Leonie Smith

Lancaster University, The Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion (PPR), Faculty Member

University of St Andrews, Philosophy, Graduate Student

The University of Manchester, Philosophy, Graduate Student

Cardiff University, Philosophy, Faculty Member

Followers

Following

108

Public Views

I am currently Lecturer in Metaphysics and Epistemology at Lancaster University. I was previously A Leverhulme Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Manchester, Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University, and the post-holder of the Analysis Studentship for 2020/21. I'm interested in philosophical questions at the crossroads of traditional and social epistemology, social ontology, and epistemic and material injustice. Please see my website for more details: http://stirlingbus.com/leoniesmith/.

I completed my PhD in Philosophy at the University of Manchester. Prior to this, I read PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2015, and studied the MLitt in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, awarded with Distinction in 2016. Prior to this, I worked in a range of roles as a Board Director, Programme Director, and Strategy Consultant in the Retail, Data, Credit and Banking industries.
Supervisors: Helen Beebee and Thomas Smith
Address: United Kingdom

less

Timothy Waligore

Pace University

Paul M Hughes

European Scientific Journal ESJ

European Scientific Institute, ESI

Texas A&M University

York University

University of Notre Dame (Australia)

Jeff Noonan

University of Windsor

John Lippitt

University of Notre Dame (Australia)

Mohammad Taqi

InterestsView All (6)

Uploads

Papers by Leonie Smith

Structural Alienation: Lu’s Structural Approach to Reconciliation from within a Relational Framework

In Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics Catherine Lu argues that structural reconciliatio... more In Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics Catherine Lu argues that structural reconciliation, rather than interactional reconciliation, ought to be the primary normative goal for political reconciliation efforts. I suggest that we might have good reason to want to retain relational approaches – such as that of Linda Radzik – as the primary focus of reconciliatory efforts, but that Lu’s approach is invaluable for identifying the parties who ought to bear responsibility for those efforts in cases of structural injustice. First, I outline Lu’s analysis of reconciliation, where she argues for the normative priority of structural approaches within the global political sphere, and propose that it will be useful to identify whether or not a relational account could instead identify underlying structural injustices. Second, I examine one particular relational account of reconciliation (based on Radzik’s account of atonement) and argue that this type of account brings to light underlyi...

Download

Essay Prize Introduction

What Social Media Facilitates, Social Media should Regulate: Duties in the New Public Sphere (2021)

The Political Quarterly, 2021

This article offers a distinctive way of grounding the regulative duties held by social media com... more This article offers a distinctive way of grounding the regulative duties held by social media companies (SMCs). One function of the democratic state is to provide what we term the right to democratic epistemic participation within the public sphere. But social media has transformed our public sphere, such that SMCs now facilitate citizens' right to democratic epistemic participation and do so on a scale that was previously impossible. We argue that this role of SMCs in expanding the scope of what counts as fair democratic epistemic participation, and in becoming the providers of access to the digital public sphere, brings with it duties of regulation.

Download

Collective Agents and Global Structural Injustice: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Epistemic Injustice and the Attention Economy

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

In recent years, a significant body of literature has emerged on the subject of epistemic injusti... more In recent years, a significant body of literature has emerged on the subject of epistemic injustice: wrongful harms done to people in their capacities as knowers (Fricker 2007). Up to now this literature has ignored the role that attention has to play in epistemic injustice. This paper makes a first step towards addressing this gap. We argue that giving someone less attention than they are due, which we call an epistemic attention deficit, is a distinct form of epistemic injustice. We begin by outlining what we mean by epistemic attention deficits, which we understand as a failure to pay someone the attention they are due in their role as an epistemic agent. We argue that these deficits constitute epistemic injustices for two reasons. First, they affect someone’s ability to influence what others believe. Second, they affect one’s ability to influence the shared common ground in which testimonial exchanges take place. We then outline the various ways in which epistemic attention defi...

How Might Financial Aid Form a Part of the Negative Duty Not to Harm in the Case of Global Poverty?

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society

Epistemic Injustice and the Attention Economy

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

The Curious Case of Ronald McDonald's Claim to Rights: An Ontological Account of Differences in Group and Individual Person Rights Winner of the 2016 Essay Competition of the International Social Ontology Society

Performative accounts of personhood argue that group agents are persons, fit to be held responsib... more Performative accounts of personhood argue that group agents are persons, fit to be held responsible within the social sphere. Nonetheless, these accounts want to retain a moral distinction between group and individual persons. That: (1) Group-persons can be responsible for their actions qua persons, but that (2) group-persons might nonetheless not have rights equivalent to those of human persons. I present an argument which makes sense of this disanalogy, without recourse to normative claims or additional ontological commitments. I instead ground rights in the different relations in which performative persons stand in relation to one another.

Download

Challenges and Suggestions for a Social Account of Testimonial Sensitivity

Social Epistemology

Recent work on epistemic injustice has re-ignited the importance of sensitivity-analyses of knowl... more Recent work on epistemic injustice has re-ignited the importance of sensitivity-analyses of knowledge, via the possibility of audiences being insufficiently sensitive to the testimonial credibility of prejudiced-against speakers (Fricker,2007; Dotson,2011). The focus of this work has quite rightly been on demonstrating the epistemic harms to potential testifiers when sensitivity fails to apply. However there is clearly a corollary impact on audiences, and their ability to achieve knowledge from testimonial sources, when they fail to apply appropriate conditions of sensitivity with regard to the testimony of others. The notion of being appropriately-sensitive, implicitly assumes that we can make sense of what these sensitivity conditions on testimonial-knowledge formation might be.

In this paper, I therefore go back to basics, and put the Nozickian claim that sensitivity is a necessary condition for knowledge under pressure, by considering its applicability with regard to testimonially-formed beliefs. Building on, and departing from, Goldberg (2012), I positively draw out how we might understand the required sensitivity as a social interaction between speaker and hearer in testimonial cases. In doing so however, I identify a concern in section five which places the whole notion of testimonial sensitivity in potential jeopardy. I find an apparently paradoxical inverse relationship between better-differentiating methods that fulfil sensitivity conditions, and being able to have sensitive beliefs with regard to specific instances of testimony. After examining potential resolutions, I conclude that only a focus on minimally realising the problem, rather than ‘solving’ it, will enable us to retain sensitivity as a necessary condition for testimonial-knowledge.

Download