When Silencing Hurts: Epistemic Violence and the Ethics of Punitive Non-Reception

This paper develops a mechanism-focused ethical account of a recurring institutional failure mode: punitive non-reception. Punitive non-reception occurs when distress disclosure is met with procedural distance, credibility deflation, or access narrowing — not as a one-off interpersonal misattunement, but as a repeatable response pattern under risk governance rationality. The central claim is that punitive non-reception can operate as a self-reinforcing feedback loop in high-risk contexts. The paper integrates work on epistemic injustice and epistemic violence, ableism and disability ethics, moral injury and institutional betrayal, and stress dysregulation. It also draws a careful boundary between affective use of conversational systems and clinical pathology, warning against stigmatizing spillover. The paper concludes by articulating a minimal ethic of reception: in foreseeable-risk contexts, non-punitive and accessibility-aware reception pathways are not optional.