Freddy Purcell-
Editor’s Note: In this article I will look to summarise the arguments made in Philosophy Society’s first Phil on Tap this year. I intend to do this for each Phil on Tap that we run, so if you can’t make one at any point in the year, be sure to check Notion to see what you missed. The other thing is that if you have any questions that you didn’t get to ask in Phil on Tap itself (or just from reading this summary), then feel free to comment them down below. I will be able to forward them on to any speaker to find you answers. With all that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the article.
Key terms (defined by Zamir):
Testimonial injustice: A form of epistemic injustice where a speaker’s testimony is given an unjustly deflated credibility judgement based on a prejudiced stereotype in the social imagination.
Hermeneutical injustice: A form of epistemic injustice where an agent lacks the conceptual resources to understand their social experiences because of some hermeneutical marginalisation.
Stereotype: A generalised ‘image’ about a particular group of people, which may or may not be prejudiced.
Social imagination: A collective store of the dominant stereotypes, perpetuated by those in positions of social power.
Our first Phil on Tap this year had a great turn out as we filled up our usual section of the Ship Inn. Every chair available was used. It was a great atmosphere and lovely to see that this classic PhilSoc social has returned in force for the new year.
The talk itself was given by Zamir Kadodia, a PHD student entering his second year of PHDing. I had the pleasure of being taught by him last year in philosophical analysis, where he was a friendly face and good teacher. This is much of what he brought to his talk, making a perfect start to Phil on Tap for this year.
Zamir’s thesis contains three main ideas:
- Traditional formations of epistemic injustice, particularly from Fricker (2007), risk perpetuating a bias towards neurotypicality.
- This bias informs our social interactions and our broader socio-material niches in which neurodivergent individuals live.
- This problem must be solved by neurodiversifying our social imagination to better represent neurodivergent (ND) individuals.
Having laid out this argument, Zamir then provided some background information on how neurodiversity has been views academically and societally. A typical view in these spheres is the pathology paradigm where neurodiversity is viewed as a deficiency in certain aspects of cognitive functioning. This is contrasted with the neurodiversity paradigm that views neurodivergence as a natural and valuable form of human diversity. If ND individuals are to be viewed without prejudice, then the neurodiversity paradigm is superior as it means these individuals are seen as a minority group with lower social status instead of deficient individuals. By removing the idea of neurodivergence as deficiency, Zamir argues that the neurodiversity paradigm means that the ND individual is not considered at fault for the issues they experience. Instead, the social environment is examined as the cause of these issues. This then leads the talk onto some of those issues and how they can be prevented.
Zamir argues that some aspects of epistemic injustice in relation to ND individuals have some recognition. For example, autistic people have reported being ignored when giving testimony and feeling othered through criticism of their behaviour. However, Zamir argues that some forms of injustice are less understood.
Fricker (2007) considers the possibility of testimonial injustice without prejudice by questioning how we might interact with someone we judge to be untrustworthy because of their body language, but they exhibit this behaviour simply because they are shy. Fricker argues that this is testimonial injustice, but not one that stems from prejudice. Zamir argues that the stereotype for a shy person fitting empirical signs of untrustworthiness only works with neurotypical norms, not with neurodivergent norms. A ND individual may exhibit similar body language to the shy person above, but it would become prejudicial to judge a ND individual according to standards of neurotypicality.
The focus of the talk then moved from testimonial injustice to hermeneutical injustice. Zamir suggests that hermeneutical injustice is eradicated by dissemination of a hermeneutical resource (like a piece of vocabulary) followed by activism to bring awareness to this resource. The issue for ND individuals is that they are often left out of the conversation in forming hermeneutical resources simply because they are a minority, but also as they have different needs in accessing information. For example, autistic people may have different sensory processing and find the sensory demands of the world to be overwhelming.
Having outlined the ways in which ND individuals suffer epistemic injustice, Zamir went into further depth on the impact this has. If neurotypical stereotypes dominate the social imagination, this means that injustice extends to social interactions, social practices and even the physical environment. Zamir picks up on this last element through the idea of niche construction theory, essentially the idea that organisms actively shape their environment. Of course, when the environment is shaped by the social imagination, this can disadvantage individuals outside of the dominant group that forms the social imagination. For example, many public buildings and services lack wheelchair access. How ND individuals interact with neurotypical individuals is also shaped by dominant stereotypes. For example, autistic people use “stimming” for self-regulation and expression, but this is actively discouraged in classrooms and therapy, even though autistic people argue that it is an easier way of expressing their emotions. Zamir therefore finds that ND individuals have both the physical and social environment shaped in a way that disadvantages them.
Zamir’s suggested solution is that we ought to aim for meta-lucidity where we become aware of the subtle forms of oppression that are mentioned above. It is a demanding practice as it would require imagining oneself as a different neurotype. Through this practice Zamir argues that we can and should “neurodiversify” the social imagination. It is also worth saying that during questions, Zamir expressed some optimism about how awareness around neurodiversity has grown. This will help reduce many of the injustices mentioned above, so there is hope for a better future!
References:
Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford Academic.