Extended Implicit Bias: When the Metaphysics and Ethics of Implicit Bias Collide

Erkenntnis 88 (8):3457-3478 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

It has recently been argued that to tackle social injustice, implicit biases and unjust social structures should be targeted equally because they sustain and ontologically overlap with each other. Here I develop this thought further by relating it to the hypothesis of extended cognition. I argue that if we accept common conditions for extended cognition then people’s implicit biases are often partly realized by and so extended into unjust social structures. This supports the view that we should counteract psychological and social contributors to injustice equally. But it also has a significant downside. If unjust social structures are part of people’s minds then dismantling these structures becomes more difficult than it currently is, as this will then require us to overcome widely accepted ethical and legal barriers protecting people’s bodily and personal integrity. Thus, while there are good grounds to believe that people’s biases and unjust social structures ontologically overlap, there are also strong ethical reasons to reject this view. Metaphysical and ethical intuitions about implicit bias hence collide in an important way.

Similar books and articles

The Heterogeneity of Implicit Bias.Jules Holroyd & Joseph Sweetman - forthcoming - In Michael Brownstein & Jennifer Saul (eds.), Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Volume 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology. New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
Implicit bias: a sin of omission?Marie Https://Orcidorg van Loon - 2021 - Philosophical Explorations 24 (3):325-336.
Ranking Exercises in Philosophy and Implicit Bias.Jennifer Saul - 2012 - Journal of Social Philosophy 43 (3):256-273.
Sin and Implicit Bias.Leigh C. Vicens - 2018 - Journal of Analytic Theology 6:100-111.
Responsibility for Implicit Bias.Jules Holroyd - 2012 - Journal of Social Philosophy 43 (3):274-306.
Epistemic Duty and Implicit Bias.Lindsay Rettler & Bradley Rettler - 2020 - In Kevin McCain & Scott Stapleford (eds.), Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles. New York: Routledge. pp. 125-145.
Cognition and the Structure of Bias.Gabbrielle Johnson - 2019 - Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles
Beliefs and biases.Shannon Spaulding - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):7575-7594.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-12-22

Downloads
436 (#34,808)

6 months
115 (#17,416)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Uwe Peters
University of Cambridge

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The extended mind.Andy Clark & David J. Chalmers - 1998 - Analysis 58 (1):7-19.
The Bounds of Cognition.Frederick Adams & Kenneth Aizawa (eds.) - 2008 - Malden, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
The Imperative of Integration.Elizabeth Anderson - 2010 - Princeton University Press.

View all 36 references / Add more references