"That's Above My Paygrade": Woke Excuses for Ignorance

1. Standpoint Theory and the Strong Epistemic Disadvantage Thesis

Despite persistent misunderstandings to the contrary, standpoint theorists are not committed to an automatic privilege thesis (Wylie 2003, 27). According to an automatic privilege thesis, those who occupy marginalized social positions automatically know more, or know better, by virtue of their social location. The issues with this thesis are obvious: it is implausible; it offers no explanation of the connection between marginalized social location and epistemic advantage; and it cannot explain how it is that some marginalized individuals seem to (genuinely) buy into oppressive ideologies.

However, while the automatic privilege thesis is widely repudiated, there is support—in both broader feminist discourse and in the narrower standpoint literature—for a related thesis. I will call this thesis the strong epistemic disadvantage thesis (SEDT). According to the SEDT, dominant social positions impose strong, substantive limits on what the socially dominant can know about the oppression of others.¹ These limits are strong in the sense that the socially dominant cannot break free of them; their ignorance is the inescapable result of their dominant social positions. The limitations are substantive in the sense that the socially dominant are not just missing minor or trivial details: their social positions doom them to ignorance regarding matters of importance.

The SEDT and its consequences are exemplified by Kate Manne’s book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Manne 2018). Manne aims to identify the enforcement mechanisms used to keep all women in their place. Despite this stated aim, she focuses on the oppression faced by straight, white, cis women. To justify this emphasis, Manne maintains that she is limited by her “own (highly privileged) social position and the associated standpoint or vantage point” (Manne 2018, 13). She says that these limitations restrict her to a “small corner of the overall canvas,” but that this is as far as she can reach “without overextending myself and inevitably (as opposed to potentially) making a mess of it” (14).

Manne is plainly espousing the view that her privileged social position occludes her view of the oppression experienced by others. She writes as if her ignorance is both inescapable and substantive; she takes herself to be unable to write about intersectional forms of oppression, despite recognizing their political and philosophical significance—she says she would inevitably mess it up. Manne is not alone in thinking along these lines; her remarks reflect a sentiment that is growing in popularity.²

Despite Manne’s invocation of “standpoint” to justify her claim, standpoint theorists do not often directly advocate for the SEDT. Indeed, as we will see in section 3, some standpoint theorists actively reject it. However, there is support in the standpoint literature for two theses that jointly entail the SEDT. The first is the claim that occupying a marginalized social position is necessary for achieving the corresponding standpoint; the second is the claim that achieving a standpoint enables epistemic advantage that is both robust³ and uniquely accessible through a standpoint. Together, these two theses imply that there are strong, substantive limits on what the socially dominant can know.

I argue that the SEDT is both theoretically implausible and politically pernicious. The SEDT is a primrose path for the socially dominant: it is an excuse for ignorance and silence that has been granted legitimacy only as a result of its guise of heightened political consciousness. Thus, my aim is to clarify and strengthen standpoint theory so that it is clearly separated from the SEDT. To do this, I argue that standpoint theorists must deny that there is a necessary connection between a marginalized social position and the possibility of achieving a standpoint. So, I argue that men can achieve feminist standpoints, that white women (and men) can achieve black feminist standpoints, and so on. Central to my argument is the distinction between perspectives and standpoints. A “perspective” reflects the social-situatedness of an epistemic agent, where a “standpoint” reflects a critical consciousness that is actively achieved. I argue that marginalized social locations do provide epistemic advantages, and that dominant social locations provide disadvantages. However, the perspectival advantages afforded by a marginalized social location are neither constitutive of, nor necessary for, the achievement of a standpoint. If the socially dominant put in the work, they can overcome the disadvantages imposed by their social positions and achieve the critical standpoints that enable understanding and insight regarding forms of oppression that they do not experience.

2. Standpoint Theory Basics

If you want to know whether a particular philosophy department is sexist, you will likely get a more accurate assessment from a woman in that department. The same goes if you want to know whether the environment is hostile to people of color—while a white member of the department may happily report that their department is free of racial prejudices, a person of color may tell a different story. In cases like this, the socially marginalized tend to be more reliable reporters than the socially dominant. They are better informants because they are better positioned to know whether (and to what degree) such factors are in play.

This is the starting point of standpoint epistemology: your social location affects what you know. Standpoint theorists tend to make some combination of the following four claims, which both refine and extend this basic idea:

The Situated Knowledge Thesis: Epistemic agents are necessarily socially situated, and their knowledge reflects this—what people know is partial and shaped by their contingent histories, epistemic resources, values, etc. (Wylie 2003; Kukla 2006; Harding 1997; Táíwò 2020).

The Inversion Thesis: Those who are socially marginalized are epistemically advantaged in some critical respects. They may have access to better or more relevant evidence (Kukla 2021; Bright 2018; Wylie 2003; Collins 1986); they may be better incentivized to seek out relevant evidence (Kinney & Bright 2021); they may develop clarifying conceptual resources (Toole 2020; Wylie 2012); their experiences and values may prompt them to consider alternative hypotheses that are often overlooked (Wylie and Nelson 2007; Harding 1997); or they might produce accounts of the world that are better suited to envisioning social relations that are more just (Collins 2002; Collins 1997; Hartsock 1997; Pohlhaus 2002).

The Achievement Thesis: Standpoints are not a given, or automatic: the experience of marginalization does not entail a clearer, more nuanced, or more accurate understanding of the world; standpoints are the result of work (Harding 1991; Pohlhaus 2002; Collins 2002; Wylie 2003).

The Methodological Imperative: At least some inquiry should take the lives of the marginalized as its starting point, because those lives provide resources that enable more accurate investigation into the structure of our social world (Harding 1991; Táíwò 2020; Bright 2018).⁴

Different theorists flesh out the details of these theses in different ways, and not every standpoint theorist endorses all four claims. But these theses convey the general thrust of standpoint theory: epistemologists must attend to the realities of our actual knowledge practices, and these realities suggest that knowers are not on equal epistemic ground. The socially marginalized have some key advantages, and, in some contexts, these advantages can lead to more accurate pictures of the way things are.

One more standpoint claim is relevant for my purposes. Standpoint theorists generally distinguish between social positions and standpoints (Wylie 2003; Wylie 2012; Intemann 2010, 785; Harding 1991). The difference is reflected in the achievement thesis. Everyone is socially located, and, if you buy into the situated knowledge thesis, these different social locations result in epistemic differences. However, these differences are typically not taken to be standpoint differences. Standpoint differences are those differences made by actively achieving a critical consciousness, or an awareness (of a distinctly critical kind) of the various mechanisms that sustain oppressive social orders. So, although everyone will have a perspective, not everyone—not even all marginalized people—will have a standpoint. Standpoint theorists are not always clear about which advantages correspond to having a marginalized social position, and which correspond to achieving a standpoint. One of the aims of this paper is to address this issue.

The four basic commitments do not obviously imply the SEDT. However, the SEDT follows straightforwardly if we make two additional moves, each of which reflects the spirit of one or more of the central claims above.⁵ The first involves drawing a tight connection—a connection of necessity—between a particular social position and the possibility of achieving the corresponding standpoint. The second involves identifying a robust epistemic advantage that is distinctive to achieving a standpoint. If we make both of these moves, then the SEDT follows:

P1. Only people who occupy a marginalized social position can achieve the corresponding standpoint.

P2. Those without standpoints face strong, substantive limits on what they can know.

C. Socially dominant people face strong, substantive limits on what they can know.

In the next section, I will offer an overview of the support for P1 and P2 that can be found in the standpoint literature.

3. Arriving at the SEDT

In my conversations with people who have only passing familiarity with standpoint theory, they tend to have the impression that P1 is an essential component of standpoint theory. This impression sometimes leads them to think that my thesis—that standpoint theorists should deny P1 and hold that the socially dominant can achieve marginalized standpoints—is incoherent. Curiously, in a number of my conversations with people who defend standpoint theory, I have encountered reluctance to admit that there is any support for this thesis in the standpoint literature; instead, they suggested that the impression that standpoint theorists think marginalization is necessary for achieving a standpoint is the result of an uncharitable interpretation of standpoint theory. Given this, my aim in much of the remainder of this section will be to demonstrate that the widespread idea that P1 is essential to standpoint theory is no accident: although not every standpoint theorist makes this claim, there is support for this thesis in the standpoint literature. Some of this support is explicit; some standpoint theorists actively affirm P1. Others provide support that is indirect: while the thinker may or may not actually think that marginalization is necessary for achieving a standpoint, they nonetheless express their views in ways that suggest that marginalization is necessary. Because P1 is considerably more fraught than P2, I will give a more detailed overview of support for P1 than for P2.

Standpoint theorists sometimes explicitly affirm P1 in a bid to distinguish their view from the implausible automatic privilege thesis discussed in the introduction. The automatic privilege thesis suggests that marginalization is sufficient for knowing better. In response, some standpoint theorists have said that marginalization is not sufficient but necessary.

Sharon Crasnow does this particularly clearly. She makes the point three times, writing: “standpoint theorists claim that marginalization is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for their epistemic privilege” (Crasnow 2008, 1092); “the social location is a necessary though not sufficient criterion for whatever epistemic privilege derives from standpoint” (1093); and, lastly, “While epistemic privilege may require that one occupy a particular position in the social and political structure, it is not sufficient for achieving standpoint that one occupies that position” (1093).

Phoebe Friesen and Jordan Goldstein also explicitly endorse the necessary connection between marginalization and standpoint. They write that the “basic claim of standpoint theory” is that “a standpoint is arrived at as a result of two necessary components, a marginalized social location and a process of critical reflection” (Friesen and Goldstein 2023, 661). Like Crasnow, Friesen and Goldstein emphasize that marginalization is not sufficient for achieving a standpoint; this is why they stress the importance of critical reflection. On their view, not all socially marginalized people will achieve a standpoint, but only the marginalized can.

Friesen and Goldstein cite Sandra Harding, Alison Wylie, Kristin Intemann, and Nancy Hartsock as standpoint theorists who affirm the necessary connection between social position and standpoint; Crasnow cites Wylie, Harding, and Patricia Hill Collins. Crasnow’s attribution of the view to Collins is well-motivated. Collins understands a “standpoint” as the collective knowledge that is shared by a group of people who are similarly located in hierarchical power relations. So, of the black feminist standpoint, Collins argues that black women have shared, group-based experiences that both reflect their shared social location and also give rise to “shared angles of vision” that lead black women to interpret their experiences in distinctive (but not identical) ways (Collins 1997, 335–37). She affirms this view in her 2002 book, where she writes, that, for black women, “the particular experiences that accrue to living as a Black woman in the United States can stimulate a distinctive consciousness concerning our own experiences and society overall” (Collins 2002, 27). She emphasizes that the “angle of vision,” or standpoint, that arises out of black women’s shared experiences is “unavailable to others” (39). Thus, Collins is clearly articulating the view that only black women can have a black feminist standpoint, because only they have the experiences that give rise to it.⁶

Friesen and Goldstein’s attribution of the view to Hartsock is also reasonable. Hartsock writes that “material life … not only structures but sets limits on the understanding of social relations”, adding that “the vision available to the rulers will be both partial and perverse” (Hartsock 1997, 218). Similarly, she claims that “the concept of a standpoint rests on the fact that there are some perspectives on society from which, however well-intentioned one may be, the real relations of humans with each other and the natural world are not visible” (Hartsock 1983, 117). Thus, Hartsock’s work clearly suggests that the socially dominant cannot achieve the standpoint that reveals the “real relations” of the world.

The attributions of the view to Kristin Intemann, Sandra Harding, and Alison Wylie are more complicated. When discussing what it takes for marginalization to result in a standpoint, Intemann writes that “the mere presence of an oppressed group will not be sufficient to achieve the sort of conscious, critical reflection that is required for achieving a standpoint. In order for diversity to yield epistemic advantages, the community must engage in critical reflection” (Intemann 2010, 789). This resembles the lines taken by Crasnow, Friesen, and Goldstein: Intemann denies the sufficiency of marginalization for the achievement of a standpoint, citing the need for “critical reflection.” While Intemann does not straightforwardly commit to the necessity claim, it seems to me to be implied (and apparently it seemed that way to Friesen and Goldstein, too).

The case of Harding is interesting, because she explicitly denies that occupying a marginalized social position is necessary for achieving the corresponding standpoint. (1991, 277–84). Despite this, she frequently expresses her view using language that blurs the distinction between “perspective” and “standpoint.” She says, for instance, that the advantage of feminist standpoints stems from the fact that they begin inquiry “from the perspective of women’s lives” (1991, 121–22, 126, and 279;). Indeed, the chapter in which Harding discusses the connection between social position and standpoint is called “Reinventing Ourselves as Other” (1991, 268–95; discussed also in Pohlhaus 2002, 288–91). Harding’s way of characterizing the advantage that is gained by achieving a standpoint is problematic because it suggests, first, that there is a way to “see” or “know” as a woman, and, worse, that achieving this perspective amounts to achieving the relevant standpoint. But if this is what the advantage consists in, people may reasonably deny that anyone who isn’t a woman could ever acquire this advantage, because perspectives are meant to reflect a person’s social-situatedness. I will return to Harding’s view in more detail in section 6; for now, it is enough to note that even Harding speaks in ways that suggest that a marginalized social position is necessary for achieving a standpoint, despite her explicit disavowal of this claim.⁷

Lastly, I would dispute the attribution of the view to Wylie. Wylie does not discuss whether the socially dominant can achieve marginalized standpoints. Nonetheless, Wylie is quite careful about the relationship between occupying a marginalized social position and achieving a standpoint; her clear delineation of the advantages that correspond to social position and the advantages that correspond to an achieved standpoint has largely inspired the account I offer here. The closest Wylie gets to suggesting that a marginalized social position is necessary for achieving the corresponding standpoint is when she says that standpoint theorists are interested in people’s “differential capacity to develop … a critical consciousness about the nature of our social location and the difference it makes epistemically” (Wylie 2003, 31). This could be taken to imply that Wylie thinks that only the socially marginalized can develop marginalized standpoints, though it certainly falls short of an obvious commitment to the view.

I take the preceding overview to establish that the standpoint literature does indeed provide support for the view that a marginalized social position is necessary for achieving a standpoint. Although not every standpoint theorist embraces this connection, it is not a coincidence that so many people think that this connection is central to standpoint theory. Positing the strong connection between social position and standpoint is a natural way to capture the idea that marginalization is distinctively advantageous—one of standpoint theory’s main contentions—without committing to the implausible automatic privilege thesis.

Now consider P2, which amounts to the claim that standpoints are both robustly and distinctively epistemically advantageous. The robustness and distinctiveness of the advantage jointly capture the idea that marginalized standpoints are definitively advantageous, in the sense that those with standpoints will know better than those without standpoints in at least some important domains. Those without standpoints are not just missing minor or trivial details—hence, the robustness of the advantage—and the advantages in question can be acquired only via achieving a standpoint—hence, the distinctiveness of the advantage.

Take Elizabeth Anderson, who writes that, “Classically, standpoint theory claims that the standpoint of the subordinated is advantaged (1) in revealing fundamental social regularities; (2) in exposing social arrangements as contingent and susceptible to change through concerted action; and (3) in representing the social world in relation to universal human interests” (Anderson 2020, section 2). It is clear from this that Anderson is positing a robust advantage to those with standpoints. Wylie is also a clear advocate of this kind of view. Wylie argues that a standpoint “throws into relief assumptions that underpin, and confound, a dominant worldview” (Wylie 2003, 38). Likewise, Collins argues that the methodology and resources made available through a black feminist standpoint enable thinkers to avoid the pitfalls of approaches that treat either race or gender (or class) as primary, while treating other forms of oppression as mere complicating detail (Collins 1986). Thus, for Anderson, Wylie, and Collins, the advantage conferred by a standpoint is robust. Those without this advantage (or comparable advantage) will have a distorted understanding of our social world. Similar views are expressed by Hartsock (1983), Harding (1991 and 1997), Toole (2020), and Smith (1974).

By itself, the robustness of the advantage does not ensure that standpoints are definitively advantageous, because comparable advantages could be acquired through other means. However, standpoint theorists are (typically) clear that the advantage is distinctive, or unique. Harding claims that “maximally critical assessments” are possible only from marginalized standpoints (Harding 1992, 459). The Hartsock quotation above also suggests this, as she says that however “well-intentioned” someone may be, if they do not have the relevant standpoint, then they will have distorted understanding. The advantage afforded by a standpoint is also claimed to be distinctive by Toole (2020), Collins (1986), and Intemann (2010).

So, both P2 and P1 are well-motivated: both are ways to capture something that is genuinely central to standpoint theory. The necessity of (relevant) marginalization for achieving a standpoint captures the inversion thesis in a way that clearly distinguishes it from an automatic privilege thesis. Positing a robust and distinctive advantage captures the idea that lies at the heart of both the methodological imperative and the achievement thesis. We should do at least some inquiry from a marginalized standpoint because that standpoint enables the clearest understanding, and it enables this clear understanding because it is the result of active effort to understand how dominant ideology shapes the world we inhabit. And yet, the SEDT follows if we make both moves. The next section will articulate the theoretical and political issues that arise in relation to the SEDT.

4. Problems with the Strong Epistemic Disadvantage Thesis

The SEDT suggests that we live in “a world of unbridgeable epistemic solitudes” (Wylie 2012, 47) and dooms the socially dominant to ignorance. If the insights of marginalized people are uniquely theirs—in the sense that the socially dominant cannot understand or make use of those insights—then not only do the socially dominant not know, but they also cannot know. The SEDT is, thus, at odds with work that argues that the ignorance of the socially dominant—such as white ignorance (Mills 2007) and willful hermeneutical ignorance (Pohlhaus 2012)—is actively cultivated rather than a mere passive occurrence.

Mills and Pohlhaus both emphasize that the socially dominant have a significant interest in protecting their ignorance of societal injustice (Mills 2007, 34–35; Pohlhaus 2012, 721). Mills puts the point particularly clearly. He writes, “white ignorance has been able to flourish all of these years because a white epistemology of ignorance has safeguarded it against the dangers of an illuminating blackness or redness, protecting those who for ‘racial’ reasons have needed not to know” (Mills 2007, 35; emphasis added). The “white epistemology of ignorance” he identifies is complex and actively maintained—it is not at all the inescapable result of simply being white. Indeed, Mills goes out of his way to note that white ignorance is not “indefeasible”—he explicitly clarifies that “some people who are white will, because of their particular histories … overcome [white ignorance] and have true beliefs on what their fellow whites get wrong” (23).

The view that the socially dominant are doomed to ignorance has several unsavory implications. Work on active ignorance is both prolific and persuasive (there are, in addition to the works by Mills and Pohlhaus noted above, a number of others, including: Medina 2013, especially chapter 1; Kinney & Bright 2021; and Woomer 2019). If you are compelled by this work, then you should be suspicious of the SEDT’s characterization of the ignorance of the socially dominant as passive and inevitable. Further, this work on active ignorance allows us to hold the socially dominant responsible for their ignorance; whereas, in contrast, the SEDT suggests that the socially dominant are blameless. Their social positions are not up to them and are not something that they can change. On standard accounts of blameworthiness, then, it will not make sense to hold them accountable for their ignorance, or for their failure to take steps toward better understanding.

Note too that, if the SEDT is correct, the prospects for truly intersectional academic work are grim. Such work could be done only by people who are multiply marginalized and, for familiar reasons, unlikely to end up in academia (and particularly unlikely to end up in academic philosophy). Worse still, the multiply marginalized people who do ascend to the academy often acquire social status and material advantage. This prompts parallel intersectional concerns—even the academic work done by the multiply marginalized would inevitably reflect the limitations placed on them by their relative social privilege.⁸ As a result, the burden of doing intersectional work would continue to—must continue to—fall on the shoulders of those who are most marginalized. So, not only does the SEDT suggest that the prospects for intersectional academic work are grim, but it also suggests that epistemic exploitation (Berenstain 2016) is inevitable.

Fortunately, the thesis is straightforwardly implausible; the socially dominant can indeed escape their ignorance. To see this, consider two notably different white women feminists working in the 1970s: Susan Brownmiller and Gerda Lerner.

Susan Brownmiller did groundbreaking work on rape. She argued that rape was a politically significant mechanism of social control, rather than random violence (Brownmiller 1975, 15). This was important. But her account was also seriously defective, as Angela Davis has pointed out. Davis draws attention to Brownmiller’s tendency to invoke the “myth of the Black rapist,” suggesting that black men are more likely to rape than white men. The myth of the black rapist plays on narratives that involve the hypersexualization of black people. According to the myth, black men have animalistic, uncontrollable sex drives. These uncontrollable sex drives drive them to rape. Because the myth of the black rapist draws on myths about black sexuality broadly, the invocation of the myth has serious implications for black women: “the fictional image of the Black man as rapist has always strengthened its inseparable companion: the image of the Black woman as chronically promiscuous. For once the notion is accepted that Black men harbor irresistible and animal-like sexual urges, the entire race is invested with bestiality” (Davis 2011, 179). So, by endorsing these myths, Brownmiller contributes to a cultural narrative that both makes black women’s sexual assault allegations implausible and also vilifies black men.

Standpoint theorists are well-equipped to explain both the virtues and deficiencies of Brownmiller’s understanding of the mechanisms of oppression. As a woman in a patriarchal context, her experience makes particular realities salient to her. She can reflect on these realities and achieve a standpoint. Thus, she is able to see (some of) the political significance of rape. However, she is a white woman in a patriarchal (racist, capitalist) context. Her experience does not make salient the intricacies of racialized oppression. Her ignorance of the mechanisms of racial oppression impedes her ability to analyze the material relations of her context. Davis, on the other hand, is able to see the deficiencies of Brownmiller’s account of rape because her achieved standpoint makes the racial aspects of our material relations more salient.

I emphasize that this explanation makes it obvious that race plays a key role both in Brownmiller’s impoverished understanding of rape culture and in Davis’s more nuanced understanding. It is no accident that Brownmiller failed to see or understand how gender-based oppression intersects with race-based oppression. However, we should not insist that Brownmiller’s race determined her ignorance (or, relatedly, that Davis’s race determined her understanding). Such a claim is simply not plausible. Brownmiller’s Against Our Will was published in 1975 but, in 1972, Gerda Lerner—also a white woman—was already aware of and critiquing the racist myth of the black rapist and its implications for black women. Lerner writes: “The myth of the Black rapist of white women is the twin of the myth of the bad Black woman—both designed to apologize for and facilitate the continued exploitation of Black men and women. Black women perceived this connection very clearly and were early in the forefront of the fight against lynching” (Lerner 1972, 193). This quotation makes it clear that whiteness does not determine ignorance about race-based dimensions of oppression. Brownmiller’s ignorance was no coincidence, but neither was it inevitable.

Lerner is far from the only person to overcome the disadvantages imposed by her relative social privilege. John Stuart Mill is another straightforward example, as are all feminist men. The point is that although dominant social positions confer epistemic disadvantages, they do not determine ignorance.

It is clear, then, that the passivity and blamelessness implied by the SEDT make the thesis not only false but also politically pernicious. The ignorance of the socially dominant has real social consequences: their ignorance often interferes with or prevents efforts to alleviate injustice (Kinney and Bright 2021, 2). But the SEDT offers a way for the socially dominant to feel complacent in their ignorance, as it suggests that it is not their fault and that there’s nothing they can do about it. Moreover, by acknowledging the supposed limitations imposed by their dominant social positions, the socially dominant reap the benefits that (in some contexts) come along with publicly signaling a raised social consciousness. The SEDT is, then, a “no risk, all reward” strategy for the socially dominant. The costs of the strategy are borne instead by the marginalized.

5. Avoiding the SEDT

There are three ways to object to the argument that entails the SEDT. First, one could deny P1 and accept P2. According to this view, the failure to achieve a marginalized standpoint is definitively epistemically disadvantageous—the failure will result in distorted understanding of at least some key issues. This view avoids the SEDT by holding that the socially dominant can achieve marginalized standpoints and thus reap the corresponding benefits. Second, one could accept P1 and modify P2 so that the advantage of a standpoint is distinctive without being robust. This view affirms the intuitive connection between social position and standpoint without dooming the socially dominant to ignorance regarding matters of social and political importance, as the advantages that correspond to achieving a standpoint are not that substantive. Finally, one could accept P1 and modify P2 so that the advantage is robust, but not distinctive. This view also affirms the intuitive connection between social position and standpoint, but maintains that the clear understanding enabled by a standpoint can be achieved by other means. Thus, standpoints can be robustly advantageous and uniquely available to the marginalized, without the result that the socially dominant are doomed to ignorance.

Each of these views faces its own difficulties. Those who modify P2 must capture the epistemic significance of achieving a standpoint—if the advantage is either trivial or replicable, why should we care about standpoints? Those who deny P1 must instead capture the significance of a marginalized social location—if marginalization is neither necessary nor sufficient for achieving a standpoint, why think that it is epistemically significant, as standpoint theorists have long contended?

My cards are already on the table: I think that we should reject the necessary connection between social position and standpoint. To make my case, I will first problematize both ways one could modify P2. Neither option, I argue, is compatible with recognizing the significance of standpoints. I will then demonstrate that versions of standpoint theory that reject the necessary connection between social position and standpoint can, nonetheless, capture the epistemic significance of marginalization, and are overall better suited to capturing the insights of standpoint theorists.

Let’s start with the view that denies the robustness of the advantage that corresponds to achieving a standpoint. Quill Kukla’s recent work on standpoint theory helpfully illustrates this kind of view. Kukla offers the following three examples as examples of standpoint advantages: (i) disabled people have better evidence regarding the limitations of certain kinds of building design as a result of their embodied experience as disabled people; (ii) women, people of color, and trans people are more likely to see sexism, racism, and transphobia because they are its targets, and bigotry is more likely to be concealed when people who are not its targets are around; and (iii) city dwellers are more comfortable darting around in crowds or on public transit because of their day-to-day experience (Kukla 2021, 45–46). These advantages are, they note, available only to people with the relevant social position, because they can be attained only by having a particular embodied experience; they are not the kind of thing that you can come to know just by being told by somebody else (47). Thus, these are epistemic advantages that simply are not available to people who lack the relevant social position. Despite this, the socially dominant are not robustly disadvantaged: the fact that these limits are present does not suggest that they will struggle to understand the world they live in.

Kukla’s view is compelling in many respects. The advantages identified reflect real differences in knowledge that correspond to differing social locations. This said, the identified advantages are not well-suited to being the advantages that are distinctive of a standpoint. Standpoint theorists are often emphatic that a standpoint is not merely the perspective you have by virtue of occupying a particular social position. The difference, as discussed previously, is that a standpoint is meant to be achieved. Achieving a standpoint requires studying up; it is the result of prolonged and often coordinated effort to understand the systemic ways that groups of people are oppressed. This is why standpoint theorists frequently point to consciousness-raising groups: such groups do precisely the kind of critical investigation that involves both work and revelation.

By contrast, the advantages listed above require almost no work. Although it is possible that a marginalized person could fail to acquire the proposed kinds of epistemic advantages, this failure would be the result of inattention or a lack of reflection. Consider the way Kukla describes their own examples of “standpoint” advantage. They say that their examples are “just examples of how being a certain kind of person with certain experiences goes along with knowing some things, and not knowing others” (Kukla 2021, 47). This makes it clear that these advantages are not achieved in any interesting sense. Thus, these advantages are better characterized as perspectival advantages—they are advantages that follow from occupying a particular social location. Positing these perspectival advantages as standpoint advantages erodes the distinction between perspective and standpoint, and so reduces standpoint theory to the situated knowledge thesis.

Furthermore, a key benefit it seemed we would gain by accepting P1 and modifying P2 was that we would easily be able to capture standpoint theorists’ claim that marginalization is distinctively epistemically advantageous. Yet, on this articulation of the advantage that corresponds to having a standpoint, marginalization does not play a special role at all. The experience of marginalization makes the same kind of epistemic difference that experience generally makes. Just as the car mechanic knows more about cars, or a French person knows more about French culture, a marginalized person knows more about marginalization. This is not because there is anything special about marginalization, but because there is something special about experience. The passage from Kukla quoted above makes this particularly clear. When we diminish the advantage conferred by a standpoint in the way proposed, the advantages we identify are “just examples of how being a certain kind of person with certain experiences goes along with knowing some things, and not knowing others.” This does not afford a distinctive epistemic value to marginalization.

Now consider the second way we might modify P2: rather than denying the robustness of the advantage, we might instead deny the distinctiveness of the advantage. On this view, anyone can achieve the critical consciousness that can reveal the assumptions that underpin dominant ideology, but this critical consciousness counts as a standpoint only if it is achieved by someone who is appropriately socially located. So understood, standpoints are robustly advantageous and achievable only by the marginalized, but the advantages are not distinctive.

The key weakness of this option stems from the apparent arbitrariness of specifying “standpoint” in the way proposed. No meaningful epistemic difference is invoked to justify calling some achieved critical understandings “standpoints” but not others (this must be true, or else standpoint advantages would indeed be distinctive). Anyone can achieve a critical understanding and reap the benefits that follow, but we call it a “standpoint” only when the right person achieves it. “Standpoint” so characterized fails to pick out the epistemically significant achievement. What actually matters—that is, what makes an epistemic difference worthy of interest—is the achieved critical understanding. Consequently, this view fails to capture the philosophical and political significance of standpoints. So, if we think that there’s good reason to preserve “standpoint” as a philosophically and politically significant term, then we have good reason to resist any temptation to insist arbitrarily that achieved critical understanding constitutes a standpoint only when it is achieved by someone (relevantly) marginalized.

The preceding arguments concern how we ought to use the word “standpoint.” Despite this, the issue at hand is not “merely terminological.” In part, this is because terminological points often carry more weight than is commonly thought: words and labels are significant cultural artifacts, and our choices about how to use them are not—or at least should not be—arbitrary. The significance of the way we define our words or use our labels is especially clear in this case. Failing to use “standpoint” in a way that clearly distinguishes it from “perspective” fails to capture some of standpoint theorists’ poignant insights about the importance of working to achieve a standpoint—better understanding of the world is not a given, and is not easily accomplished. Arbitrarily insisting on the necessary connection between social position and standpoint threatens to sacrifice the philosophical and political significance of the term (and, frankly, reeks of essentialism). More centrally, then, my broader argument concerns how we ought to organize the various insights of standpoint theorists so that we can make the most of their invaluable insights while avoiding the SEDT. My point is that the proposed recharacterizations of “standpoint” cannot do the theoretical work we want from them.

6. Standpoints Without Marginalization

I will now argue that we ought to reject the necessary connection between social position and standpoint. Sandra Harding and Gaile Pohlhaus have been explicit in thinking that marginalized social location cannot be necessary for achieving better understanding; I give additional arguments to show that we should follow them.

Harding disavows this necessary connection in light of the worry that talk of a (single) standpoint grounded in (all) women’s experience is incompatible with recognizing the diversity of women’s experiences. In response to this worry, Harding emphasizes the distinction between “standpoint” and “perspective.” She argues that being a woman does not supply a ready-made critical lens through which to view the world; instead, women’s experiences provide the questions from which we should begin our inquiry—e.g., “Is the double day of work ‘really’ a matter of nature’s, not culture’s, design?” (Harding 1997, 386). On this view, what matters is how we conduct our inquiry, not who conducts it. This way of conceiving of standpoint is straightforwardly compatible with recognizing the diversity of women’s experiences. (Rather than posing a problem for standpoint theory, the diversity of women’s experiences provides additional epistemic resources.) But we can also see that, on this way of accommodating differences between women, men can also achieve a feminist standpoint. As Gaile Pohlhaus puts it (while discussing Harding’s work), “that men can forge a feminist standpoint follows directly from the assertion that a feminist standpoint can grow out of the diverse experiences of women, for if the social positions of women do not prevent them from theorizing about the oppressions facing women as a diverse social group, the social positions of men ought not to prevent them from theorizing about the oppressions of women” (Pohlhaus 2002, 88). Once we recognize difference within social positions, difference between social positions no longer seems problematic.

So, both Harding and Pohlhaus deny that marginalization is necessary for achieving a standpoint. Recall that the motivation for taking this route—denying P1, rather than P2—is the recognition that at least many of the advantages that interest standpoint theorists are the result of work, and that the work involved is work that the socially dominant can do. The challenge involved with taking this route is to capture the thought that marginalization is distinctively epistemically advantageous, a central tenet of standpoint theory. This is a task that both Harding and Pohlhaus struggle with. As Pohlhaus points out, Harding’s position seems contradictory at times: when discussing the epistemic differences between feminist men and feminist women, Harding wants to maintain both “it matters who says what” and also “the validity of our claims must be largely independent of who says them” (Harding 1991, 283; discussed in Pohlhaus 2002, 288).⁹

I suggest that Harding makes these contradictory claims because she is struggling to square the severed connection between social position and standpoint with the epistemic significance of marginalization. Her claim that the “validity” of claims must be independent of who makes them reflects her commitment to rejecting the necessary connection between social position and standpoint, while her claim that it matters who says what reflects her desire to capture the idea that social positions make an important epistemic difference. This tension is further reflected in her tendency to use language that blurs the distinction between perspective and standpoint. As discussed previously, Harding expresses the advantage of achieving a standpoint in perspectival terms—she says that feminist standpoints are advantageous because they start from women’s perspective (Harding 1991, 124). Pohlhaus demonstrates that this is a recurring slip in Harding’s work (Pohlhaus 2002, 288–91).

These difficulties prompt Pohlhaus to abandon the notion of a standpoint altogether. She argues that the spatial and visual aspects of the metaphor of a “standpoint” will inevitably suggest that the advantage is the result of seeing the world from a particular social location (289–90). Thus, Pohlhaus concludes that the concept is not well-suited to illuminating the epistemic significance of marginalization while avoiding the implication that you must occupy a particular social location to understand the world.

I am sensitive to the worries that motivate Pohlhaus. Nonetheless, I do not think that we need to abandon talk of standpoints. The issue with Harding’s discussion of standpoint advantages is not that she suggests that people with feminist standpoints share a distinctive way of understanding the world—it is that she suggests that people with feminist standpoints know like women. Harding describes standpoint advantages in these terms, I submit, because she hasn’t articulated a new way of conceiving of the significance of marginalization to a standpoint if marginalization is not necessary. Clarifying the relationship between marginalization and the corresponding standpoint will help us to resist the temptation to discuss standpoint advantages in perspectival terms, and so will better equip us to use the term “standpoint” in ways that do not suggest that you must be marginalized to achieve them.

I argue that the experience of marginalization provides evidence, friction, and incentives that are absent in the day-to-day lives of those who are not similarly marginalized. These advantages are both crucial for the initial generation of a standpoint, and also make it easier for those have these advantages to achieve a standpoint. Thus, marginalization is significantly epistemically advantageous, but it does not provide advantages that an individual must possess in order to achieve a standpoint. Standpoints can be shared with and achieved by (and even augmented or shaped by) the socially dominant, despite their significant epistemic disadvantages.

My view is most similar to Alison Wylie’s. Wylie argues that the experience of marginalization puts marginalized people in a position to access unique evidence, and that this evidence enables (but does not determine) the achievement of a standpoint (see Wylie 2003, especially 35–36).¹⁰ Wylie is somewhat vague about what, precisely, this unique evidence is. Drawing on Narayan, she claims that the socially marginalized are able to “grasp subtle manifestations of power dynamics” and that they are intimately aware of the ways that oppression shapes their lives (37), although she does not get into specifics. Given that our task is to clarify the relationship between social position and standpoint, I will try to offer more concrete considerations.

First, marginalization yields evidence that the social order is socially constructed and contingent, rather than natural. Marginalized people are subject to the enforcement mechanisms that mold them to fit their assigned roles. Because their experience reveals these enforcement mechanisms, their experience yields evidence that their social roles are cultural, rather than natural. Now, the socially dominant are also molded to fit their roles (e.g., as women are forced into femininity, men are forced into masculinity). A plausible difference, however, is that although both the socially dominant and socially marginalized are forced into their roles, the roles that marginalized people are forced into are, in part, demeaning and subordinating. Thus, they seem less likely to be roles that people will fit into easily. Being molded in ways that do not suit you will make it more apparent that you are being molded in the first place.

There is also crucial friction between the experiences of the socially marginalized and the narratives that reflect and sustain oppressive social orders. Patricia Hill Collins talks at length about “controlling images” and their role in maintaining oppression. She focuses on controlling images of black women, which include representations of black women as “stereotypical mammies, matriarchs, welfare recipients and hot mommas” (Collins 2002, 76). These stereotypical images manipulate the cultural meaning of black femininity in ways that are meant to justify their subordination (77). Crucially, these stereotypes do not represent or reflect reality; rather, they distort it. These images misrepresent the capacities and qualities of the socially marginalized. Because these images are distorted, there will be friction between these controlling images and the experiences of the socially marginalized. Images of the socially marginalized that denigrate the abilities and capacities of the marginalized will, at least often, simply not cohere with marginalized people’s impressions of themselves and their fellow group members. This friction is both evidence that dominant social narratives are false and an incentive to develop alternative accounts.

A more obvious incentive is that the socially marginalized are directly disadvantaged by the social order: because they are not at the top of the social hierarchy, it is in their interest to unearth the illusions, distortions, and falsehoods that uphold and entrench that order (Bright 2018; Kinney and Bright 2021). This makes it significantly more likely that they will put in the time and effort required to develop the critical understanding that amounts to achieving a standpoint.

Like Wylie (2003, 37), I emphasize that these are advantages that simply come along with being socially marginalized. Thus, these are not standpoint advantages; they are perspectival advantages. But it is obvious that these advantages are epistemically significant: they are central to the initial generation of a standpoint. By drawing on the evidence provided by their experience—which their social location incentivizes them to do—the socially marginalized can come to recognize and articulate patterns of injustice that sustain the social order.¹¹ So, marginalized people’s experience of oppression both yields the evidence that is needed to generate a standpoint and also provides incentive to put in the work.

The day-to-day lived experience of the socially dominant will not yield the same evidence, friction, or incentives. The socially dominant benefit from the social order, and it is not in their interest to put in the effort to identify and understand the mechanisms that uphold it, as doing so would threaten the privileges their place in society affords them. And, even if they do put in the effort to identify and understand the mechanisms of the oppression of others, reflection on their own experiences will not be of much use. This is partially because the experience of the socially dominant is well-trodden ground; dominant experience has shaped the concepts and understandings that are already available. Further reflection on these experiences is less likely to lead to innovation or revelation—new insight is more likely to be delivered by reflection on experience that has been (unjustly) underexplored.

Moreover, the experience of the socially dominant is apt to be deceptive or misleading, because it is often in the interest of the socially marginalized to conform—at least temporarily—to the narratives set out by controlling images. Charles Mills cites a black American folk poem that expresses this idea—“Got one mind for white folks to see/Another for what I know is me” (Mills 2007, 18). Patricia Hill Collins discusses this phenomenon too, noting that it can benefit black people to act in ways that confirm stereotypical portrayals of them, because doing so enables them to fade into the background (Collins 1986, s14). So, because the socially marginalized may intentionally act in ways that conform to stereotypes, reflection on the experience of the socially dominant may fail to yield the same friction that reflection on the experience of the socially marginalized yields.

Reflection on the experience of the socially dominant does not, then, have the same revelatory potential as does reflection on the experience of the marginalized. This, I take it, captures an essential insight of standpoint theorists—the methodological imperative. We should anticipate that inquiry that is done from a standpoint that is grounded in the experiences of the marginalized will yield better, more accurate understanding (in at least some contexts). The socially marginalized are also better placed to perform this inquiry, because marginalization provides more direct access to the relevant evidence and incentivizes them to put that evidence to use. In consequence, the inversion thesis has also been accommodated in a satisfying way: it is obvious that marginalization is epistemically advantageous, while social dominance is epistemically disadvantageous. But, while the socially dominant are epistemically disadvantaged in significant ways, the disadvantages are not insurmountable: the socially dominant are not doomed to ignorance. The day-to-day experiences of socially dominant people cannot ground a marginalized standpoint, but socially dominant people can nevertheless achieve such standpoints. To do so, they must take the experiences of the socially marginalized as their starting point. Only by engaging in critical reflection that centers experiences that are not their own can the socially dominant succeed.

Note too that this account of the epistemic significance of marginalization affords a more distinctive role to marginalization than do views like Kukla’s. The experience of marginalization is not epistemically advantageous because of features about experience generally, but rather because of special features about marginalization in particular.

7. Knowing Across Difference

It is one thing to say that dominantly situated knowers can come to understand the mechanisms of oppression that they do not personally experience, and so can achieve a marginalized standpoint; it is another thing to explain how this could happen in practice. Concerns over space and scope keep me from offering anything like a full account here. However, two worries loom, and they can be addressed only by saying something in more practical terms about how one might achieve a standpoint.

The first worry concerns a type of ignorance that Mariana Ortega calls loving, knowing ignorance. Loving, knowing ignorance plagues contemporary white feminist thought. It is characterized by ignorance about the work and experience of women of color, where this ignorance is accompanied by professed love for and knowledge about women of color (Ortega 2006, 57). Feminists who are lovingly, knowingly ignorant often have good intentions; they may take genuine interest in the plight of women of color, read and cite (some of) their work, and generally want to understand them (62). Despite these good intentions, these feminists nonetheless have defective or distorted understandings of women of color; their knowledge falls short of what they think it is. The work they produce, then, both contributes to the production of ignorance and misinformation about the marginalized, while simultaneously securing their position as respectable Third Wave feminists (60–63). So, work that is knowingly, lovingly ignorant does not just fail to shed light on intersectional forms of oppression—it can also obscure the need for work that does. Given the dangers of this kind of ignorance, it is crucial that this paper not leave readers with the impression that it is easy for the socially dominant to achieve marginalized standpoints. This impression would lead to the production of more loving, knowing ignorance.

The second worry pulls us in the opposite direction—if it is too difficult for the socially dominant to achieve a standpoint, then it will not actually be feasible for most dominantly situated knowers to achieve one. If this is a case, then while we do not live in a world of truly unbridgeable epistemic solitudes, our prospects are not much better. Moreover, if achieving a standpoint is not feasible for most, then it will be difficult to hold the socially dominant accountable for their ignorance.¹²

Ortega’s proposal for avoiding loving, knowing ignorance plays into the hands of this second worry. She emphasizes that things like merely theorizing about women of color, including token women of color in conferences, and reading the work of women of color, are not enough to break free of the “controlling images” that distort the socially dominant’s perception of the socially marginalized. Instead, Ortega offers world-traveling as a way for the socially dominant to escape ignorance.

The notion of world-traveling comes out of Maria Lugones’s work. World-traveling, according to Lugones, is an intensive undertaking whereby one comes to understand the “world” of another, where a “world” is composed of things like customs, language, and social meanings. According to Lugones, world-traveling enables us to “understand what it is to be [another] and what it is to be ourselves in their eyes” (Lugones 1987, 17; emphasis in original). Ortega thus sees world-traveling as opening up the possibility for white women to understand the oppression experienced by women of color (Ortega 2006, 69). However, as Ortega emphasizes, world-traveling is extremely demanding:

Rather than a nice addition to one’s manuscript, rather than being the seal that must be stamped in Third Wave feminist work, “world”-traveling has to do with actual experience; it requires tremendous commitment to practice: to actually engage in activities where one will experience what others experience; to deal with flesh and blood people, not just their theoretical constructions; to learn people’s language in order to understand them, not to use it against them; to really listen to people’s interpretations, however different they are from one’s own; and to see people as worthy of respect, rather than helpless beings. (69)

She stresses the difficulty of world-traveling because loving, knowing ignorance tends to hide itself; it is easy to think that you have escaped it when in fact you are still caught in its grip. However, if the socially dominant must successfully world-travel to escape ideological ignorance and achieve a standpoint, then the chances for the socially dominant to achieve better understanding are not especially good. Few people will have the time and resources required to successfully engage in world-traveling.

I take Ortega’s cautions seriously; treating token actions as if they were sufficient for escaping ignorance can have dangerous consequences. However, I want to refrain from concluding that world-traveling is the only way that the socially dominant could achieve a marginalized standpoint. Two considerations work against this conclusion. The first is that Lugones proposes world-traveling as a means to understand what it is like to be another person—she puts it forward as a way to see the world through someone else’s eyes. But the crux of my argument is that achieving a marginalized standpoint is not helpfully understood as achieving a marginalized perspective. You do not have to see like a marginalized person to have achieved a marginalized standpoint (indeed, there is no one way to see like a marginalized person at all). This is the point of the distinction between a “perspective” and a “standpoint” that I have emphasized throughout this paper.

The second consideration is that standpoints come in degrees. You can do more or less of the work required to escape ideological ignorance, and, so, you can make more or less headway toward achieving a standpoint. This work includes (but is not limited to) engaging with work on oppression that is written by marginalized people; questioning preconceived or stereotypical notions of marginalized people; talking with marginalized people; and reflecting on the ways that dominant ideologies shape thought. Those who do more of this work will tend to have better understanding of oppression that they don’t experience than those who do less, but even those who do a lesser amount will tend to be better off than people who do none.

Both Ortega and Uma Narayan emphasize the special importance of engaging with real, “flesh and blood” members of marginalized groups, rather than just theoretical representations of them (Ortega 2006, 69; Narayan 1988, 37; see also Frye 1983, 75). Doing so provides an opportunity for the socially dominant to check and question their evolving conceptions of marginalized people and the oppression they face—a kind of opportunity that isn’t possible through reading alone. However, it is worth noting that this kind of engagement is not without costs. As is clear from the very notion of “loving, knowing ignorance,” good intentions are not enough to prevent harm. Goodwill alone cannot undo “assumptions and attitudes born of centuries of power and privilege”—it is basically inevitable that the socially dominant will harm marginalized people through their insensitivity (Narayan 1988, 35).¹³ Despite this, it is work that is worth doing. Learning to understand and work with difference is precisely the kind of work that makes coalitionary politics possible (Narayan 1988, 34). Moreover, it is clearly the kind of work that many socially dominant people do have the time and resources to engage in.

Seeing standpoints or attainment of standpoints as coming in degrees raises one final question: How do we judge who has done enough work to have achieved a standpoint, and who is in a position to make such judgments? These are difficult questions to answer, but note that the difficulties here are not ones that are specific to judging whether a socially dominant person has achieved a standpoint. It is difficult to judge whether anyone has achieved a standpoint—and this includes cases involving marginalized individuals. Moreover, this is not the kind of difficulty that tells against striving to achieve a standpoint. Whether we can judge who achieved a standpoint is irrelevant to the claim that people can (or even should) strive for them. Thus, while developing criteria for judging who has achieved a standpoint seems like a worthwhile task, it is one that I put aside for now.¹⁴

8. Conclusion

Standpoint theorists have long been clear that marginalization does not make better understanding a given. They have been less clear, though, that social dominance does not make ignorance a given. As a result, many accounts of standpoint theory—either intentionally or unintentionally—bolster the SEDT. I have attempted to offer a way of understanding standpoint theory that does not entail that there are strong, substantive limits on what the socially dominant can know. By (1) insisting on a sharp distinction between perspective and standpoint and (2) holding that the perspectival disadvantages that correspond to social privilege do not prevent the socially dominant from achieving a marginalized standpoint, we can make sense of standpoint theorists’ poignant insights without dooming the socially dominant to ignorance. The socially dominant who engage in a struggle to develop a critical consciousness can overcome their perspectival disadvantages and achieve a marginalized standpoint.

My argument has primarily concerned whether the socially dominant can achieve the understanding that is necessary for doing insightful work on forms of oppression that they do not personally experience. I have argued that they can, but it does not follow from what I have said that the socially dominant should do this. There are two further justifications that could be invoked to justify silence on the part of the socially dominant: a methodological justification, and a moral justification.

The lynchpin of the methodological justification is the idea that you can omit discussions of intersectional forms of oppression without impairing the resulting theory. That is, those omissions do not distort the theory, even though they render the theory incomplete. Along these lines, Kate Manne suggests that we view her work as “the bare outlines, which invites filling in by theorists with the relevant epistemic and moral authority to do, should they so choose” (Manne 2018, 13). If this methodological claim is right, it could provide good reason to avoid going into “complicating” intersectional issues. Understanding the oppression experienced by others requires considerable effort—if you could do good intersectional work without expending this effort, it may be reasonable for you to do so.

Moral justifications say that, even if the relatively privileged could speak insightfully about oppression that is not their own, they ought not (see, e.g., Alcoff 1991; Manne 2018, 25). Various considerations are relevant here: given that multiply marginalized people are largely locked out of the academy, there is something insidious about relatively privileged scholars launching their careers by doing work on the very oppressive forces that prevent multiply marginalized people from having the opportunity to do that academic work themselves; when the socially dominant do work about the socially marginalized, they may contribute to—rather than challenge—cultural narratives that characterize marginalized people as passive subjects; and, in general, the socially dominant too often take up space that they shouldn’t.

I leave detailed discussion of the methodological and moral justifications for silence to future work. For now, I will briefly note that I am deeply skeptical of the methodological justification for silence, as it seems to me to be incompatible with taking the intersectional nature of oppression seriously. However, I think that the moral justification for silence raises thorny issues that cannot be brushed aside. I suspect that many people who invoke the SEDT to justify silence are really motivated by moral—rather than epistemic—concerns. The thing that I hope comes through clearly in this paper, though, is that the SEDT is not an acceptable way to navigate the moral complexities that arise when it comes to theorizing and resisting oppression that you do not personally experience. Moral considerations do not weigh decisively one way or the other: some considerations support silence; others—some of which have been sketched in this paper—do not. Finding the right path forward requires careful and detailed discussion. Invoking the SEDT cuts this discussion unduly short.¹⁵