Miranda Fricker And Testimonial Injustice

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Fricker contends that testimonial injustice always stems from prejudice. Here I will argue that she is right because regarding testimonial injustice, prejudice has the ability to increase or decrease the credibility of the speaker from the point of view of the listener.
Argument
In her book Epistemic Injustice, Miranda Fricker says testimonial injustice exists by reason of prejudice that cause a person to "give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker's word.” In this case, prejudice can be defined as premature opinions or inadequate judgements that are often considered principles by the person making them. Prejudices beliefs often stem from imitation, learned habits and inclinations. In relation, testimonial injustice occurs when anyone …show more content…

In my argument I presented an example of a business woman not being seen as credible in the eyes of the listener just because she is a woman. This reenforces my original argument that Fricker is correct because prejudice has the ability to increase or decrease the credibility of the speaker through testimonial injustice. Yet, couldn't it also be true that this particular business woman may not have valid credentials or has been consistently wrong in the past making the listener questions her credibility for reasons that have nothing to do with her gender? For this reason, one might consider the idea of testimonial injustice existing on its own, with prejudice being a whole different equation. They might reenforce this objection by arguing with Fricker’s notion that testimonial injustice exists between epistemology and political philosophy. Epistemology could be defined as a theory of knowledge that sheds light on the differences between justified beliefs and opinions. Thus, separating theoretical justifiable beliefs found in testimonial injustice and the invalid preconceived opinions found in prejudice. Political philosophy in this case, could be defined as the study of questioning the fundamentals of society. Such as how a society should be created and how people should act within that society. Here, we can see testimonial injustice standing on its own with the standard of political philosophy illuminating any prejudice that could influence testimonial

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