Epistemic Trust and Social Location

Abstract

Epistemic trustworthiness is defi ned as a complex character state that supervenes on a relation between fi rst-and second-order beliefs, including beliefs about others as epistemic agents. In contexts shaped by unjust power relations, its second-order components create a mutually supporting link between a defi ciency in epistemic character and unjust epistemic exclusion on the basis of group membership. In this way, a defi ciency in the virtue of epistemic trustworthiness plays into social/epistemic interactions that perpetuate social injustice. Overcoming that defi ciency and, along with it, normalized practices of epistemic exclusion, requires developing a self-critical perspective on the partial, socially-located character of one's perspective and the consequent epistemic value of inclusiveness.