Alleviating Epistemic Injustice in Environmental Health Research: Strategies from Science and Values

Abstract Epistemic injustice is both an important concept in contemporary philosophy and a powerful tool for characterizing the experiences of those striving to address environmental health threats in their communities. Community members—especially those who are already socially marginalized in other ways—are often illegitimately dismissed by specialists as being ignorant or misinformed. This paper discusses how philosophers can potentially help to alleviate these epistemic injustices, especially hermeneutical injustices, by drawing from the literature on science and values, which highlights contingent scientific choices that specialists and non-specialists can reasonably handle in different ways. The paper focuses on three particular kinds of contingent choices that have been emphasized in the science-and-values literature: (1) choices about how to frame inquiry and choose research questions; (2) choices about which background assumptions to adopt; and (3) choices about how to set standards of evidence. The paper also argues that philosophers interested in helping to alleviate epistemic injustices should carefully reflect on what forms of engaged scholarship on these issues make the most sense in particular cases.