Abstract
I argue that Kotzee’s (Argumentation 24:265–281, 2010) model of meta-debate succeeds in identifying illegitimate or fallacious charges of bias but has the unintended consequence of classifying some legitimate and non-fallacious charges as fallacious. This makes the model, in some important cases, counter-productive. In particular, cases where the call for a meta-debate is prompted by the participant with epistemic privilege and a charge of bias is denied by the participant with social advantage, the impasse will put the epistemically advantaged at far greater risk. Therefore, I propose treating epistemic privilege as a variety of expert opinion specifically in cases where meta-debate participants come to an impasse in deliberation. My proposal exposes the problem of interpreting debate contexts as both adversarial and free from social power differentials.
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Notes
The contents of the syllabus described here are consistent with a variety of syllabi for courses entitled ‘The History of the Black Family in America’ see https://www.h-net.org/~women/syll/syll-afam345.html from Wesleyan University, http://www.case.edu/artsci/soci/documents/Syllabus_blfamily_2008.pdf, from Case Western Reserve, and http://socwork.wisc.edu/files/521.pdf, University of Wisconsin. None of which are cross-listed with Criminal Justice Studies.
I want to make clear with this example that the Black faculty member is not making a judgment about the psychological state of his White colleague. Rather, the judgment that the evidence presented by the White faculty member is still biased has to do with its consistency with prevailing racist assumptions about Blacks and criminality in the media and in public perception. The Black faculty member does not have to see ‘inside’ the head of his colleague to determine that his claims are consistent with what he judges to be prevailing racist norms.
According to 2009 data from the Institute of Education Sciences 79 % of full-time university faculty were White, 7 % Black, 6 % were Asian/Pacific Islander, 4 % were Hispanic, and 1 % was Native American http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=61.
See for instance Johnson (2005).
Data from 2012 Pew Research Forum on Religion in Prisons: http://www.pewforum.org/Social-Welfare/prison-chaplains-perspectives.aspx.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Deborah Smith-Pollard, Lora Lempert, Georgina Hickey, Jacqueline Vansant, Patricia Smith, Carolyn Kraus, and two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
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Linker, M. Epistemic Privilege and Expertise in the Context of Meta-debate. Argumentation 28, 67–84 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-013-9299-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-013-9299-6