A Resentment of Disappointment for the Politics of Resentment

Abstract

Prejudicial beliefs are often associated with ignorance. Indeed, common views of prejudice hold that it is precisely in their ignorance that those with prejudicial beliefs perpetrate a wrong to the victim of the prejudicial belief. This view of prejudice neatly accounts for the prejudices of epistemically culpable epistemic agents. But what about cases where a prejudice is held by an epistemically exculpable epistemic agent? This paper presents an example of a deeply prejudiced belief about Indigenous Peoples, taken from a recent ethnography of rural Wisconsin, and argues that it is epistemically exculpable. If it is indeed epistemically exculpable, then we need to look beyond the individual when directing our blame for the prejudicial belief; we can only be disappointed in the circumstances that enable an epistemic agent to be epistemically exculpable for expressing such a belief.