Implicit bias, epistemic injustice, and pragmatic stereotypes

Abstract Members of stigmatized social groups are often treated unjustly in conversation. Fricker's influential work on epistemic injustice addresses this topic, according to which the unjust treatment is (in part) described as the way a speakers’ utterance might be assigned less (or no) credibility because of a prejudiced stereotype about her social identity held by the listener. In this paper, I offer an account of one of the mechanisms that drive instances of epistemic injustice where the interlocutors speak and behave in conversation as if they accept a prejudiced stereotype that contradicts their explicitly endorsed beliefs. I argue that interlocutors accept pragmatic stereotypes as background assumptions in conversations and that the acceptance of such stereotypes enforce epistemic injustice that is implicitly biased. I further critically assess whether interlocutors might try to challenge such stereotypes in conversation by engaging in meta-pragmatic negotiations about which stereotypes to accept.