University of Birmingham Philosophy bias and stigma Bortolotti, Lisa; Puddifoot, Kathy DOI: 10.1515/9783110650990-007 License: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Citation for published version (Harvard): Bortolotti, L & Puddifoot, K 2019, Philosophy bias and stigma. in D Bubbio & J Malpas (eds), Why Philosophy?. De Gruyter, pp. 51-64. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110650990-007 Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. •Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. •Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. •User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of ‘fair dealing’ under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) •Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain. Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive. If you believe that this is the case for this document, please contact [email protected] providing details and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate. Download date: 27. Sep. 2021 Lisa Bortolotti and Katherine Puddifoot Philosophy,Bias, and Stigma Abstract: In this chapter we discuss the impact of philosophical research on our understanding of the world. Considering twoexamples from our areas of re- search, we arguethatempiricallyinformed philosophycan help us bothreduce and control the effects of implicit bias on our behavior,and challengethe stigma associated with the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders.Inboth cases, knowledge of philosophyand practice of philosophymake asignificant contribution to the development of afairer society. 1WhatPhilosophyIsand Why It Matters We take philosophytobeatthe sametime apractice and abodyofknowledge. As apractice, philosophyinvites us to adopt acritical attitude towards received opinions and acquirethe capacity to assess and develop arguments for or against acertain position. We learn how to spot weaknesses in an argument and build counterexamples to it,but also, more constructively,welearn how to avoid bad reasoning and anticipate objections when we propose an argument for acertain position. Philosophyasapractice is useful in so far as it allows us to think about complex issues avoiding biases and fallacies, to express our thoughts more clearlyand persuasively, andtorevise our positions in the light of counterevidenceorfeedback. As abodyofknowledge,philosophyisabout gaininganunderstandingof the issues that matter to us, and to which we applythe analytical and argumen- tative skills we justdescribed. Do we have an immortal soul?Why is it wrong to have an incestual relationship?Isthere anything more to knowledge thanatrue belief justified by the evidence? These are some of the questions philosophers ask in their dailywork. In practical philosophy, we investigate ethical and polit- ical issues, and, in theoretical philosophy, we ask questions about the method- ologyofthe sciences,the nature of reality,the complexities of the human mind, and the limitations of our knowledge of the world, among manyothers. Philos- ophyasabodyofknowledge is more or less useful depending on the issues that The authorsacknowledge the support of the European Research Council under the Consolidator grant agreement number 616358for aproject called Pragmatic and Epistemic Role of Factually Erroneous Cognitions and Thoughts (PERFECT). Open Access. © 2019 Lisa Bortolotti, Katherine Puddifoot, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110650990-007 Brought to you by | University of Birmingham Authenticated Download Date | 2/24/20 3:32 PM 52 LisaBortolotti and Katherine Puddifoot we are planning to investigateand on whether we regard them as central to our understanding of reality and ourselves, or as likelytoimproveour wayoflife. In the rest of the chapter,wewould like to focus on twoareas in which phi- losophyhas playedand continues to playavery importantrole: (1) our under- standing of implicit biases, and the ways in which their effect can be controlled or reduced; and (2)our understandingofmental health, and the ways in which we can challengethe stigma thatisusuallyassociated with psychological dis- tress. 2Implicit Biases: The Phenomenon Implicit biases are responses to members of social groups (e.g., races, religions, gender,ability groups), associating group members with traits in virtue of their social group membership. They frequentlyoccur unintentionally, seemingly without the believer being aware of theiroccurrence, and are difficult to control. They can lead to the differential treatment of group members. Forexample, in astudy of implicit racial bias, Keith Payne presented images of items:either weapons,like agun, or harmless items, like atool.¹ But before presentingthese pictures,participants wereshownapicture of ablack or whiteman’sface. Those who wereshown the black face weremorelikelytomis- takenlyview the imageasaweapon thanthose who wereshownthe whiteface. Implicit biases are used to explain this phenomenon: the picture of the black faces primes people to think about violence, because they automaticallyassoci- ate black male faceswith violence. That is, they have an implicit bias associating black people with violence. As aresultofthe implicit association, they are more likelytoview the ambiguous picture of the item as violent. In another set of experimental studies on the effect of implicit bias, under- taken in Sweden, measurements weremade of the extent to which certain em- ployers associated Arab-Muslims² or obese people³ with laziness and incompe- tence. Those employers who stronglyassociated Arab-Muslims and obese people with these characteristics were less likelythan others to invitemembers of these groups to interview for ajob. By furtheringour understandingofthese and similar unconscious or unin- tended forms of bias and prejudice, recent philosophical research on implicit B. Keith Payne, 2001,pp. 181–192. Dan-Olof Rooth, 2010,pp. 523–534. Jens Agerströmand Dan-Olof Rooth, 2011, pp. 790 –805. Brought to you by | University of Birmingham Authenticated Download Date | 2/24/20 3:32 PM Philosophy,Bias,and Stigma 53 bias illustrates the substantial contribution that philosophycan make to under- standing the nature of human thought and how it influences interpersonal inter- actions. In the domain of implicit bias research philosophyisalsoatits most practical: providing insights about potential ways to reducethe implicit stereo- typing involved with implicit bias. 2.1 The PsychologyofImplicit Bias One strand of philosophicalresearch into implicit bias aims to identifythe psy- chological underpinningsofimplicit bias. It aims to answer the question, what, precisely, are implicit biases?How do implicit biases relate to better-recognized psychological states?For example, much recent philosophical discussion has aimed to answer the question: “How do implicit biases relatetobeliefs?” Forasignificant number of the years during which implicit biases have been studied,ithas been assumed in the psychological literature that they are merely associations thatpeople make in their thinking—for example, one might associ- ate social groups (e.g., women)and theirmembers with concepts(weakness)or feelings(aversion)—and that they can onlybechanged via retraining.They have been distinguishedfrom other mental states on the basis thatthe believer is often unaware of or unable to control the operation of implicit biases. These as- sociationsoften conflict with our explicitevaluations: we might explicitlyen- dorse egalitarian specific principles (e.g., all races are equal, all genders are equal) while at the sametime making associationsthat do not fit with these prin- ciples, (e.g., associating black people with laziness or women with weakness).⁴ On this characterization of implicit biasesthey seemdifferent to beliefs. Beliefstendtoinvolveacommitmenttoathought, to respond to argument and evidence,⁵ whilemakinganunconscious andautomatic association does not requirecommitmentand theassociation is unlikely to respondtoargumen- tation. If someone believes thatwomen are weak then one might engagethem in adebate or present evidence of strong women. Forexample, one might say, “Look at me,” while flexing one’smuscles lifting something heavy,toillustrate that youare astrong woman. In contrast, if someonehas an implicit bias asso- ciating women with weakness then, accordingtothosewho think thatimplicit biases are mere associations, one should encouragethatperson to engagein See, e.g., John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner,2004,pp. 1–52. Tamar SzabóGendler, “Alief and Belief,” 2008,