ABSTRACT
This chapter is about coming to grips with the Subjectivity Problem, something that any theory of microaggression will have to deal with. It argues that, to make progress, the people need to break from Pierce’s and Sue’s focus on the unconscious motivations of microaggression perpetrators. The chapter provides an introduction of one final problem for the Motivational Account, one which the author think drives many microaggression skeptics. Plausible skepticism does not deny that subtle oppression happens frequently, only that the people have a reliable way of identifying particular cases. First, the Ambiguous Experience Account avoids Diagnostic Skepticism. Second, the Ambiguous Experience Account recognizes the expertise of marginalized people without attributing implausible knowledge to them. For marginalized people experts on oppression what makes a microaggression is indeed in the eye of the beholder. Third, the Ambiguous Experience Account avoids making our moral verdicts dependent on ruling out tragic coincidences.
