The Specter of Normative Conflict: Does Fairness Require Inaccuracy?

In Erin Beeghly & Alex Madva (eds.), An Introduction to Implicit Bias: Knowledge, Justice, and the Social Mind. Routledge. pp. 191-210 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

A challenge we face in a world that has been shaped by, and continues to be shaped by, racist attitudes and institutions is that the evidence is often stacked in favor of racist beliefs. As a result, we may find ourselves facing the following conflict: what if the evidence we have supports something we morally shouldn’t believe? For example, it is morally wrong to assume, solely on the basis of someone’s skin color, that they’re a staff member. But, what if you’re in a context where, because of historical patterns of discrimination, someone’s skin color is a very good indicator that they’re a staff member? When this sort of normative conflict looms, a conflict between moral considerations on the one hand and what you epistemically ought to believe given the evidence on the other, what should we do? It might be unfair to assume that they’re a staff member, but to ignore the evidence would mean risking inaccurate beliefs. Some, notably Tamar Gendler (2011), have suggested that we simply face a tragic irresolvable dilemma. In this chapter, I consider how these cases of conflict arise and I canvass the viability of suggested resolutions of the conflict. In the end, I argue that there’s actually no conflict here. Moral considerations can change how we epistemically should respond to the evidence.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

A functional taxonomy of normative conflict.H. Hamner Hill - 1987 - Law and Philosophy 6 (2):227-247.
Beliefs That Wrong.Rima Basu - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Southern California
The Ring of Gyges: Overridingness and the Unity of Reason.David Copp - 1997 - Social Philosophy and Policy 14 (1):86-106.
The wrongs of racist beliefs.Rima Basu - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2497-2515.
Moral Pluralism and Conflict.Ferrell Jason - 2014 - Journal of Political Science 42.
Rights, Duties, and Moral Conflicts.Biasetti Pierfrancesco - 2014 - Etica E Politica (2):1042-1062.
The Moral Necessity of Moral Conflict in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.Jim Vernon - 2008 - Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 13 (1):67-80.
Wide-Scope Requirements and the Ethics of Belief.Berit Brogaard - 2014 - In Jonathan Matheson & Rico Vitz (eds.), The Ethics of Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 130–145.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-06-19

Downloads
1,937 (#2,867)

6 months
181 (#4,414)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Rima Basu
Claremont McKenna College

References found in this work

What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing.Miranda Fricker - 2007 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2011 - Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and Practical Interests.Jason Stanley - 2005 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge in an Uncertain World.Jeremy Fantl & Matthew McGrath - 2009 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

View all 39 references / Add more references