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Epistemic Equality
Dr. Boaz Miller
Postdoctoral Fellow, The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Tel Aviv University
boaz.miller@gmail.com
Dr. Meital Pinto
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Carmel Academic Center, Haifa
meital.pinto.1@gmail.com
Introduction
We acquire many of our beliefs from the testimony of others, including experts, and from
social institutions, such as science, that are in charge of generating knowledge. Knowledge
generation is social in at least three fundamental ways. First, the generation of knowledge
depends on an apt division of cognitive labour among researchers (Kitcher 1990). Second, it
depends on the existence of justified relations of trust among them (Hardwig 1985). Third,
hypotheses must undergo a social process of critical scrutiny and evaluation, as in
peer-review, to acquire the status of knowledge (Longino 2002).
Because knowledge generation is social in these ways, unequal social power
relations may obstruct it. We understand epistemic equality as the solution to such
obstructions. Let us distinguish between different possible meanings of “epistemic
equality”, and identify the one in which we are interested in this paper. One question
epistemic equality may answer is how science may promote society’s becoming more
egalitarian and less discriminatory (Kourany 2010), or how it can advance global equality,
for example, between the developing and developed worlds (Harding 2002). Other
questions it may answer are how society members’ concerns should be equally addressed
by science and reflected in its research priorities, and how society members can equally
benefit from the products of scientific research (Kitcher 2001).
While these are interesting and important questions, and may indirectly relate to the
question we address in this paper, the account of epistemic equality we develop in this
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paper has a different focus. We are concerned with epistemic equality in the context of
justification.1 We assume that knowledge production is a social process in an epistemic
community, in which claims undergo critical scrutiny, and those claims that successfully
survive this scrutiny are communally accepted and certified as knowledge. Unequal social
power relations may obstruct this process. For example, the rich and powerful may try to
use their power to bring about the communal acceptance of views that suit their interests.
They may also try to prevent acceptance by artificially manufacturing uncertainty that
prevents the closure of controversies, e.g., tobacco companies’ efforts to impede the
scientific acceptance of the harms of smoking (Oreskes & Conway 2010). Epistemic equality
of the kind in which we are interested in this paper is designed to prevent such undesirable
situations, and aid the smooth and successful generation of knowledge.
We regard epistemic equality in the context of justification as addressing a
distributive problem. Participation in, and influence over, the knowledge-generating
discourse are a limited good that needs to be justly distributed among putative members of
an epistemic community. The question our account of epistemic equality answers is how
this good should be allocated, such that reliable (justified, trustworthy) knowledge is
produced. Put differently, we are interested in a distributive account of equality in an
epistemic community designed primarily to achieve the epistemic aim of the successful
generation of knowledge. “Knowledge” is used here as a success term that signifies an
epistemically privileged form of belief or acceptance that is distinguishable from mere
opinion, speculation, or educated guess.
1. Characterizing Epistemic Equality
In this section, we characterize epistemic equality in the context of justification qua a
scheme of distributive justice. Let us start by examining Longion’s notion of “tempered
equality of intellectual authority”, which she suggests as a regulative norm that should
govern the knowledge-producing process of critical scrutiny in an epistemic community.
The context of discovery refers to the part of research in which hypotheses are raised and explored. It is
contrasted with the context of justification, in which hypotheses are tested and accepted or rejected. This
distinction is commonly attributed to Reichenbach (1938).
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Longion’s notion of tempered equality will serve as a springboard for developing our own
account.
Tempered equality is one of the four norms recommended by Longino’s Critical
Contextual Empiricism (Longino 1990, Ch. 4; 2002, Ch. 6). Critical Contextual Empiricism
regards objectivity as the aim of inquiry. Longino distinguishes between two meanings of
“objectivity”. The first is veridical representation of reality. The second is lack of subjective
bias. She argues that the latter is required to achieve the former. She argues that bias enters
inquiry by filling the logical gap of underdetermination of theory by evidence. Inquirers
make background assumptions that are neither logically necessary nor determined by the
evidence, and typically reflect their biases and prejudice. Social norms of critical
deliberation are therefore required to expose and eliminate such biases. Such norms grip on
the individual inquirer in the sense that they require him to question and publicly defend
his assumptions and claims to knowledge.
Longino holds that an agreement in an epistemic community amounts to knowledge
only if it is reached through a process of critical deliberation and scrutiny that follows four
norms:
(1) there are public venues of criticism such as professional journals and conferences;
(2) there is uptake of criticism – members of the community appropriately respond to
the criticism and revise their views accordingly;
(3) there are publicly recognized standards of evaluation of theories;
(4) there is tempered equality of intellectual authority – intellectual capacity and
relevant expertise are the only criteria by which people are given the right to
participate in the collective critical discussion, and those with intellectual capacity
and relevant expertise do in fact realize their right to participate, regardless of
gender, race, etc.
The fourth norm is the one we are concerned with. Tempered equality of intellectual
authority states that “the social position or economic power of an individual or group in a
community ought not determine who or what perspectives are taken seriously in that
community” (Longino 2002, 131). Tempered equality inter alia requires diffusion of power,
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which means giving preference as much as possible to research programs with flat rather
than hierarchical power relations. For example, preference should be given to programs
that do not require expensive or scarce equipment, to which only select few have access.
Similarly, researchers should not be required to have specialized skills, such as extensive
mathematical training, more than is actually needed for successfully carrying out their
research. Such excessive requirements are a means of exclusion of able researchers, women
in particular, and they give undue decision-making power to those who possess these skills
(Longino 1995, 389).
The idea behind tempered equality is preventing situations of underdetermination
in which there are several theories that can accommodate the same evidence, but some of
them are not seriously considered because their proponents are socially disempowered. For
example, when both cultural and biological explanations are suggested to explain
differences in intelligence tests scores between men and women, but only biological
theories are considered because female proponents of the cultural theories are dismissed
due to gender bias.
Longino’s notion of tempered equality is admittedly underdeveloped and sketchy.
Let us, then, try to more fully characterize it (2002, 133-134). How are we to understand
tempered equality qua a conception of equality? A common distinction exists between
formal and substantive equality. Formal equality may be broken down into two
requirements, universality and impartiality. Universality requires that the distributive rule
apply to everybody. Impartiality requires that all individuals be treated impartially. Formal
equality is not equated with justice. For example, a principle that states that all blonde-hair
persons should be made rulers satisfies the formal requirement, but is not just. A
substantive principle of equality is one that demands that people be treated equally in
certain respects that are substantive to their life (Temkin 2001, 29).
Aristotelian equality is associated with the maxim of “treat like cases alike”,
originally attributed to Plato. Some interpret this maxim as merely committed to formal
equality, namely, to universality and impartiality (e.g., Gosepath 2011, §2.1), while others
interpret it substantively (e.g., Berlin 1955-56). According to the substantive interpretation,
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which will be endorsed in this paper, Aristotelian equality makes a substantive demand on
the rule of distribution, which is that the similarity condition that the rule evokes should
establish a rational relation between the properties by which similarity or relative
similarity between individuals is determined and the amount or relative amount of the good
each individual deserves. That is, the rule of distribution cannot distinguish between
individuals on an arbitrary basis, which does not draw a rational connection between the
individuals’ entitling properties and the nature of the good. This requirement seems inline
with Aristotle’s own words: “everyone agrees that justice in distribution must be in
accordance with some kind of merit, but not everyone means the same by merit” (Aristotle
2000, 1131a). As we will see in Section Error! Reference source not found., however,
defining the merit for epistemic equality is not a trivial matter.
A second distinction that is relevant to characterizing tempered equality is between
simple and complex equality. Simple models of equality identify one encompassing aspect in
people’s lives to which all other aspects are reducible, and devise general rules for just
distribution of goods with respect to that aspect. For instance, if overall welfare is the
encompassing aspect, a distribution of goods is just if it satisfies the different preferences of
different people with regard to their welfare. By contrast, complex equality models deny the
existence of such one encompassing aspect. They identify different inconvertible currencies
for different aspects of people’s lives (Miller 1995). The idea of complex equality comes
from Walzer’s (1983) theory of “spheres of justice” which divides people’s lives into
spheres that represent different aspects in life such as education, health, and career. In
every sphere, a different criterion of distribution governs. Walzer argues that society should
reduce the effect of dominant goods from one sphere over other spheres. In this way, social
and distributive justice is achieved because individuals are considered only by relevant
criteria.
As mentioned above, tempered equality states that the social position or economic
power of an individual or group in a community ought not to determine who or what
perspectives are taken seriously in that community. This classifies tempered equality as a
form of complex equality. That is, tempered equality recognizes the epistemic domain as a
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distinctive distributive sphere, governed by its own distributive criterion, and aims at
eliminating the influence of other spheres on it.
The characterization of epistemic equality as complex equality is important. Walzer
stresses that in complex equality, genuine equality cannot be achieved merely by
implementing a just rule of distribution within each sphere. Rather, separating the spheres
and preventing the influence of dominant goods from one sphere on other spheres is as
important. In the case of epistemic equality, even if we formulate a just distribution rule,
e.g., relevant expertise, it is not enough that participation in and influence over the
knowledge-generating discussion are allocated according to it. It is also required, for
example, that the poor and other members of disempowered groups be able to acquire such
relevant expertise in the first place, namely, that they get proper education, the opportunity
to pursue an academic career, etc. Otherwise, they will not be adequately represented at the
stage the knowledge-generating discussion, even if it is governed by a just distribution rule,
and their potential epistemic imports will not contribute to the epistemic products of the
knowledge-generating community. While in this paper we focus on the internal rule of
distribution that should govern the epistemic sphere, we acknowledge that merely
implementing it within the epistemic sphere is insufficient for realizing genuine epistemic
equality. Rather, epistemic equality must be part of a systematic correction of other social
inequalities, purporting to minimize the influence of dominant goods in different spheres on
each other.
In this section, we examined Longino’s tempered equality of intellectual authority in
order to identify the characteristics of epistemic equality in the context of justification qua a
model of equality. Our characterization reveals that tempered equality is form of complex
equality, which defines the epistemic domain as a distinct distributive sphere, in which the
distributed good is participation in, and influence over, the knowledge-generating discourse
in an epistemic community. Within this sphere, this good is distributed according to the
principle of Aristotelian equality, in its substantive form, where the distributive criterion is
relevant expertise in the issues under discussion.2
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Rolin (2009) argues that stakeholders regarding issues under discussion may legitimately participate in
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As mentioned, Longino’s account of tempered equality of intellectual authority is
admittedly underdeveloped. If an account of epistemic equality in the context of justification
is to cut ice, we need one of two things. We either need a clear formulation of what the
distributive criterion of “relevant expertise” means, and how it applies to different
scenarios. Call this “the top-down approach”. Alternatively, drawing on empirical
experience in successful and unsuccessful cases of knowledge production, we may devise a
workable method for realizing or approximately realizing the rationales of epistemic
equality in different scenarios without having a clear formulation of the distributive
criterion. Call this “the bottom-up approach”. In the next section, we argue that the topdown approach is difficult and ultimately futile both conceptually and practically.
2. Against the Top-Down Approach
In the previous section, we characterized epistemic equality in the context of justification as
a complex substantive Aristotelian equality in which participation in, and influence over, a
knowledge-generating discourse in an epistemic community is allocated to individuals
based on the criterion of their relevant expertise in the subject matter. In this section, we
examine how a practicable definition of relevant expertise may be formulated, and we argue
that its prospects are grim.
Recall that Aristotelian equality requires that the distributive criterion establish a
rational relation between an individual’s entitling property and the nature of the
distributed good. For example, allocating seats in a bus according to skin colour does not
satisfy the rationality requirement, because it fails to draw a rational connection between
the two. By contrast, relevant expertise does satisfy the requirement because there is a
rational connection between it and participation in, and influence over, a knowledgegenerating discourse. The rationale is that people with relevant expertise would make a
the knowledge-generation discourse in the epistemic community in addition to experts, and that
Longino’s Critical Contextual Empiricism can accommodate their participation. In addition, according to
Douglas (2009), epistemic standards for theory acceptance may be legitimately influenced by people’s
stakes regarding the risks associated with possible errors. It follows that being a stakeholder in addition
to an expert may be a relevant criterion for participating in the communal critical discussion. We
acknowledge that this may add complexity to our account, but we leave it out of our account within the
scope of this paper.
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positive contribution to, and influence over, the knowledge-generating discourse in the
domain of their expertise.
A natural way to go is formulating the relevant expertise criterion in terms of a
person’s having relevant credentials, such as education, publications, and awards. As we
will argue in this section, however, this way faces many difficulties and ultimately leads to a
dead end. The first problem with this suggestion is epistemic. It is often unknown or
disputed who the relevant experts are. When the subject at hand has not been extensively
researched, it is unclear who the experts are, who can actually produce knowledge about it,
especially when putative experts from different domains make competing claims to
expertise. In addition, in complex matters, expertise is required to determine who the
experts are, which leads to regress.
Second, formulating relevant expertise in terms of credentials leads to exclusion of
alternative forms of expertise, and perpetuates the social status quo, which is not
necessarily just or desirable. A case study that is commonly mentioned in this context is
Wynne’s (1996) study of the Cumbrian sheep-farmers affair. In 1986, following the
Chernobyl disaster in Russia, high nuclear radiation levels were measured in sheep in the
Lake District of Cumbria, England. The sheep were grown by local Cumbrian farmers, and
played a central role in the economy of the area. Drawing on models of radioactive decay,
government scientists confidently attributed the radiation to fallout from Chernobyl. Their
claims encountered scepticism, however, because the alleged Chernobyl fallout just
happened to concentrate in the area surrounding a local nuclear facility, in which a major
nuclear disaster had taken place thirty years before (Wynne 1996, 21-24).
The failure of credited expertise in this case was evident. While the scientists first
confidently predicted that radiation levels would drop within three weeks, after which the
sheep could be slaughtered and sold, the radiation levels stayed high for years. Only later
was it realized that the radiologists wrongly extrapolated from models of the behaviour of
caesium in clay soil to the local peaty soil, in which it behaved differently. Time and time
again, scientists’ predictions proved false, which did not undermine their confidence. In
addition, scientists’ experiments for measuring the levels of radiation in sheep failed,
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because they ignored local farmers’ criticism of their design that did not take into account
sheep grazing patters. Last, scientists gave the farmers useless advice, which ignored
farmers’ local knowledge about possible and impossible farming practices (Wynne 1996,
25-36).
Wynne argues that the failure of scientific expertise in this case was not due to mere
scientists’ arrogance. Rather, it goes at the heart of the constitutive norms of modern
science. We may therefore draw general lessons from it. The first scientific norm that
Wynne identifies is artificial standardization of variations, and extrapolation from idealized
models, which caused scientists to err by ignoring relevant local variations in the physical
environment and farms. The second scientific norm is prediction and control, which
engendered in scientists’ exaggerated sense of certainty. These norms conflicted with
farmers’ epistemic norms of local variability, adaptation, and intrinsic lack of control
(Wynne 1996, 37-38).
Trying to identify experts by characters, such as academic education and official
accreditation, then, leads to marginalizing uncredited experts, such as the farmers, whose
expertise stems from relevant life experience or alternative training. Uncredited experts
offer a viewpoint that supplements the scientific viewpoint and is sometimes superior to it.
It is important to remember that credited experts usually already enjoy greater epistemic
authority and social power than uncredited experts, who are usually already excluded and
marginalized. Thus, formulating the relevant expertise criterion in terms of credited
expertise may give more power to those who already have it, pulling the rug under the very
point of epistemic equality.
It might be objected that Wynne’s study does not expose problematic constitutive
norms of modern science, but merely depicts a case of bad science, namely, science that fails
to live up to its own standard. According to this objection, good scientists ought to have
taken into consideration farmers’ local knowledge and admit their own uncertainty rather
than disguise it. Thus, we simply need to formulate the relevant expertise criterion in terms
of credited experts who are also good scientists. This objection fails, however, for two
reasons.
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First, Wynne’s study is not an isolated case. There are other cases that lend
themselves to similar analysis, which suggests that this may well be an epistemic failure
typical of science. For example, Suryanarayanan and Kleinman (2013) have conducted an
ethnographic research of the ongoing debate about the honeybee colony collapse disorder.
Since 2005, there has been an unexplained phenomenon of massive collapse and die-off of
honeybee colonies. In the US, there has been a dispute between commercial beekeepers on
the one hand, and scientists and regulators on the other hand. Commercial beekeepers
claim, based on their experience and knowledge of the fixed and changing conditions in
their environment, that the growing use of certain pesticides (neonicotinoids) is a major
factor responsible for the disorder. Yet scientists reject this claim, because they have not
managed to conclusively prove it using standardized methods of experimental design (yet
the experiments do not rule out the beekeepers’ hypothesis either, and some are suggestive
of it).
Similarly to Wynne, Suryanarayanan and Kleinman analyze this case as an epistemic
failure of the constitutive norms of modern science. They argue that standardized
experimental methods are too rigid to accommodate as relevant evidence the beekeepers’
testimonies, which draw on on their actual real-time experience and observations. They
further argue that standardized experimental methods that try to isolate and control single
causes do not manage to cope with the complex beekeeping reality on the ground, in which
multiple causes exist and interact. Last, they argue that the scientific preference for
avoiding false positives over avoiding false negatives in illegitimate in this context, and sets
the epistemic bar too high for the beekeepers to meet. Moreover, inequality in social status
between the scientists and beekeepers is responsible for the fact the scientists are the ones
who are taken by the regulator as authoritative on the subject. In our view, to the extent
that Suryanarayanan and Kleinman’s analysis is correct, this is an epistemic failure that
epistemic equality should be able to correct. The mere fact that the beekeeper’s evidence
fails to meet pre-existing institutionalized epistemic norms does not in itself constitute a
legitimate reason for scientists to dismiss the beekeepers’ testimony as relevant evidence
and exclude it from the knowledge-generating discourse.
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The second reason the above objection fails is that it in fact acknowledges that good
science needs to take into account non-scientific perspectives. Thus, a criterion of inclusion
for epistemic equality needs to allow uncredited experts to participate in and influence the
knowledge-generating discourse. But we see no reason not to include uncredited experts as
equals, rather than as informants to the scientists, who are not allowed to participate in the
knowledge generating processes themselves.
So far we reviewed two problems with the top-down approach – the epistemic
problem of identifying the right experts in a non-question begging way, and the problem
that cashing out a relevant expertise criterion in terms of relevant credentials – the most
seemingly promising way to go – leads to marginalizing uncredited experts, who are already
in a socially inferior status with respect to credited experts. We now move to discussing the
third problem with the top-down approach, which is a principled conceptual problem that
stems from the inherently dual nature of expertise as both cognitive and social.
The attempt to formulate a distribution criterion in terms of relevant expertise
presupposes that relevant expertise can be formulated in purely cognitive terms, such that
it can be used as a criterion for the allocation of a social good. But expertise is inherently
both social and cognitive. Expertise is intrinsically a social status that entails social
privileges and powers to those that have it. Thus, in a society in which putative experts
already have more (or less) social power than they deserve, appealing to expertise as a
distributive criterion for implementing epistemic equality would just perpetuate the
existing inequalities.
Expertise is inherently social in two ways. First, as Fuller (2006) argues, experts are
socially recognized as cognitive authorities in their domain of expertise, which is, by its very
nature, esoteric and inaccessible to lay people. But such recognition ipso facto also gives
experts special autonomy that entails privileges. Experts have the exclusive power to define
their domain of expertise, and the problems they can and cannot address. Experts have the
power to decide on the resources they need if their services are to be used. And strikingly,
when experts’ solutions fail, experts are the ones that decide the causes of failure and have
the power to blame and assign responsibility! Fuller compares experts to magicians who get
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to decide how the stage is set and what the audience gets to see and not to see if it wants to
enjoy their tricks.
Turner (2003, Ch. 2) argues that this dual nature of expertise – both cognitive and
social – poses a difficulty to liberal commitment to equality and state neutrality. The state
mandates experts to decide what counts as factual, thus they de facto have the privilege to
decide what is beyond the scope of political discussion. I do not want to overstate the case
and argue that expertise cannot be subject to political legitimation or public criticism. As
Turner argues, while the public usually lacks the epistemic competence to directly evaluate
scientific evidence, it can and does evaluate the technological outcomes of science, for
example, in medicine and physics, and legitimates them. Turner argues that the state should
adopt only those fields that have gone through such a process of political legitimation. Yet,
that expertise may in some cases undergo a process of political legitimated by the lay public
does not alleviate the problem of using expertise as a distributive criterion for epistemic
equality, as it does not show how the social in expertise can be separated from, or reduced
to, the cognitive.
Second, expertise is social because knowledge and belief are social. As Mill (1993,
86) writes, a person’s beliefs are a product of “his party, his sect, his church, his class of
society […] his own country or his own age”. Feminist epistemologists add that because
certain perspectives are often inseparable from certain social identities, even in open and
critical settings, there is a limit to people’s ability to transcend their original background
and free themselves of their biases and prejudice.
This is why Longino (2002, 132) argues that the absence of women and ethnic
minorities from a scientific consensus, even if not intentional, constitutes a serious
cognitive flaw, which reduces the community's critical resources. Yet, at the same time,
Longino’s norm of tempered equality requires that factors such as social and ethnic
background should not be taken into account when allocating the good of participation in
and influence over the knowledge-generating discussion of the epistemic community. That
is, for Longino, the distributive criterion for tempered equality is purely cognitive. In
Longino’s account, then, there is a conflict between two opposing rationales, one that
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requires that members’ social background be taken into consideration and one that
requires that they be ignored. This tension stems exactly from the dual – social and
cognitive – nature of expertise.
It may be argued that this tension may be resolved if we regard the first condition of
social diversity as a condition of inclusion in the communal discussion, and the second
criterion of relevant expertise as a condition for participation in, and influence over it. That
is, social diversity is a preliminary condition of membership in the epistemic community,
and once the community is constructed, relevant expertise is the procedural condition for
considering the different members’ views once the knowledge-generating discussion takes
off. But this reply seems incompatible with Longino’s account. If, as Longino argues, social
backgrounds are of genuine epistemic import, what is the point in including minority
members with different social backgrounds in the communal discussion only to disregards
their views later because they may lack sufficient relevant expertise?
The inherently dual nature of expertise leads us to the last problem with relevant
expertise as a distributive criterion for epistemic equality. Even if we assume, for the sake of
the argument, that the relevant expertise distributive criterion is formulated such that the
correct experts are identified, there is no guarantee that they will use their powers for the
good. The fact that experts can positively influence the knowledge-generating processes
does not necessarily mean that they will actually do so.
Privileges that experts have qua experts can be misused. For example, Beatty (2006,
55-64) discusses the U.S. National Academy of Sciences report entitled The Biological Effects
of Atomic Radiation (1956). This was a consensus statement drafted by leading geneticists,
which masked major disagreements within them about the safe ranges of atomic radiation.
Rather than making their disagreements public, the experts decided to artificially agree on
wide safe radiation ranges that had no sound scientific rationale. This was for two reasons.
First, geneticists worried that if they did not present a unified front, physicists would claim
expertise on questions of radiation safety. Second, they shared a conviction that the public
could not cope well with scientific uncertainty. As Beatty (2006, 53-6) notes, a group of
experts may have various reasons to misuse their power in such a way. The experts may
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paternalistically decide it is better for the public that they speak in one voice; they might
worry that their social status might be undermined if disagreements among them became
public; they may wish to gain material support; etc.
This is, of course, just one example of the many ways experts may misuse their
powers. There are more. Pharmaceutical companies are accused of giving clinicians implicit
and explicit economic incentives to skew results (Brown 2004). In an anonymous survey for
Nature among practicing scientists, 15.5(!) percent of surveyed scientists admit to
“changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressure from a
funding source” (Martinson et al. 2005, 737). The questionable phenomenon of “ghostwriting” of published papers is also becoming more common (Sismondo 2009). The
commercialization and corruption of research have reached such an extent that Marcia
Angell, a Harvard medical researcher and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal
of Medicine, argues – among other senior researchers – that much or even most of our
clinical medical research may no longer be trusted (Angell 2009).
To conclude this section, the top-down approach, i.e., trying to formulate a
distributive criterion for epistemic equality in terms of relevant expertise that should be
applicable to different distributive scenarios, leads to a dead end. In the next section, we
present the bottom-up approach, and argue that it offers the best solution for realizing the
aims of epistemic equality.
3. In Favour of the Bottom-Up Approach
In the previous section we argued against the top-down approach, which tries to develop in
the abstract a distributive criterion for epistemic equality, and apply it to different cases. In
this section, we argue that the alterative bottom-up approach is both workable, and better
realizes the political and epistemic aims of epistemic equality.
What is the bottom-up approach? It is simple. The bottom-up approach requires that
we examine the particular characteristics of a given case and similar cases like it, identify
relevant group that are likely to be otherwise underrepresented, excluded, marginalized, or
dismissed, and make sure that they participate in the knowledge-generating discussion and
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are able to influence it as equals. Instead of trying to formulate a substantive criterion of
relevant expertise in order to implement epistemic equality, the bottom-up approach
simply makes sure that there is active participation of members of disempowered groups,
such as women and minority members, who have seemingly relevant interests in the matter
at hand, without worrying too much whether they possess relevant expertise or not. As a
general heuristic, looking for members of vulnerable groups, such as lower classes, and
ethnic, gender, and national minorities is a good way to start.
More precisely, the bottom-up approach can be expressed as the satisfaction of two
requirements:
(1) all accredited experts with seemingly relevant expertise equality participate in
and influence the knowledge-generating discourse, regardless of the prestige
and status of their institution;
(2) relevant stake holders with seemingly relevant experience-based or alternative
expertise equally participate in the discourse.
For example, in the above-discussed cases, the sheep farmers and beekeepers should
be identified and included as equals in the knowledge-generating process. Or when drafting
a document such as the DSM, patients and not just psychiatrists should have the ability to
participate and influence the outcome.
How does the bottom up approach realize the moral and political aims of epistemic
equality? Equality is the opposite concept of discrimination. Therefore, delving into the
moral harm of discrimination is useful for explaining how the bottom up approach realizes
the moral and political aims of epistemic equality. As we have seen, Aristotelian equality
requires that a distributive criterion be based on a rational connection between the
individual’s entitling property and the nature of the good. When a distributive criterion
between individuals is not based on such a rational connection, it is arbitrary in the sense
that it ignores the individuals' specific needs, capacities and prospects. It denies them the
equal concern and respect they deserve as human beings (Dworkin 1977, 272-273). An
example of such a discriminatory practice is a “separate but equal” education policy, which
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distinguishes between individuals based on skin colour, although there is no rational
connection between it and the good of education.
By contrast, in many cases in which the distributive criterion establishes a rational
or seemingly rational connection between the entitling property and the distributed good,
we find it permissible. For example, we think that it is legitimate to accord citizens’ right to
vote according to age. This is in spite of the fact that such a distribution criterion is based on
a stereotype, i.e., a generalization with regard to individuals that bear the same property.
The stereotype in this case connects the voting age with certain properties we think are
required for voting such as mature judgment. We know that this is an approximation –
there are people under the voting age that possess the properties required for voting, and
there are some over it that do not. That is, we know that using this stereotype as a criterion
for distribution does not allow individuals to demonstrate that they do not fall within this
stereotype (Schauer 2003, 120). We know that like all other stereotypes, it limits
individuals' freedom and autonomy by enforcing an image on them, which they personally
did not create, and prevents them from presenting themselves as they wish in public
(Réaume 2003, 673; Moreau 2004, 298-303). We find the use of such stereotypes
permissible, although they limit autonomy, because we cannot afford, do not want to, or
simply cannot in principle make an individualized investigation into each individuals’
properties. We thus find the stereotype a good enough approximation.
But not all cases are like this. As we will later explain, there are cases in which a
criterion identifies a rational or seemingly rational relation between an entitling property
and the distributed good, but it still amounts to unjust discrimination because it
significantly harms not only individuals’ autonomy but also, and more importantly, their
dignity. Note that merely harming individuals’ autonomy is not sufficient for a distinction to
amount to wrongful discrimination. In the voting case, the autonomy of individuals under
the voting age who possess all the capacities required for voting is harmed because they are
not allowed to realize these capacities by voting, while others, who also possess them, are
allowed to vote. Nevertheless, this distinction is considered permissible.
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In what follows, we examine two views about when a use of a serotype harms
dignity and therefore amounts to a morally wrong discrimination. (Recall that wrongful
discrimination is the opposite of equality.) According the first view, the use of a stereotype
is wrong when the stereotype is unreliable. According to the second view, the use of a
stereotype is wrong when the stereotype is demeaning. We will side with the second view,
and argue that the bottom up approach is consistent with it.
Fricker (2007, 17-29) discusses the use of stereotypes for evaluating the credibility
of a speaker’s testimony. She notes that we regularly rely on stereotypes to evaluate
speakers’ credibility and trust their testimony accordingly. She coins the term “testimonial
injustice” to denote cases in which a hearer assigns a speaker less credibility than she
deserves because of biases; for example, when a hearer does not trust a woman because he
takes women to be incapable of rational reasoning. In such a case, there is an epistemic
harm – the hearer is denied knowledge or justified belief, and if such biases are systematic,
the dissemination of knowledge in society is obstructed. In addition, there is a moral harm
to the speaker. The speaker’s autonomy and dignity are harmed. We can apply Fricker’s
analysis to using a stereotype as a distributive criterion for epistemic equality as well.
Yet, according to Fricker, not all cases in which stereotypes are used amount to
testimonial injustice. When the stereotype is not prejudicial, but rather reliable, the hearer
is not culpable for using it, even if he makes a wrong credibility assessment, hence he does
not harm the speaker. For example, if a hearer responsibly judges a speaker to be
untrustworthy owing to the fact that the speaker avoids looking her in the eye, frequently
looks askance, and pauses self-consciously in mid-sentence as if to work out his story, then
she is not culpable, even if the speaker is in fact not a liar, but rather very shy. The shy
speaker is just a victim of bad luck, and so is the honest used-car salesman who is not
trusted by his customers because they hold an otherwise reliable stereotypes about usedcars salesmen’s honesty (Fricker 2007, 41-42). In Fricker’s view, then, the epistemic and
moral aims of epistemic justice overlap.
If we apply the same analysis to epistemic equality, then the stereotype on which the
distribution criterion is based should be reliable. Moreover, the cases that realize the
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epistemic and moral (or political) aims of epistemic equality overlap. If this analysis is
correct, however, then we are back to square one. This is because we must formulate a
distribution criterion for epistemic equality that reliably connects an individual’s entitling
property and his capacity to generate knowledge. As we have seen in the previous section,
this approach leads to a dead end.
In our view, however, the epistemic and the moral do not coincide in epistemic
injustice in the way Fricker argues. Consider the following case. In most Westren countries,
blood donations from men who have sex with men are refused.3 Health regulators, including
the FDA, justify this policy by claiming that there is a reliable statistical correlation between
homosexuality and HIV infection, which increases the risk of contaminating the donation.
Opponents of this practice dispute the correlation and argue that it is based on bad
scientific reasoning. In particular, it is argued that the distinction should not be between
men who have sex with men and men who do not, but between persons who have only one
sexual partner or none over an extended period of time, and those who frequently exchange
partners (Culhane 2005). Suppose, however, for the sake of the argument that the statistics
connecting homosexuality and HIV infections are reliable, then from an epistemic
perspectives, according to Fricker, their use is permissible and does not amount to
epistemic injustice. Nevertheless, intuitively, the use of the gay stereotype in this case is
offensive regardless of the reliability of the statistics. This means that the connection that
Fricker wants to draw between epistemic reliability and justice breaks down.
What is the rationale for a legitimate use of stereotypes that can explain this
intuition? Hellman provides an account of a specific kind of stereotypes that are not
legitimate, even when they are reliable from an epistemic point of view. According to
Hellman (2008, Ch.2), the use of a reliable stereotype as a criterion for distribution of goods
amounts to a wrongful discrimination when the stereotype is demeaning. A demeaning
stereotype is oppressive, degrading, subordinating, or regards a person as subhuman. The
exact meaning of what is demeaning is contextual. It depends on the conventions and
For an overview of the policy in different countries, and the controversies around it, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_male_blood_donor_controversy.
3
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- Work in Progress. Comments are Welcome -
perceptions in a given culture and its history. It is also usually associated with vulnerable
groups in society, such as women, blacks, and gays, who have historically been victims of
persecution or exclusion. More specifically, Hellman argues that a stereotype is demeaning
when it meets three conditions. First, the stereotype at hand has been used in the past as a
criterion for distributions of goods between individuals. Second, the individuals who are the
object of this stereotype are identified as belonging to vulnerable groups in society, such as
women, blacks and gays. Third, the stereotype conveys a message that is culturally
interpreted in the specific society at hand as negative.
Stereotypes that meet these three conditions are demeaning, even when they are
epistemically reliable, because they perpetuate the inferior social status of vulnerable
groups that are marked by these stereotypes. Let us take the example of profiling ethnic and
racial minorities in airports in order to illustrate Hellman's argument. Let us also assume,
for the sake of the argument, that the stereotype, according to which ethnic and racial
minorities are more likely to be terrorists than other groups, is epistemically reliable. This
stereotype is still demeaning because it has been often used in the past to distinguish
between individuals, the ethnic groups that are associated with it are vulnerable groups in
terms of their inferior social status in general society, and most importantly, the stereotype
carries a negative message that associates ethnic minorities with terrorism.
Because demeaning stereotypes are especially harmful in terms of harming
individuals' autonomy and dignity, they are wrongful. In the blood-donation case, because
gay man are members of a vulnerable and historically persecuted minority group, a
distinction based on a stereotype according to which they are diseased is demeaning, hence
morally wrong.
An nice upshot of this rationale is that what naturally follows from it is that the
bottom up approach realizes the moral and political aims of epistemic equality. This is
because the bottom up approach starts by identifying the vulnerable groups that are usually
marginalized and excluded, and makes sure that their members participate in the
communal discourse as equals. Thus, it is especially designed to prevent demeaning
discrimination.
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So far we argued that the bottom up approach realizes the political and moral aims
of epistemic equality. But in the case of epistemic equality, as opposed to other models of
political equality, the moral and political aims are secondary to the epistemic aim, which is
the generation of knowledge, where knowledge is an epistemically prestigious form of
belief or acceptance, distinguishable from mere opinion, theory, or guess. Does the bottom
up approach realize the epistemic aim of epistemic equality? We will now argue that it does.
Most common definitions of knowledge in philosophy are based on some variant of a
conception of knowledge as justified true belief. We may use this definition to formulate
two desiderata from communal acceptance to count as knowledge. First, it must be true.4
Second, when true, it must not be just accidentally true or true by mere luck.5 As we will
now argue, the bottom up approach satisfies both desiderata.
Let us start with truth. The bottom up approach increases social diversity among
inquires, and makes sure that positions associated with members of relevant weak groups,
which would otherwise be marginalized or overlooked, would get proper consideration. If
one of these views is in fact the truth, the bottom up approach increases the chances that it
will be accepted by the epistemic community and be certified as knowledge.
Miller (2013) argues that social diversity is an important epistemic desideratum,
independently of evidential support for theory that the epistemic community agrees on and
eventually certifies as knowledge. That is, even if a theory on which there is an agreement in
an epistemic community enjoys seemingly strong evidential support, we would still want
the agreement to be socially diverse.
To illustrate this point, Miller (2013, 1312) uses the following thought experiment.
Suppose you discover that a scientific consensus exists that passive smoking does not raise
the chances of lung cancer. Suppose this consensus exhibits apparent consilience of
evidence. Studies of different types support this conclusion: Epidemiological studies show
no significant correlation between passive smoking and lung cancer, structural-analysis
Or be in another robust semantic relation with reality or observable phenomenon such as approximate
truth or empirical adequacy.
5 See Miller (2013) for a more detailed discussion of the conditions an agreement in a community should
satisfy to count as group knowledge.
4
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- Work in Progress. Comments are Welcome -
studies suggest that cigarette smoke undergoes some chemical reaction in the open air that
reduces its carcinogenic effects, etc. Suppose further these studies do not seem to be based
on some common problematic background assumptions. This consensus, so the objection
goes, is knowledge based. Suppose you later discover that all these studies were supported
or partly supported directly or indirectly by tobacco companies. Is knowledge still the best
explanation of the consensus? Not any more. Regardless of what you thought of the
consensus and the evidence before, they now become suspect. A better explanation of the
consensus may be that the tobacco industry is responsible for bringing it about. For
example, it may have given leading researchers incentives to produce evidence that
supports its interests, and this evidence convinced other members of the scientific
community who formed a consensus.
Diversity also helps an agreement satisfy the non-accidentality desideratum. A
central problem in theory choice is a failure to conceive of alternative explanations. Hence if
for a putatively successful theory T, it very easily could have been the case that had we
thought of an alternative T*,we would not have accepted T, then if T is true, we are lucky to
have accepted it. Social diversity increases the number of alternatives we consider, and
hence we can be more confident that if T is true, it is not merely luckily true.
It might be objected that the bottom up approach is not workable, because members
of vulnerable groups do not always have the relevant expertise and background knowledge
required for participating in the knowledge-generating discussion. This objection is
problematic for three reasons. First, there are many cases in which the marginalized views
come from within the scientific community, and they are dismissed due to gender and other
social biases.6 Second, this objection trades on a narrow notion of expertise. It presupposes
that expertise is credited expertise. If we widen the notion to include non-credited
expertise, as in the Cumbrian sheep-farmers case, then members of relevant vulnerable
groups do possess expertise, and it is up to the credited and non-credited experts alike to
learn each others’ terminology and methods. Third, expertise can be acquired. A case of
For gender bias in the biological sciences in the 19 th and 20th century see Okruhlik (1998); and for
gender bias in science since the Enlightenment see Bowler & Morus (2005) at 487-510.
6
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- Work in Progress. Comments are Welcome -
acquired expertise by lay people, which is commonly considered a successful case in which
non-scientists have made a significant positive epistemic contribution to scientific research,
is the case of AIDS activists (Epstein 2004). In this case, members of a grassroots group of
activists, who strongly opposed FDA drug-testing protocols for AIDS, which they took to be
much too cumbersome and slow, managed by political activism to integrate in the FDA
committees and significantly change the testing protocols and drug approval standards (cf.
Brister 2012). While this case has unique characteristics, which distinguish it, for example,
from the unsuccessful sheep-farmers case, it shows that when the conditions are favourable
enough, expertise can be acquired.
Conslusion
In this paper we proposed an account of epistemic equality in the context of justification,
namely, an account of how participation in, and influence over a knowledge-generating
discourse in an epistemic community should be justly distributed among putative members
of an epistemic community such that knowledge is eventually produced. We examined two
possible ways to go. The first devises a distributive criterion and applies it to individual
members. We argued that this approach is both unworkable and suffers from an inherent
conceptual internal tension. By contrast, the straightforward way of simply increasing
relevant diversity in the epistemic community and making sure that the views of members
of weak groups are given proper consideration is both easy to implement, and realizes the
aims epistemic equality is designed to achieve.
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