Abstract

In this paper, I intend to enrich or go beyond what I call the Prejudice Hypothesis, which says prejudice is the main cause of testimonial injustice. By ‘a main cause of testimonial injustice’,
I mean something that is among the significant causes of testimonial injustice and which, following Fricker, may be what she calls a ‘culpable’ cause, the source of which, whether individuals or structure of individuals, can appropriately be assigned epistemic and ethical blame. To enrich or go beyond the Prejudice Hypothesis, I will argue for increased recognition and investigation of another cause of testimonial injustice: the pursuit and protection of social order. According to my Social Order Hypothesis, desires or attempts to pursue or preserve the dominant social order are often among the significant causes of testimonial injustice. Although in some cases these social order causes appear to interact importantly with prejudice in the production of testimonial injustice, we will also consider cases in which social order causes work independently of any prejudice. Insofar as current literature on testimonial injustice presupposes the Prejudice Hypothesis, it overlooks these roles played by social order causes and more attention to examination of such causes would help remedy this and improve our understanding of testimonial injustice. It would also better position us to investigate when social order causes are culpable causes in Fricker’s sense.