Abstract
In this paper, we argue that, although neglected so far, there is a strong link between generics and testimonial injustice. Testimonial injustice is a form of epistemic injustice that “occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word” (Fricker 2007: 1). Generics are sentences that express generalizations about a category or about its members without specifying what proportion of the category members possess the predicated property. We argue that generics are especially suited to cause testimonial injustice for three reasons. First, generics elicit an “inferential asymmetry” (Cimpian et al. Cogn Sci 34(8):1452–1482, 2010). That is, generics are accepted even if only a few individuals possess the predicated property but are, nonetheless, taken to refer to almost all the members of the category. This peculiar combination makes generics particularly apt to cause testimonial injustice. High resistance to counter-evidence is a crucial feature of prejudice, the cause of testimonial injustice, and the more highly predictive a generalization the more it will be employed in concrete situations, leading to instances of testimonial injustice. Second, generics seem to play a key role in leading people to develop essentialist beliefs (Gelman et al. Cogn Psychol 61(3): 273–301, 2010; Rhodes et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(34): 13526–13531, 2012). Subjects holding such beliefs treat categories as warranting strong generaliations over their members. Therefore, they will be more likely to rely on prejudice while dealing with the category members. Finally, generics are outstandingly common in everyday speech. Hence, their noxious effects are amplified by their diffusion and should not be underestimated.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, some of these generics can express norms. “Normative” generics are especially difficult to falsify (e.g., Leslie 2015) and might be particularly relevant to our point. However, we argue that even descriptive generics can cause testimonial injustice and we will not expand on the distinction between these kinds of generics.
This is meant to be a mere observation: we do not argue that speakers are justified in applying the generics to nearly all members of the category, but the experiments cited show that this is what they tend to do.
Brandone et al. (2015) also found that children’s interpretation of generics is comparable to the one presented by adults.
The acquisition of essential beliefs was measured by assessing the extent to which the participants expected a particular property to be innate, extensible to other members, or due to the category membership. Participants that took the possession of a property to be due to intrinsic causes, to pass on to offspring, and to be shared by other Zarpies, were interpreted as bearing essentialist beliefs. Participants that, instead, took the possession of a property to be due to incidental causes, to derive from upbringing, and not to be extensible to other Zarpies, were interpreted as not bearing essentialist beliefs.
We want to thank an anonymous referee for raising this point.
This observation was pointed out by an anonymous referee.
References
Abelson RP, Kanouse DE (1966) Subjective acceptance of verbal generalizations. In: Feldman S (ed) Cognitive consistency: motivational antecedents and behavioral consequents. Academic Press, New York, pp 171–197
Arpaly N (2003) Unprincipled virtue: an inquiry into moral agency. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Brandone AC, Gelman SA, Hedglen J (2015) Children’s developing intuitions about the truth conditions and implications of novel generics versus quantified statements. Cogn Sci 39(4):711–738
Carlson GN (1977) Reference to kinds in English. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Cimpian A, Brandone AC, Gelman SA (2010) Generic statements require little evidence for acceptance but have powerful implications. Cogn Sci 34(8):1452–1482
Cox A (2004) U.S. poised for epidemic West Nile year. CNN international. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/05/03/wnv.outlook/. Accessed 25 Sept 2019
Fricker M (2007) Epistemic injustice: power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Gelman SA (2003) The essential child: origins of essentialism in everyday thought. Oxford University Press, New York
Gelman SA, Coley JD, Rosengren K, Hartman E, Pappas T (1998) Beyond labeling: the role of parental input in the acquisition of richly structured categories. Monogr Soc Res Child Dev 63 serial no 253
Gelman SA, Star JR, Flukes JE (2002) Children’s use of generics in inductive inferences. J Cogn Dev 3:179–199
Gelman SA, Taylor MG, Nguyen SP (2004) Mother-child conversations about gender: understanding the acquisition of essentialist beliefs. Monogr Soc Res Child Dev 69 serial no 275
Gelman SA, Ware EA, Kleinberg F (2010) Effect of generic language on category content and structure. Cogn Psychol 61(3):273–301
Haslam N, Rothschild L, Ernst D (2000) Essentialist beliefs about social categories. Br J Soc Psychol 39(1):113–127
Kay AC, Day MV, Zanna MP, Nussbaum AD (2013) The insidious (and ironic) effects of positive stereotypes. J Exp Soc Psychol 49(2):287–291
Krifka M, Pelletier FJ, Carlson GN, Ter Meulen A, Chierchia G, Link G (1995) Genericity: an introduction. In: Carlson GN, Pelletier FJ (eds) The generic book. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 1–125
Langton R, Haslanger S, Anderson L (2012) Language and race. In: Russell G, Graff Fara D (eds) The Routledge companion to the philosophy of language. Routledge, London, pp 753–767
Lee H (1960) To kill a mockingbird. William Heinemann, London
Leslie SJ (2008) Generics: cognition and acquisition. Philos Rev 117(1):1–47
Leslie SJ (2015) ‘Hillary Clinton is the only man in the Obama Administration’: dual character concepts, generics, and gender. Anal Philos 56(2):111–141
Medin DL, Ortony A (1989) Psychological essentialism. In: Vosniadou S, Ortony A (eds) Similarity and analogical reasoning. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 179–196
Rhodes M, Leslie SJ, Tworek CM (2012) Cultural transmission of social essentialism. Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(34):13526–13531
Saul JM (2017) Are generics especially pernicious? Inquiry.:1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2017.1285995
Taylor SE (1982) The availability bias in social perception and interaction. In: Kahneman D, Slovic P, Tversky A (eds) Judgement under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 190–200
Tversky A, Kahneman D (1974) Judgement under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science 185(4157):1124–1131
Acknowledgments
We want to thank Claudia Bianchi for her suggestions on a previous draft of this paper and the organizers and participants of the 2019 annual SWIP UK conference on Epistemic Injustice, Reasons, and Agency, where this work was presented. Last but not least, we want to thank two anonymous referees of this journal for the useful comments that helped improve this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rosola, M., Cella, F. Generics and Epistemic Injustice. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 23, 739–754 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-020-10095-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-020-10095-y