopelessness as an epistemic vice, as I wish to discuss it. Epistemic hopelessness does not necessarily entail reaching the conclusion that a situation is hopeless, but rather the sense that it is pointless to make an epistemic effort. The world is confusing, disorienting, and senseless, and it will not make a difference to try to get it to make sense. Thus, epistemic hopelessness can occur when we find ourselves in a situation where it is difficult to make meaningful decisions for ourselves, both in the long term and on a day-to-day basis. Often a genuinely hopeless situation can produce this sort of epistemic attitude, but to make a careful, considered, and rational assessment of one’s situation as hopeless is the opposite to falling prey to epistemic hopelessness. The epistemically hopeless person, on the other hand, will not see the point in making the effort to reach such a conclusion.

It might therefore seem that epistemic hopelessness as I describe it is similar (or the same as) a sort of depression. However, unlike depression, the hopelessness under discussion is not just a cognitive pathology. While a depressed individual may feel as if it is pointless to make an epistemic effort to see her world as purposeful, she might, through therapy or similar means, come to understand that her situation is not as bleak as she had pictured it. Even people who are highly privileged can suffer depression; it is not reserved for people in genuinely hopeless situations. Epistemic hopelessness, however, is an epistemic response to systematically finding oneself in a situation that is entirely indifferent and unresponsive to one’s needs or wishes. While one can always hold out for a lucky break, or get extraordinarily creative in one’s approach to fighting one’s conditions of oppression, experience will have taught that neither are options to bank on. This does not mean that epistemic hopelessness is unavoidable in these instances of oppression, but rather that it is a likely outcome, given the circumstances.

Epistemic hopelessness might therefore count as an epistemically appropriate response to finding oneself in a situation where epistemic inquiry is inordinately difficult, and perhaps even impossible. The reason it counts as an epistemic vice, then, is not that the epistemically hopeless person is necessarily behaving in an epistemologically flawed manner, given their circumstances at time t, but rather that epistemic hopelessness can foreclose epistemic inquiry when change in circumstances down the line might allow for it. Moreover, it might foreclose epistemic inquiry prematurely when there could be less apparent epistemic routes still available. This also means that, epistemic hopelessness is not an irrational or pathological epistemic response to a situation, as such, even if it is not an epistemically virtuous response. Thus, it is primarily in instances of systematic oppression that one may find the necessary conditions of epistemic hopelessness. If people who have not been subject to systematic and ongoing oppression feel that it is futile to make an epistemic effort, most often this has another (likely psychological or psycho-social) foundation, and it is likely less warranted by their social structural circumstances.

5. Avoiding vices, accessing virtues

The above demonstrated proneness of marginalized groups to epistemic vice is something that needs to be accounted for if we are to maintain the claim that victims of injustice still hold a privileged epistemic standpoint when it comes to understanding injustice and its causes. In what follows, I rely on Jules Holroyd’s (Reference Holroyd, Kidd, Battaly and Cassam2021) discussion of implicit bias as a group vice to show, first of all, that individual victims of oppression may be able, in certain instances, to tap into their capacity for epistemic virtue, although this does not hold reliably at a group level. Thus, while the overall tendency within a group is toward bias, prejudice, and epistemic vice, there is scope for individuals to buck this trend. Secondly, I show how the capacity for epistemic virtues can be systematically harnessed through collective group efforts. This matters because it provides a clearer picture of when, how, and under what circumstances it is possible to access knowledge about oppression that is otherwise epistemically obscured to us.

As a side note, I wish to rely on Iris Marion Young’s definition of social groups throughout (Young Reference Young1990, 42). Young defines a social group membership as involuntary; one finds oneself belonging to some sort of social group whether one likes it or not. For instance, one does not choose to belong to the social group of “women,” “gay,” or “Black.” Yet social group membership is not an inherent essential feature of an individual, and an individual can end up changing social group, voluntarily or involuntarily. This is because your social group membership is rooted in the ways in which one is being perceived by the external world, and is treated accordingly.

To illustrate this point, Young gives the example of secular Jews under the French World War II Vichy regime. They did not self-identify as Jewish until it became clear that they were persistently treated as such by their surroundings. By virtue of their shared struggle in this environment, they came to agree that they had a kind of shared group identity as Jews. According to Young, this kind of group identity is not inescapable; for instance, there might be a change to the overall social fabric which classifies people into certain types of social groups, such as the fall of the Nazi regime. Perhaps less dramatically, one may oneself change. For instance, we are all at some point classified as young, but will grow older. One may identify as heterosexual, but then surprisingly fall in love with a person of the same gender, and therefore come to identify as queer. The point here is not that it is easy to escape a social group; it is not. The point is rather that group identity has as much to do with the external world’s perception of you, and how it categorizes the social world into groups, as it has to do with you and your identity. This will also mean that group membership is something that can be unstable, either because social perceptions change, or because the members change in some way or other. Nevertheless, group membership is not typically subject to choice.

On this definition of a social group, then, there is nothing epistemically determinist about finding oneself as a member of a social group. While group membership may come with certain epistemic advantages or disadvantages, such as knowing what it is like to be treated as a member of that group by the outside world, the individual members may inhabit these overall epistemic tendencies in various ways. These variations will depend on how they relate to other members, or the ways in which they might find themselves moving between social groups, or as members of several groups at the same time.