Details

Subject(s)

• Knowledge, Theory of. [Browse]
• Philosophy [Browse]

Series

• Oxford Academic. [More in this series]
• Oxford scholarship online

Summary note

This book is a philosophical exploration of bias and our practices of attributing it. It develops and defends the norm-theoretic account of bias, according to which objectionable biases involve systematic departures from objective norms or standards of correctness. It explores the perspectival character of bias attributions, or the ways in which our views about which people and sources of information are biased about a topic are influenced and constrained, both rationally and psychologically, by our views about the topic itself. The book defends a robust pluralism about bias, according to which a radical diversity of things are genuinely biased, with none of these more fundamental than all of the rest. Biases of people are understood as multiply realizable dispositions to depart from objective norms. It offers a novel account of the bias blind spot, or our tendency to fail to see bias in ourselves in a way that we see it in others. It explores the connections between bias and central topics in the theory of knowledge, including truth, knowledge, rationality, reliability, introspection, skepticism, and disagreement. A number of racial conclusions are defended: that both rationality and morality sometimes require us to be biased; that in many cases of disagreement, we are rationally required to view those who disagree with us as biased, even if we know nothing about how they arrived at their views or why they hold them; and that even God could not have made us reliable detectors of our own biases through introspection.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Source of description

Description based on Publisher website; title from home page (viewed on October 07, 2022).

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. A Familiar Phenomenon
• 2. The Philosophy of Bias: Expanding the Playing Field
• 3. Apology
• I . CONCEPTUAL FUNDAMENTALS
• 1. Diversity, Relativity, Etc.
• 1. Diversity
• 2. Relativity
• 3. Directionality
• 4. Bias about Bias
• 5. Biased Representation
• 6. Parts and Wholes
• 2. Pluralism and Priority
• 1. Explanatory Priority
• 2. Are People (Ever) the Fundamental Carriers of Bias?
• 3. Processes and Outcomes
• 4. Unbiased Outcomes from Biased Processes?
• 5. Biased Outcomes from Unbiased Processes?
• 6. Pluralism
• II. BIAS AND NORMS
• 3. The Norm-Theoretic Account of Bias
• 1. The Diversity of Norms
• 2. Disagreement
• 3. The Perspectival Character of Bias Attributions
• 4. When Norms Conflict
• 4. The Bias Blind Spot and the Biases of Introspection
• 1. The Introspection Illusion as a Source of the Bias Blind Spot
• 2. Why We're More Likely to See People as Biased When They Disagree with Us
• 3. Is It a Contingent Fact That Introspection is an Unreliable Way of Telling Whether You're Biased?
• 4. How the Perspectival Account Explains the Bias Blind Spot, as Well as the Biases of Introspection
• 5. Against "Naïve Realism", For Inevitability
• 5. Biased People
• 1. Biases as Dispositions
• 2. Bias as a Thick Evaluative Concept
• 3. Biased Believers, Biased Agents
• 4. Biased Agents, Unreliable Agents
• 5. Overcompensation
• 6. Norms of Objectivity
• 1. Some Varieties
• 2. Constitutive Norms of Objectivity
• 3. Following the Argument Wherever It Leads
• 7. Symmetry and Bias Attributions
• 1. Two Challenges
• 2. Norms without Bias?
• 3. Symmetry
• 4. Bias without Norms?
• 5. Pejorative vs. Non-Pejorative Attributions of Bias
• I I I . BIAS AND KNOWLEDGE
• 8. Bias and Knowledge
• 1. Biased Knowing
• 2. Can Biased Beliefs Be Knowledge?
• 3. Are Biases Essential to Knowing?
• 4. Knowledge and Symmetry
• 5. How and When Bias Excludes Knowledge: A Proposal
• 9. Knowledge, Skepticism, and Reliability
• 1. Biased Knowing and Philosophical Methodology
• 2. Are We Biased Against Skepticism?
• 3. Reliability and Contingency
• 4. A Tale of Three Thinkers
• 10. Bias Attributions and the Epistemology of Disagreement
• 1. On Attributing Bias to Those Who Disagree with Us3
• 2. The Case for Skepticism
• 3. Against Skepticism
• 11. Main Themes and Conclusions
• 1. Five Themes
• 2. Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index.

Show 66 more Contents items

Other format(s)

Also available in Print and PDF edition.

ISBN

• 9780191925566
• 019192556X
• 9780192654601
• 0192654608
• 9780192654618
• 0192654616

Doi

• 10.1093/oso/9780192842954.001.0001

Statement on responsible collection description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...