Abstract

This chapter argues for three related points. First, answerability is the key to intellectual autonomy. However, in order to enjoy that status that befits an intellectually autonomous subject, other epistemic subjects must also recognize that one is answerable for one’s believing. Second, systemic conditions of social oppression impede recognition since they promote situations in which members of oppressed groups are disabled in their attempts to make themselves answerable for their believing. Third, these oppressive conditions foster the development of the epistemic vices of hyper-autonomy in privileged individuals and of heteronomy in those who are subordinated.