Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Lev. 19.18). That is the second commandment, like unto the first (Matt. 22.39), and therein the whole law is fulfilled. This love proves to be such a mercy to the weak and oppressed, to the poor, the strangers, the widows, the orphans, to men-servants and maid-servants, to the deaf, the blind, the aged, and the like, as no other law of antiquity knows. It has been rightly said that Israel’s moral code was written from the viewpoint of the oppressed. Israel never forgot that it had been a stranger and a servant in Egypt. (Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, pp.69-70)

What Standpoint Theory/Epistemology Is and Is Not

Contrary to much current demagoguery, Standpoint Theory (or, similar, “Standpoint Epistemology”) is in fact rooted in empiricist, evidentialist, epistemology. The epistemic relevance of Standpoint Theory has to do with evidence and justification, not the nature of truth, its objective character, nor its public accessibility. Rather,

The claim is that members of marginalized groups are more likely to have had experiences that are particularly epistemically salient for identifying and evaluating assumptions that have been systematically obscured or made less visible as the result of power dynamics. (Kristen Intemann, p. 791)

Or, in Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo’s words,

Minoritized groups often have the widest view of society, in that they must understand both their own and the dominant group’s perspective—develop a double-consciousness—to succeed.” (Is Everyone Really Equal?, p. 70)

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