Self-inflicted epistemic injustice

Epistemic injustice is commonly defined as a wrong done to a person or social group in their capacity as knowers by another party. This paper seeks to draw the attention of scholars working in social epistemology to the as-yet not fully explored phenomenon of self-inflicted epistemic injustice. I propose that it is possible for a person or social group to inflict an epistemic injustice on themselves, which I term agent self-inflicted epistemic injustice and group selfinflicted epistemic injustice, respectively. To illustrate the possibility of selfinflicted epistemic injustice, I discuss Miranda Fricker’s (2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press) analysis of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice and consider cases of both self-inflicted testimonial injustice and self-inflicted hermeneutical injustice. The proposed notion of self-inflicted epistemic injustice, however, is not limited to Fricker’s conception of epistemic injustice. To show this I discuss Gaile Pohlhaus Jr.’s (2012. Hypatia, 27(4), 715–735.) analysis of willful hermeneutical ignorance and Kristie Dotson’s (2011. Hypatia, 26(2), 236–257) description of testimonial smothering and highlight the fact that these two kinds of epistemic injustice can also be self-inflicted.