Epistemic Injustice in Criminal Procedure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/milanlawreview/22188Keywords:
Testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, judicial partiality, identity prejudice, racial discrimination, sexual discriminationAbstract
There is a growing awareness that there are many subtle forms of exclusion and partiality that affect the correct workings of a judicial system. The concept of epistemic injustice, introduced by the philosopher Miranda Fricker, is a useful conceptual tool to understand forms of judicial partiality that often go undetected. In this paper, we present Fricker’s original theory and some of the applications of the concept of epistemic injustice in legal processes. In particular, we want to show that the seed planted by Fricker has flourished into a rich field of study in which the concept is used to analyze many different phenomena in law, not always following the original characterization provided by her. This has led to a distinction between what we will call the narrow version of the concept, which is closer to Fricker’s original account, and the wider version of epistemic injustice, which is a more controversial notion because it is always on the verge of morphing into other well-known concepts like sexism, racial discrimination, oppression, silencing, and gaslighting. We will show that the value of the narrow version is mostly theoretical, and that in order to use the concept of epistemic injustice one must adopt a more liberal understanding of it.
References
K. Abramson, Turning up the lights on gaslighting, en Philosophical Perspectives, 2014, vol. 28, p. 1-30.
L. M. Alcoff, Epistemic identities, en Episteme, vol. 7, n. 2, p. 128-137, 2010.
E. Anderson, Epistemic justice as a virtue of social institutions, en Social Epistemology, vol. 26, n. 2, p. 163–173, 2012.
M. Arcila-Valenzuela y A. Páez, Testimonial injustice: The facts of the matter, en The Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2022.
E. R. Carter, I. N, Onyeador y N. A. Jr. Lewis, Developing & delivering effective anti-bias training: Challenges & recommendations, en Behavioral Science & Policy, 2020, vol. 6, n. 1, p. 57–70.
K. Dotson, Tracking epistemic violence, tracking practices of silencing, en Hypatia, 2011, vol. 26, n. 2, p. 236–257.
K. Dotson, A cautionary tale: On limiting epistemic oppression, en Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2012, vol. 33, n. 1, p. 24–47.
K. Dotson, Conceptualizing epistemic oppression, en Social Epistemology, 2014, vol. 28, n. 2, p. 115–138.
S. A. Drizin y B. A. Colgan, Tales from the juvenile confession front. A guide to how standard police interrogation tactics can produce coerced and false confessions from juvenile suspects, en G. Lassiter y G. Daniel (eds.). Interrogations, confessions and entrapment, Kluwer Academic, 2004. p. 127-162.
L. Farley, Sexual shakedown: The sexual harassment of women on the job. McGraw-Hill, 1978.
K. A. Findley y M. S. Scott, The multiple dimensions of tunnel vision in criminal cases, in Wisconsin Law Review, 2006, p. 291-397.
M. Fricker, Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007.
M. Fricker, Can there be institutional virtues?, en T. Z. Gendler y J. Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford studies in epistemology. Volume 3, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p. 235-252.
M. Fricker, Silence and institutional prejudice, en S. L. Crasnow y A. M. Superson (eds.). Out from the shadows: Analytical feminist contributions to traditional philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012. p. 287-306.
M. Fricker, Epistemic injustice and the preservation of ignorance, en R. Peels y M. Blaauw (eds.), The epistemic dimensions of ignorance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge - MA, 2016. p. 160-177.
M. Fricker, Evolving concepts of epistemic injustice, en I. J. Kidd, J. Medina y G. Jr. Pohlhaus (eds.), Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice, Routledge, New York, 2017, p. 53-60.
M. Fricker, Injustiças testemunhais institucionalizadas: A construção de um mito de confissão, en Revista Brasileira de Direito Processual Penal, vol. 9, n. 1, p. 39-64, 2023.
A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee y J. Schwartz, Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test, en Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998, vol. 74, p. 1464–1480.
F. E. Inbau, J. E. Reid, J. P. Buckley y B. C. Jayne, Essentials of the Reid technique: Criminal interrogation and confessions, Jones and Bartlett, Sudbury - MA, 2005.
D. L. Jackson, “Me too”: Epistemic injustice and the struggle for recognition, en Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 2018, vol. 4, n. 4, Article 7.
Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, Protocolo de comunicación de la Unidad de Investigación y Acusación con víctimas de violencia sexual, JEP Unidad de Investigación y Acusación (UIA), Bogotá, 2018.
J. Lackey, Credibility and the distribution of epistemic goods, en K. McCain (ed.). Believing in accordance with the evidence. New essays on evidentialism, Springer, 2018, Cham, p. 145-168.
J. Lackey, False confessions and testimonial injustice, en Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 2020, vol. 110, p. 43–68.
J. Lackey, Eyewitness testimony and epistemic agency, en Noûs, 2022, vol. 56, n. 3, p. 696–715.
E. Machery, Do indirect measures of biases measure traits or situations?, en Psychological Inquiry, 2017, vol. 28, n. 4, p. 288–291.
E. Machery, Anomalies in implicit attitudes research, en Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2021, p. e1569.
C. Mackinnon, Sexual harassment of working women: A case of sex discrimination, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979.
J. Matida, É preciso superar as injustiças epistêmicas na prova testemunhal, em Limite Penal, Mayo 22, 2020.
J. Matida, R. Herdy y M. M. Nardelli, A injustiça epistêmica está oficialmente em pauta, en Conjur, Marzo 4, 2022.
J. Medina, The relevance of credibility excess in a proportional view of epistemic injustice: Differential epistemic authority and the social imaginary, en Social Epistemology, 2011, vol. 25, n. 1, p. 15-35.
J. Medina, Hermeneutical injustice and polyphonic contextualism: Social silences and shared hermeneutical responsibilities, en Social Epistemology, 2012, vol. 26, n. 2, p. 201–220.
J. Medina, The epistemology of resistance: Gender and racial oppression, epistemic injustice, and resistant imaginations, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013.
J. Medina y M. S. Whitt, Epistemic activism and the politics of credibility. testimonial injustice inside/outside a North Carolina jail, en H. Grasswick y M. A. McHugh (eds.), Making the case: Feminist and critical race philosophers engage case studies, SUNY Press, Albany, 2021. p. 293–324.
C. A. Meissner y S. M. Kassin, “You’re guilty, so just confess!” Cognitive and behavioral confirmation biases in the interrogation room, en G. D. Lassiter (ed.), Interrogations, confessions and entrapment, Kluwer Academic, 2004, p. 85–106.
A. Morais da Rosa y F. M. Rudolfo, A teoria da perda de uma chance probatória aplicada ao processo penal, en Revista Brasileira de Direito, 2017, vol. 13, n. 3, p. 455–471.
L. Y. N. Moscatelli, Considerações sobre a confissão e o método REID aplicado na investigação criminal, en Revista Brasileira de Direito Processual Penal, 2020, vol. 6, n. 1, p. 361–394.
M. M. Nardelli, Injustiças epistêmicas e a justiça juvenil, en Conjur, March 3, 2023.
A. Páez. Los sesgos cognitivos y la legitimidad racional de las decisiones judiciales, en F. J. Arena, P. Luque y D. Moreno Cruz (eds.), Razonamiento jurídico y ciencias cognitivas, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá, 2021. p. 187-222.
G. Jr. Pohlhaus, Relational knowing and epistemic injustice: Toward a theory of willful hermeneutical ignorance, en Hypatia, 2012, vol. 27, n. 4, p. 715-735.
G. Jr. Pohlhaus, Varieties of epistemic injustice, en I. J. Kidd, J. Medina y G. Jr. Pohlhaus (eds.), Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice, Routledge, New York, 2017, p. 13–26.
J. Rawls, A theory of justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge -MA, 1971.
D. Tuerkheimer, Incredible women: Sexual violence and the credibility discount, en University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2017, vol. 166, n. 1, p. 1-58.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Milan Law Review
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
