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Epistemic Injustice and the Attention Economy Leonie Smith 1

& Alfred Archer

2

# The Author(s) 2020

Abstract

In recent years, a significant body of literature has emerged on the subject of epistemic injustice: wrongful harms done to people in their capacities as knowers (Fricker 2007). Up to now this literature has ignored the role that attention has to play in epistemic injustice. This paper makes a first step towards addressing this gap. We argue that giving someone less attention than they are due, which we call an epistemic attention deficit, is a distinct form of epistemic injustice. We begin by outlining what we mean by epistemic attention deficits, which we understand as a failure to pay someone the attention they are due in their role as an epistemic agent. We argue that these deficits constitute epistemic injustices for two reasons. First, they affect someone’s ability to influence what others believe. Second, they affect one’s ability to influence the shared common ground in which testimonial exchanges take place. We then outline the various ways in which epistemic attention deficits harm those who are subject to them. We argue that epistemic attention deficits are harms in and of themselves because they deprive people of an essential component of epistemic agency. Moreover, epistemic attention deficits reduce an agent’s ability to participate in valuable epistemic practices. These two forms of harm have important impacts on educational performance and the distribution of resources. Finally, we argue that epistemic attention deficits both hinder and shape the development of epistemic agency. We finish by exploring some practical implications arising from our discussion. Keywords Attention economy . Education . Epistemic agency . Epistemic attention . Working class . Epistemic injustice

* Leonie Smith [email protected]

1

The University of Manchester (Philosophy), Manchester, UK

2

The Tilburg Centre for Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS), Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands

L. Smith, A. Archer

1 Introduction Teachers focus on middle-class students at the expense of working-class children in the classroom (Calarco 2011, 2014; Reay 2017); the voices of poor people are significantly absent from media reports about poverty (McKendrick et al. 2008); and the works of black women writers are marginalised by an intellectual and educational system that continues to prioritise the voices of privileged white men and women (Collins 2000). These three quite different examples from the educational and journalistic spheres are all characterised by a marginalised or underprivileged group receiving less epistemic attention than they are due. In this paper, we will argue that this constitutes a distinct and hitherto unexamined form of epistemic injustice. An epistemic injustice is an injustice done to someone in their capacity as a knower. Miranda Fricker’s work to identify this concept (Fricker 2007), and to introduce two particular forms it can take – testimonial and hermeneutical – ha