Citation

Mugg J. Soc. Epistomiol. 2020; 34(3): 253-264.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/02691728.2019.1705935

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Race is often epistemically relevant, but encoding racial stereotypes can lead to implicitly biased behavior. Thus, given the way race structures society, it seems to be impossible to be both epistemically rational and moral. While some suggest that we need to revise our accounts of moral and epistemic normativity to avoid this dilemma, others offer the more modest reply that epistemic agents might decrease the accessibility of stereotypes such that the epistemically rational agent only retrieves the information when that information is relevant to their context. I argue that this reply fails because (1) stereotype information must be activated when agents consider whether that information is relevant, (2) epistemically rational agents should consider the existence of stereotype-threat in their judgments about how individuals will perform, and (3) relying on biases is necessary for epistemic agents with limited cognitive resources.

Language: en

Keywords

Implicit bias; implicit racism; rationality; stereotype