IMPLICITLY RACIST EPISTEMOLOGY

Abstract

This essay explores why examples of mainstream philosophy of cognition and applied phenomenology demonstrate the implicit bias that they treat as their subject matter, whether the authors of these works intend or approve of their doing so. It is shown why egalitarian intuitions, which form the basis for ideal models of justice appealing to elites in racially stratified societies, provide an inadequate framework for illuminating and dismantling the mechanics of racial discrimination. Recently developed results in social choice theory are applied here to cases where racial bias is perpetuated through institutionally orchestrated collective decision making. The “discursive dilemma” theorem suggests why the analysis of subliminal attitudes is irrelevant to correcting the racial injustices presumed to follow from implicit bias in societies where negative racial stereotypes, ostensibly and explicitly deplored, are covertly and illicitly reinforced.

Keywords:

• colour-blind racist ideology
• implicit bias
• laissez-faire racism
• racial oppression
• whiteness
• black self-identity

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

The author is grateful for the critical observations of Abraham Olivier, Elvis Imafidon and Pedro Tabensky regarding the use of “phenomenology” in an earlier draft of this paper, at the 4th Annual International Conference “Justice and the Other,” 24–26 Mar. 2017, organized by the Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa, Eastern Cape; to Helen A. Neville for conversations at the University of Dar es Salaam, 2016, and to Anna Welphingus at the “Ignorance and (Non)-Ideal Theory” workshop, Sept. 2017, at Humboldt University, Berlin. Special thanks are due to Kirk Ludwig for drawing attention to the discursive dilemma theorem and its possible relevance to errors sustained by global scientific consensus, at the “From Minimal to Complex Collective Actions” workshop, Sept. 2017, University of Milan.

1 “Autonomic” processes are typically unconscious and under the control of the nervous system that is responsible for respiratory, digestive and endocrinal functions.

2 This point follows a lead suggested by L. Jonathan Cohen’s more germane arguments for why human irrationality cannot be demonstrated experimentally.

3 The concern raised in section 3 over the self-refutation of positing a kind of existence solely on the basis of there being a certain type of knowledge which only members belonging to that kind can ever have access to, follows from David M. Rosenthal’s more fundamental objections to the defence of subjectivity as an irreducible type of knowledge famously offered by Thomas Nagel.

4 The relevance of List’s theorem to the impact of illicit laissez-faire racist norms is owed to Kurt Ludwig’s generously drawing my attention to the discursive dilemma as applicable to the discord between global scientific consensuses with individual scientists’ best judgments.

5 The psychologists whose cutting-edge work is cited throughout this essay focus their research on the predicament of individuals negatively affected by racial privilege and power.

6 Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old high school student visiting relatives in a gated community, was shot dead in February 2012 by a neighbourhood security watch captain. The assailant was brought to trial in March only after nationwide rallies and a public petition with 3.5 million signatures. After four months the assailant was acquitted of all charges on grounds of self-defence. The narrative remains an icon of racial disparity in criminal casework endemic to the US justice system (CNN).