Believing on eggshells: epistemic injustice through pragmatic encroachment

Abstract

This paper defends the claim that pragmatic encroachment—the idea that knowledge is sensitive to the practical stakes of believing—can explain a distinctive kind of epistemic injustice: the injustice that occurs when prejudice causes someone to know less than they otherwise would. This encroachment injustice, as we call it, occurs when the threat of being met with prejudice raises the stakes for someone to rely on her belief when acting, by raising the level of evidential support required for knowledge. We explain this notion of encroachment injustice, connect it to the empirical literature on implicit bias, and defend it against important objections.