Daniel Barbarrusa

We claim that there appears to be something paradoxical in the phenomenon of testimonial injustice. The awareness that testimonial injustice exists in a society seems to function as pro tanto epistemic evidence that might, in turn, offer the hearer some justification for perpetrating it. Although such justification may be extremely weak and easily outweighed by other epistemic, moral, or political considerations, the evidence itself is not something the hearer could rationally dismiss. Our aim in this paper is to present this as a challenge, rather than to resolve it: to set out the argument that gives rise to this apparent paradox, to show that it follows from existing frameworks of epistemic injustice, and to underline the lack of a readily apparent solution given the resources available. We argue against biting the bullet by highlighting its problematic consequences and conclude by encouraging future research that might truly defuse this paradox.

Disinformation is often defined as misleading content intended to instill false beliefs. But this definition is too narrow. We need to focus instead on its broader epistemic effects. Indeed, some disinformation campaigns rely not on sharing falsehoods but on spreading what I call grievance narratives. These narratives exploit the (real or imagined) grievances of a community and frame them as signs of a deeper systemic problem, typically instigated by a powerful and hostile group. In this way, they legitimize and amplify aversive emotions and foster a negative orientation toward the world, one in which emotions like resentment or indignation feel continuously warranted. Now, grievance narratives are particularly harmful because they epistemically isolate their targeted audience. In short, they undermine the network of information sources that a community can rely on and, as such, they obstruct access to epistemic goods, such as knowledge and understanding. This stems from a key feature of these narratives: namely, they polarize the world between those who recognize the forces responsible for the community’s suffering and those who don’t. The latter are portrayed as not merely mistaken, but as either hostile or complicit with those to blame. In this way, grievance narratives systematically foreclose any alternative explanation of the community’s experiences, leaving them with little more than a single narrative to trust.