Introduction: In Kant’s moral philosophy, the imperative is perched precariously between two realms governed by the indicative form of speech. In the Critique of Pure Reason, it reminds us of an intelligible, rational realm beyond that governed by descriptive causal explanation. But in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, it reminds us of the sensible pull of causality that frequently leads us to violate its intelligible principles. Correspondingly, Kant approaches the moral law from two directions in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. When he is explaining moral motivation, he describes and refers to the moral law as an imperative, because this is the form it takes for causally enmeshed human beings. But when he is analyzing its rational formal structure and situating it within his broader analysis of reason, he formulates the moral law in the indicative mood, because this is the form it takes for perfectly rational beings. The vast majority of Kant’s actual formulations of the moral law in the Groundwork are not in the imperative. Of 47 formulations to be found in the text, only four are in the strict imperative. Of those four, only the first receives extended analysis. Of the remaining 43, 31 are expressed in the indicative mood. So two-thirds of Kant’s formulations of the moral law in the Groundwork are descriptive rather than prescriptive. These serve to buttress his repeated reminder that for agents as members of the intelligible world, the “I ought” becomes an “I will”. In the Groundwork, Kant usually addresses us as members of that world.

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. Indeed, many standpoint theorists have implicitly committed themselves to what I call the strong epistemic disadvantage thesis. According to this thesis, there are strong, substantive limits on what the socially dominant can know about oppression that they do not personally experience. I argue that this thesis is not just implausible but politically pernicious; it is an excuse for ignorance and silence that stifles our ability to address many injustices. Moreover, I argue that if we are to avoid lending support to the SEDT while working within a standpoint theory framework, we must hold that the socially dominant can achieve marginalized standpoints. So, we must hold that men can achieve feminist standpoints, that white women (and men) can achieve black feminist standpoints, and so on.

In this paper, Harding demonstrates how starting inquiry from the lives of the marginalized is a prerequisite to what she calls "Strong objectivity". She outlines the central arguments for feminist standpoint theories and contrasts them with the objectivist ideals of traditional science, who, she argues, are only able to achieve weak objectivity.

Standpoint epistemology is committed to a cluster of views that pays special attention to the role of social identity in knowledge-acquisition. Of particular interest here is the situated knowledge thesis. This thesis holds that for certain propositions p, whether an epistemic agent is in a position to know that p depends on some nonepistemic facts related to the epistemic agent’s social identity. In this article, I examine two possible ways to interpret this thesis. My first goal here is to clarify existing interpretations of this thesis that appear in the litera- ture but that are undeveloped and often mistakenly conflated. In so doing, I aim to make clear the different versions of standpoint epistemology that one might accept and defend.This project is of significance, I argue, because standpoint epistemology provides helpful tools for understanding a phenomenon of recent interest: epistemic oppression. My second goal is to provide an analysis that makes clear how each of the readings I put forth can be used to illuminate forms of epistemic oppression.