Implicit bias has recently gained much attention in
scholarly attempts to understand and explain different
forms of social injustice by identifying causally
relevant mental states in individual’ minds. Here we
question the explanatory power of implicit bias in a
particular type of injustice, testimonial injustice, and
more generally in what we call speech injustice.
Testimonial injustice occurs when the audience deflates
a speaker’s credibility due to the speaker’s perceived
social identity (Fricker, 2007). We identify two
drawbacks of a widely accepted explanation attributing
testimonial injustice to prejudices (e.g. implicit bias) in
the mind of the hearer, and argue that further
understanding of this phenomenon can be gained from a
structural explanation that appeals to discursive
conventions and interlocutors’ positions in the
communicative exchange.