Implicit bias: a sin of omission? (penultimate draft)

Implicit intergroup biases have been shown to impact social behavior in many unsettling ways, from disparities in decisions to “shoot” black and white men in a computer simulation to unequal gender-based evaluations of résumés and CVs. It is a difficult question whether, and in what way, agents are responsible for behaviors affected by implicit biases. I argue that in paradigmatic cases agents are responsible for these behaviors in the sense that the behavior is “attributable” to them. That is, behaviors affected by implicit biases reflect upon who one is as a moral agent.

Research programs in empirical psychology from the past two decades have revealed implicit biases. Although implicit processes are pervasive, unavoidable, and often useful aspects of our cognitions, they may also lead us into error. The most problematic forms of implicit cognition are those which target social groups, encoding stereotypes or reflecting prejudicial evaluative hierarchies. Despite intentions to the contrary, implicit biases can influence our behaviours and judgements, contributing to patterns of discriminatory behaviour. These patterns of discrimination are obviously wrong and unjust. But in remedying such wrongs, one question to be addressed concerns responsibility for implicit bias. Unlike some paradigmatic forms of wrongdoing, such discrimination is often unintentional, unendorsed, and perpetrated without awareness; and the harms are particularly damaging because they are cumulative and collectively perpetrated. So, what are we to make of questions of responsibility? In this article, we outline some of the main lines of recent philosophical thought, which address questions of responsibility for implicit bias. We focus on (a) the kind of responsibility at issue; (b) revisionist versus non-revisionist conceptions of responsibility as applied to implicit bias; and (c) individual, institutional, and collective responsibility for implicit bias.

2015

Implicit Bias is the automatic and unconscious tendency to associate certain traits with members of particular groups, which affect judgements and/or interactions with members from the denoted group. In philosophy the concept of Implicit Bias has often been treated as a thick normative (negative) concept, which I refute in my paper. My suggestion is that Implicit Bias, when it is wrong, is wrong because of wrongful discrimination.

Synthese, 2023

In this paper, I argue that instead of primarily paying attention to the nature of implicit attitudes that are taken to cause implicit discrimination, we should investigate how discrimination can be implicit in itself. I propose to characterize implicit discrimination as unintentional discrimination: the person responds to facts unintentionally and often unconsciously which are, given their end, irrelevant and imply unfair treatment. The result is a unified account of implicit bias that allows for the different ways in which it can display itself and can be explained. Furthermore, the view can account for the central characteristics of implicit bias: (1) that it is, for a variety of reasons, difficult to control, (2) that we are not necessarily unconscious of implicit bias but not properly conscious either, and (3) that we can unintentionally discriminate regardless of whether we claim to care about fairness.

The term 'implicit bias' has very swiftly been incorporated into philosophical discourse. Our aim in this paper is to scrutinise the phenomena that fall under the rubric of implicit bias. The term is often used in a rather broad sense, to capture a range of implicit social cognitions, and this is useful for some purposes. However, we here articulate some of the important functional differences between phenomena identified as instances of implicit bias. We caution against ignoring these differences: it is likely they have considerable significance, not least for the sorts of normative recommendations being made concerning how to mitigate the bad effects of implicit bias.

Are individuals responsible for behaviour that is implicitly biased? Implicitly biased actions are those which manifest the distorting influence of implicit associations. That they express these 'implicit' features of our cognitive and motivational make up has been appealed to in support of the claim that, because individuals lack the relevant awareness of their morally problematic discriminatory behaviour, they are not responsible for behaving in ways that manifest implicit bias. However, the claim that such influences are implicit is, in fact, not straightforwardly related to the claim that individuals lack awareness of the morally problematic dimensions of their behaviour. Nor is it clear that lack of awareness does absolve from responsibility. This may depend on whether individuals culpably fail to know something that they should know. I propose that an answer to this question, in turn, depends on whether other imperfect cognitions are implicated in any lack of the relevant kind of awareness.

An Introduction to Implicit Bias: Knowledge, Justice, and the Social Mind, 2020

Written by a diverse range of scholars, this accessible introductory volume asks: What is implicit bias? How does implicit bias compromise our knowledge of others and social reality? How does implicit bias affect us, as individuals and participants in larger social and political institutions, and what can we do to combat biases? An interdisciplinary enterprise, the volume brings together the philosophical perspective of the humanities with the perspective of the social sciences to develop rich lines of inquiry. It is written in a non-technical style, using relatable examples that help readers understand what implicit bias is, its significance, and the controversies surrounding it. Each chapter includes discussion questions and additional reading suggestions. A companion webpage contains teaching resources. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students—and researchers—seeking to understand criticisms surrounding implicit bias, as well as how one might answer them by adopting a more nuanced understanding of bias and its role in maintaining social injustice.

Hypatia Reviews Online, 2018

Implicit Bias and Philosophy, volume 2: Moral Responsibility, Structural Injustice, and Ethics is the second in a two-part collection addressing philosophical issues arising out of psychological research on implicit bias. Implicit biases are automatic and unintentional forms of cognition that associate members of social groups with traits or affective responses, and sometimes operate under the radar of consciousness. The collection derives from a series of workshops held at the University of Sheffield in 2011-2012. The workshops played a significant role in shaping the direction of research in the philosophy of implicit bias. Because of the length of time between the workshops and the publication of the volume, many of the chapters in the collection are already influential in the field, and the collection as a whole comprehensively covers a wide range of important philosophical and practical issues.

Implicit biases are automatic associations, often operational without the reflective awareness of the agent, which influence action. This influence can be malign -affecting negatively individuals' evaluations and judgements of, and interactions with, individuals in stereotyped or stigmatized groups (social identities such as race, gender, religious identity, age, mental illness have all been studied). The effects may be relatively minor: implicit biases can increase the number of times one blinks her eyes when interacting with a member of another race, which in turn can degrade the quality of those interracial interactions. Or the effects may be of grave consequence, such as increasing the likelihood of shooting a black man reaching for an ambiguous object (could be a gun, could be a wallet or mobile phone). Both kinds of effects systemically contribute to and re-entrench patterns of discrimination and marginalization. In the studies that have proliferated on implicit bias, one outcome is indisputable -almost all of us harbour, and are influenced by, some kinds of implicit bias, to some degree. Our focus here is on whether, when influenced by implicit biases, those behavioural dispositions should be understood as being a part of that person's character: whether they are part of the agent that can be morally evaluated.