Denial of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery and Responsibility for Epistemic Amends

Abstract

This article argues that some denialists of Japan's military sexual slavery are responsible for past epistemic injustices. In the literature on epistemic responsibility, backward-and forward-looking justifications of responsibility are rarely distinguished. Moreover, notions of epistemic responsibility are mostly forward-looking. To fill the gap in the literature, this article offers a notion of backward-looking epistemic responsibility by arguing that some morally responsible agents who committed epistemic injustices are liable to make epistemic amends for past epistemic injustices. The article proceeds as follows. I introduce Japan's military sexual slavery and how it is denied in two ways (state-led denial and individual-led denial). Both types of denial may involve epistemic injustices. Based on moral responsibility, I argue that some agents are liable to make epistemic amends for past epistemic injustices. I then offer three conditions to discern who is liable, which are conditions of causality, autonomy and epistemic competence. I apply my notion of backward-looking epistemic responsibility to Japan's military sexual slavery and highlight its limits. Finally, I provide a concept of acknowledgment as a process of making epistemic amends.

Archives, Epistemic Injustice and Knowing the Past

“…This situation is rife with epistemic harms. Epistemic harms can be distinguished into two types: (A) Denial of the status of the subject, and (B) negative epistemic and practical consequences (Song 2020). The former is caused by unjust exclusions, such as the exclusion of marginalised individuals and group from knowledge production processes.…”

“…While the loss of knowledge epistemically harms all people, it produces more pernicious harms for the victims and their families, which becomes apparent for as the Mau Mau veterans were denied compensation. Furthermore, as argued by Song (2020) those who face denial, for example victims and their kind, bear extra practical costs when they try to express their experiences as they might suffer from undue distrust or would be considered bad informants unjustly. This elucidates the point made in the first section that a strong archival record is essential in addressing past abuses.…”

“…By examining the historical case of Kenya's 'migrated archives', I demonstrate that actions in the past can cause long-lasting epistemic harms and constitute complex and significant ethical challenges. The essay is situated in relation to two recent developments in the literature on epistemic injustice: the theorising of denial of past wrongdoing as a form of epistemic injustice (Altanian 2020;Oranlı 2020;Song 2020) and the interest in epistemic injustice and archives (Melanson 2020;Wouters 2020). The discussion primarily pertains to archives as a terrain for epistemic harms and injustice, and the issues that arise when archives are censored, hidden, or outright destroyed in efforts to sanitise collective memory.…”

“…The discussion primarily pertains to archives as a terrain for epistemic harms and injustice, and the issues that arise when archives are censored, hidden, or outright destroyed in efforts to sanitise collective memory. Following Song (2020), I argue that the perpetrators have a backward-looking epistemic responsibility and that some morally responsible agents are liable to make epistemic amends. I conclude by demonstrating that this framework elucidates part of what ethics requires of us in addressing epistemic harms and injustices related to our knowledge of the past.…”

“…In section four I turn to the recent literature on denial of past wrongdoing as a form of epistemic injustice to add further nuance to our understanding of the epistemic harms in the case of the 'migrated archives'. Lastly, in section five I adopt Song's (2020) account of backward-looking epistemic responsibility to argue that the perpetrators of epistemic harms and injustice in the case of the 'migrated archives' have a responsibility to make amends for past epistemic injustices.…”