Epistemic Injustice as Distributive Injustice 1

Is epistemic injustice a form of distributive injustice? In her early, profoundly influential work on epistemic injustice Miranda Fricker makes it clear that she does not think it is. In a recent article, however, she has expanded her conception of epistemic injustice to include something she calls distributive epistemic injustice, which she characterizes as “the unfair distribution of epistemic goods such as education or information” (Fricker 2013: 1318). ² She contrasts this with her earlier, narrower, conception of the subject, which she now prefers to call discriminatory epistemic injustice. In what follows I will challenge Fricker’s distinction between discriminatory and distributive epistemic injustice; each of the forms of epistemic injustice that Fricker describes is a form of distributive injustice (or at any rate can be fruitfully treated as such) and that considerable insight into the nature of these injustices, and into the interrelations between them, can be gained from recognizing this fact.