Epistemic Reparations and a Hybrid Theory of Reparative Justice

Abstract Philosophers have recently argued that epistemic injustices require epistemic reparations. I draw attention to a particular kind of epistemic injustice: Epistemic moral remainders. Epistemic moral remainders are epistemic harms victims of epistemic injustices experience even if the goods the epistemic injustice interfered with have been restored. Available theories of epistemic reparations have tended to focus on establishing how reparations can restore the goods that the epistemic injustice interfered with. However, victims who experience epistemic remainders seem to be owed something even when the epistemic goods the injustice interfered with have been restored or are impossible to restore. So, we must supplement our theories of epistemic reparations to explain epistemic remainders. I develop a novel theory of reparative justice that can do this. I do so by turning to our fundamental principles of general reparative justice. Doing so, however, reveals a tension. Theories of reparative justice must choose between addressing the particular goods a wrong interfered with or the harms that result from a wrong. I offer a novel hybrid theory of reparations that avoids this tension. And, I use this hybrid theory to develop a theory of epistemic reparations that explains epistemic remainders.