Not every error is an injustice
The account needs principled boundaries between ordinary mistakes about credibility and wrongs grounded in social power or prejudice.
Contemporary philosophy · 1966–
Fricker
Fricker shows that injustice can damage a person specifically as a knower, shaping who receives credibility and which experiences can be understood.
Miranda Fricker is a British philosopher whose work connects epistemology with ethics, social power and political life. She introduced a widely used framework for testimonial and hermeneutical injustice and has also written on blame, forgiveness and moral-epistemic virtue.
KnowledgeJusticeEthics
The question she enters
The question Fricker enters
Can a hearer wrong someone not only by disbelieving them, but by treating them as less capable of knowing?
The central move
Locate injustice inside practices of knowing
Fricker argues that credibility judgements and shared interpretive resources are shaped by social power. A person can be wronged as a knower when prejudice deflates their testimony or when a structural gap in collective concepts leaves an important experience difficult to articulate.
Key ideas
Terms that carry the argument.
- Testimonial injustice
- A credibility deficit imposed on a speaker because identity prejudice distorts the hearer's judgement.
- Hermeneutical injustice
- A structural disadvantage in understanding or communicating experience because shared interpretive resources are unequally formed.
- Epistemic injustice
- Wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a giver, seeker or subject of knowledge.
- Testimonial justice
- A corrective virtue through which hearers notice and counter prejudice in their credibility judgements.
Where the view strains
Objections and limits.
Conceptual gaps are hard to assign
Hermeneutical disadvantage can arise without one culpable hearer, complicating responsibility and remedy.
Sources and routes
Read the work. Follow the argument.
Primary texts
Where to meet the position.
- Oxford AcademicEpistemic InjusticeWebThe foundational account of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice.Oxford University Press, 2007; print ISBN 9780198237907. · Publisher book record with online chapter access subject to subscription or purchase. Checked Aug 2026.
- Wiley Online LibraryEpistemic Injustice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of KnowingWebA concise statement of power, credibility and corrective epistemic virtue.Published on Wiley under the title Epistemic Justice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of Knowing, Metaphilosophy 34 (1–2), 2003, pp. 154–173, DOI 10.1111/1467-9973.00266. · Official journal record with abstract and access options; the supplied work title is retained, but the publisher's title differs by Injustice/Justice. Checked Aug 2026.
- Wiley Online LibraryWhat's the Point of Blame?WebAn account of blame as a communicative and moral practice rather than mere hostile reaction.Published as What's the Point of Blame? A Paradigm Based Explanation, Noûs 50 (1), 2016, pp. 165–183; first published online 15 May 2014, DOI 10.1111/nous.12067. · Official journal record with abstract and access options; the supplied short title is retained for profile matching. Checked Aug 2026.
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