Linguistic Hermeneutical Injustice

This is a post by Martina Rosola (University of Barcelona).

Referring to non-binary people in heavily gendered languages like Italian, German or Spanish is difficult because of structural features of the language itself. As a result, non-binary people are systematically misgendered: they are referred to either in the masculine or in the feminine despite non identifying as either men or women. This puts them at an unfair disadvantage and gives rise to a distinctive type of injustice, namely to an instance of what Miranda Fricker calls “hermeneutical injustice”.

 

Is More Diversity Better for Public Reason?

This is a post by Andrei Bespalov (Pompeu Fabra University).

In liberal democracies, citizens must respect one another as free and equal partners in self-government. According to public reason liberals, the idea of civic respect entails that policies can be enforced by the state only if they are reasonably justified to all citizens. But what should count as a reasonable justification in a public whose members disagree with one another on the basic matters of morality, philosophy, and religion?