Understanding Privileged Epistemic Standpoints

2. Active Ignorance and Privileged Epistemic Standpoints Alessandra Tanesini May 2019

3. The Plan • Situated knowledge and epistemically privileged standpoints • Three interpretations of situatedness and epistemic advantage • Situatedness, privilege, inversion and relativity • The achievement of standpoint as the overcoming of active ignorance

4. What are Feminist Standpoints? • Situated Knowledge thesis: (many) knowledge claims about social reality are socially situated at least because they are based on putative evidence that is more accessible from some perspectives rather than others (Wylie, 2003: 31; Intemann, 2010: 784–787). • Standpoint thesis: some socially situated perspectives (standpoints) are epistemically privileged in that they offer a less partial, less distorted understanding or because they contain a higher number of (significant) truths than those provided by other perspectives (Intemann, 2010: 787–789). • Inversion thesis: perspective(s) of the socially subordinated are epistemically privilegedcompared with those of dominant groups (Wylie, 2003: 26).

5. Three interpretations of situatedness • Situated Knowledge thesis: (many) knowledge claims about social reality are socially situated at least because they are based on putative evidence that is more accessible from some perspectives rather than others (Wylie, 2003: 31; Intemann, 2010: 784–787). • 1. Knowledge claims depend on the evidence and social locations shape access to evidence • 2. Knowledge claims depend on the presumed reliability of the methods used to arrive at them, and social locations shape which methods one uses • 3. Knowledge claims depend for their justification on social perspectives.

6. Situatedness and privilege • 1. Knowledge claims depend on the evidence and social locations shape access to evidence. • Privileged perspectives are those that comprise better quality evidence. • 2. Knowledge claims depend on the presumed reliability of the methods used to arrive at them, and social locations shape which methods one uses • Privileged perspectives are those that comprise the more reliable methods. • 3. Knowledge claims depend for their justification on social perspectives. • Privileged perspectives are those that justify a larger number of significant truths

7. Privilege and inversion • 1. Privileged perspectives are those that comprise better quality evidence. • 2. Privileged perspectives are those that comprise the more reliable methods. • Perspectives in these two interpretations are not likely to be shared among members of a social group and if they were they are unlikely to be privileged. • 3. Privileged perspectives are those that justify a larger number of significant truths. • Perspective is not automatically associated with social group membership but can be associated with the interests of a social group.

8. Privilege and Relativity • In the third interpretation, justification of a knowledge claim is dependent (in the sense of relative) on perspectives. • S’s claim that p is justified versus S’s claim that p is justified-in-A (where A is a perspective) • Emancipatory perspectives are epistemically privileged relative to the pursuit of emancipatory goals. • Which perspectives are epistemically privileged seems to be wholly dependent on which goals are worth pursuing.

9. Strenghthing the appearance of relativity: An Example • Two conceptions of divorce (Anderson, 2004): • As break-up of family • As separation of spousal and parental roles • Alternative conceptions lead to framing different questions, using different methods, collecting different data.

10. Overcoming relativity: Not all values are equal • There is no neutral perspective on how to assess which truths are significant. • Significance is relative to goals and values. • So, it would seem that there is no neutral way to evaluate the epistemic superiority of any perspective relative to any other. • Not all values and goals are on a par. • The epistemically privileged perspectives are those that lead to more truth that are significant, given the set of ethical values that we ought to endorse. • But there is plurality of ethical values and perhaps some cannot be simultaneously accepted nor ranked.

11. Overcoming relativity, Overcoming active Ignorance • Rank perspectives by an internal epistemic standard. • Privileged perspectives are those that: • (1) are not sustained and preserved by systemic active ignorance • (2) do not promote motivations leading to motivated active ignorance

12. What is Ignorance • Ignorance as • False belief that p • Withholding belief as to whether p • Never thought of p • Plain ignorance is ignorance that is the result of accident, bad luck, cognitive limitation or shortcoming • Active ignorance is ignorance that is the result of social and/or psychological mechanisms whose function is to produce, preserve or transmit ignorance

13. Active Ignorance • Three forms of active ignorance: • Motivated ignorance: ignorance that is the outcome of processes motivated by a (not wholly conscious) desire not to know. • Deliberate Ignorance: ignorance that is the result of others’ activities that intentionally spread false information or are designed to engender doubt and confusion. • Systemic ignorance: ignorance that is the result of occupying cognitive niches that systematically facilitate ignorance and whose success at fostering ignorance make them self-sustaining.

14. False ideologies as systemic active ignorance • Perspective comprise ideologies understood as account making sense of current practices using a specific conceptual framework. • Some of these promote ignorance. • Explanation of why women abandon the labour market after the first child as a rational choice. • It is a ‘rational choice’ but calling it such obscures understanding the situation.

15. Motivated ignorance • Some ignorance is self-serving (e.g., not seeing dust) • It is the result of a desire not to know, e.g., obliviousness to the prevalence of sexual harassment or to racist behaviour. • Some perspectives including ideologies set standards for what is significance. • These standards might play a role in developing in patterns of attention and inattention resulting in motivated ignorance.

16. Staying Ignorant • Active ignorance is often enabled by and sustains habits of attention and inattention. • What we see depends on where we look. • How we evaluate and understand partly depends on what we see. • Looking in the wrong places sustains • False belief or doubts • Avoidance of cognition

17. Ignorance as a Luxury • Psychologically speaking, ignorance is often easier to manage by avoiding thought than by resisting the rational update of false belief • Avoidance of thought is a luxury • e.g., only white people can afford to be knowingly ignorant about race • e.g., entitled people can avoid facing evidence of their own abilities by self- handicapping (Lupien et al., 2010). • Ignorance by avoidance is enabled by material and social privilege.

18. Knowledge out of necessity • Individuals who faces challenges because of discrimination have an interest in gaining accurate understanding of the situation and of how the situation appears to those who are privileged. • Double consciousness (Hill Collins).

19. Standpoints as the achievement of Overcoming Ignorance • Situatedness: Knowledge claims depend for their justification on social perspectives • Privilege: Some perspectives are less systemically ignorant and promote less motivated ignorance. • Inversion: Members of socially subordinated groups are, out of necessity, more likely to overcome their active ignorance. • That said standpoint is an achievement that is possible but challenging for all.

20. THANKS!