MeToo and testimonial injustice

GERMANY: #METOO

2021

Hilkje C HÄNEL, «#MeToo and testimonial injustice: An investigation of moral and conceptual knowledge» in: Philosophy and Social Criticism 2021.

Guest contribution from Stephanie DEIG, PhD Candidate at the University of Lucerne focusing on feminist legal and political philosophy

In the article «#MeToo and testimonial injustice: An investigation of moral and conceptual knowledge», Hilkje C Hänel argues that #metoo is a transnational social movement that «aims at changing the character of what can be made intelligible as sexual violence and therefore as morally wrong» (p. 12). She demonstrates how #metoo illuminated the failures of legal, political, and social institutions in conceptualizing and addressing sexual violence and furthermore how because of #metoo experiences of sexual violence, which previously would have been dismissed because they did not map onto the dominant social understanding of what sexual violence is, have been made intelligible and thus politically actionable. She argues that this is because in the #metoo movement epistemic priority has been given to the testimony of the victims of sexual violence. Simply, put this means that their accounts or testimony of experiences have been taken seriously as sources of knowledge about what sexual violence is.  As such, Hänel provides a robust moral, political, and epistemic theory showing how believing victims can ultimately transform the moral fabric of society and create a foundation for political, social, and legal change. This article was selected for the reading group by feminist philosopher Stephanie Deig because it shows the political relevance of the social production of knowledge, highlights how oppressive structures such as rape culture are constituted and reproduced both socially as well as through political and legal institutions, and what kinds of transformations can be achieved through social movements.

Direct link to the article (journals.sagepub.com)


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