ABSTRACT

What attitude does someone manifesting implicit bias really have? According to the default representationalist picture, implicit bias involves having conflicting attitudes (explicit versus implicit) with respect to the topic at hand. In opposition to this orthodoxy, dispositionalists argue that attitudes should be understood as higher-level dispositional features of the person as a whole. Following this metaphysical view, the discordance characteristic of implicit bias shows that someone’s attitude regarding the topic at hand is not-fully-manifested or ‘in-between’. However, so far few representationalists have been convinced by dispositionalist arguments, largely because dispositionalism cannot provide explanations in terms of underlying processes. We argue that if dispositionalism wants to be a genuine contender, it should make clear what it has to offer in terms of understanding of implicit bias. As a concrete proposal, we combine dispositionalist metaphysics with the idea that our normative practices of attitude ascription partly determine what it means to have an attitude. We show that such regulative dispositionalism can account for two prominent normative features of implicit bias. We conclude by suggesting that in order to engage in a meaningful debate with representationalism, dispositionalists might have to put the question ‘what counts as a good explanation?’ back on the table.

摘要

真正表现出隐性偏见的人是什么态度有？根据默认的代表性主义图片，隐性偏见涉及对手头的主题有冲突的态度（显性与隐性）。与这种正统观念相反，性格主义者认为态度应该被理解为整个人的更高层次的性格特征。按照这种形而上学的观点，隐性偏见的不一致特征表明，某人对手头话题的态度并未完全表现出来或“介于两者之间”。然而，到目前为止，很少有表征主义者被倾向主义论点说服，这主要是因为倾向主义不能提供关于潜在过程的解释。我们认为，如果倾向主义想要成为一个真正的竞争者，它应该清楚地说明它在理解隐性偏见方面必须提供什么。作为一个具体的建议，我们将倾向主义形而上学与我们的态度归属的规范实践部分地决定了拥有态度的意义的想法结合起来。我们证明了这样的调节性倾向主义可以解释隐性偏见的两个突出的规范特征。我们最后建议，为了与再现主义进行有意义的辩论，倾向主义者可能不得不提出“什么才是好的解释？”这个问题。回到桌子上。