Abstract
This paper establishes a structural approach to epistemic reparation, thereby establishing a concept of structural epistemic remedy. I achieve this by employing the structural injustice approach, which identifies unjust or objectionable social structures that enable various types of injustices at a collective level and, importantly, articulates suitable remedies for these unjust and objectionable social structures. The paper proceeds as follows. First, I will establish an intergenerational rights-based approach to epistemic reparation. While doing so, I will identify a gap in the rights-based approach, resulting in a defense of an alternative structural injustice approach. I argue that the rights-based approach and structural injustice approach combined will result in a more complete epistemic justice after wrongdoing. Second, I articulate the structural injustice approach, thereby establishing a concept of structural epistemic remedy. I demonstrate that a successful implementation of epistemic remedy necessitates the acquisition of specific knowledge. I identify three types of knowledge that are required for a genuine structural remedy: One must know (1) which social structures require remedy, (2) how those social structures should be changed, and (3) whether additional reparations must be paid beyond structural remedies. Finally, I will argue that individuals may have distinct types of responsibility, what I call the structural-epistemic responsibility, for obtaining this knowledge for epistemic remedy.
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Notes
The estimated number of women who underwent Japanese military sexual slavery ranges widely, partly due to the systematic silencing of survivors after the injustice.
First, a document named “Matters related to the recruitment of female and other employees for military comfort stations,” published by the Japanese Ministry of War on March 4, 1938, discusses the trafficking and enslavement of unwilling women and children for the implementation of the “comfort women” system (Yoshimi 2000). The document carries the seal of Japan’s Vice-Minister of War, serving as evidence of the active role the Japanese government played in establishing and organizing the “comfort women” system (Tanaka, 2002, pp. 23–24). Second, an “educational material” drafted and disseminated by the Ministry of War in September 19, 1940, commend the use of “comfort stations” to soldiers to draw the benefits of “the enhancement of troop morale, maintenance of discipline, and prevention of crimes and VD [(i.e., venereal diseases)]” (Tanaka, 2002, p. 24). There are many more documents like these.
For instance, the representatives of the Japanese government stated at a UN forum that the term “slavery” is an inaccurate term to describe what happened at “comfort stations” (U.N. ECOSOC 1996, 4). It is important to note that such denials are rarely an isolated incident, but rather, belong to the bigger context of historical revisionism. For Japan’s historical revisionism, which is well reported in scientific research see Schneider 2008, who, for instance, discusses Japan’s recent attempts to rewrite historical textbooks. By historical revisionism, I refer to attempts that aim to “release historical facts from the display box,” “leading to … ‘assassination’ of our memory” (Oh and Ishizawa-Grbić 2000, 46). It is an epistemic pursuit to remove certain facts from history.
Precisely because of the nature of epistemic injustice, where myriads of structural silencing work together to obscure specific stories, testimonies, and histories that may work to justify a stipulation of certain wellbeing, the very demand for epistemic reparation may appear unconvincing. I will argue, later, that my structural approach will discover what kind of knowledge, then, is lost, and how this knowledge needs to be recovered for genuine epistemic justice.
One may argue against the Hohfeldian relation between right and duty, where a right poses a correlative duty. Instead, one may argue for duties that may exist without being tied to certain rights. This is certainly possible; however, then, Lackey’s right-based approach to epistemic reparation may need less accentuation on the right to be known and more conceptual analysis for how duties may arise independently from certain rights. She does this, albeit in a limited fashion and passing, by considering the role of benefits for the privileged class (Lackey 2022, 68).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.
There is also the will-based theory of rights (Hart 1982). The will-based theory of rights conceptualizes a right as a mechanism to safeguard one’s control over the other by conferring duties on them (Hart 1982, 183–4). This view, albeit distinct, may be subsumed under the interest-based theory of rights, given that an individual’s will may be considered as valuable as far as it promotes certain interests of the right-holder (Raz 1994, 149–50).
This can be found in many demands the “comfort women” survivors had made since the 1990s. For instance, out of the seven official demands of “Comfort Women” survivors, which are chanted every Wednesday during weekly demonstrations in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul by survivors and activists, three are epistemic. The seven demands are as follows: “1) that the Japanese government admit the crime of the compulsory drafting of Korean women as “Comfort Women”; 2) that all the barbarities be fully investigated; 3) that an official apology be made through a resolution of the Japanese Diet; 4) that legal compensations be made for the survivors and their bereaved families; 5) that all the facts and truth about the military sexual slavery by Japan be recorded in the Japanese history textbooks; 6) that a memorial and a museum be built; and 7) that those responsible for the crime be punished.” (emphasis added, Kim 2015, p.1).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to elaborate on this point.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.
While these types of knowledge may be analytically distinguished, in practice they often overlap and are interrelated.
When moral actors acquiring this knowledge, structural changes may occur.
I thank an anonymous reviewer, who provided some of these criticisms.
I thank an anonymous reviewer, who provided this example.
Victims mostly consisted of girls who wanted to escape their countries to strive towards a better life, who wanted to escape miseries of poverty, forced marriages, gender-discriminatory educational systems or exclusionary labour markets (Soh, 2008).
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Acknowledgments
I thank Veli Mitova, Abe Tobi, and Jordi Fairhurst who gave insightful comments to this paper. I thank the organizers of Epistemic Oppression and Decolonization Conference (Montreal, 29-31 May 2024) and the organizers of the Epistemic Reparations Workshop (Johannesburg, 20-21 June, 2024), where I presented parts of this paper. Finally, I thank anonymized reviewers for their comments.
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Song, S. Structural epistemic remedy. Philos Stud (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-025-02434-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-025-02434-5