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Epistemic justice is both a legitimate and an integral goal of psychiatry: a reply to Kious, Lewis and Kim (2023)

Radoilska, Lubomira V., Foreman, David (2023) Epistemic justice is both a legitimate and an integral goal of psychiatry: a reply to Kious, Lewis and Kim (2023). Psychological Medicine, 53 (14). pp. 6939-6940. ISSN 0033-2917. E-ISSN 1469-8978. (doi:10.1017/S003329172300082X) (KAR id:101449)

Abstract

In a recent Editorial, Kious et al. (2023) put forward the claim that psychiatrists should resist calls to integrate concerns about epistemic injustice into their practice as this concept not only fails to add significantly to the current professional standards but would also lead to deleterious clinical outcomes. We believe their claim is mistaken, as it arises from several misconceptions about both the nature of epistemic injustice, and its clinical relevance. First, epistemic justice is conflated with what the authors term ‘a quest for social justice’ that could ‘sideline principles of good clinical reasoning’ (Kious at al 2023: 4). Second, the claim about the impracticality and/or counterproductivity of epistemic injustice as a critical tool within psychiatric practice reflects a series of misconceptions about the normative framework from which this concept derives, so the standards they evaluate it against are ill-chosen. Pace Kious at al., fostering epistemic justice in any area of knowledge and inquiry could not – unwittingly or otherwise – inhibit the consideration of relevant evidence, restrict sound argument or facilitate the casual treatment of testimonies at face value. Third and final, this claim obfuscates some immediate ways in which a focus on epistemic justice as an integral goal will strengthen psychiatric practice according to its own internal standards.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1017/S003329172300082X
Additional information: For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Uncontrolled keywords: epistemic justice; evidence; psychiatry; values
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > Department of Philosophy
Funders: Research England (https://ror.org/02wxr8x18)
Depositing User: Lubomira Radoilska
Date Deposited: 28 May 2023 13:38 UTC
Last Modified: 01 Nov 2023 11:41 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/101449 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Radoilska, Lubomira V..

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6442-0459
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