Implicit Bias workshop

Workshop: Philosophical perspectives on Implicit Bias 

Research in social psychology shows that we may be “implicitly biased.” That is, we may exhibit behaviours that reflect prejudices that we sincerely disavow. This puzzling phenomenon raises philosophical and practical questions that are currently a topic of much debate:   What methods do social psychologists use to test for implicit bias and how credible are they? Implicit bias and other “implicit” behaviours are in tension with our rationality, so what kind of psychological processes give rise to them? Are they arational, outside the realm of reason altogether, or are they rational but impaired or flawed? To what extent are we aware or unaware of our implicit biases? And to what extent and in what way are we responsible for them? How useful is the category of implicit bias and the way it is used to explain inequalities in our society in the struggle against such inequalities?

SCHEDULE

9:30-10:45 Michael Brownstein (CUNY): Understanding Implicit Bias: Putting the Criticism into Perspective  

10:45-12:00 Fiona Jenkins (ANU): Unconscious Bias, Gender Equality and Social Contracts  

12:00-1:30 Lunch (own arrangements)  

1:30-2:50 Talia Morag (Deakin): Implicit bias and the Unconscious  

2:50-4:10 Neil Levy (Macquarie, Oxford): Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink: Nudging is giving reasons  

4:10-5:30 Katrina Hutchison (Macquarie): Responsibility for implicit biases: reflections on the case of women in surgery