Implicit Bias and the Idealized Rational Self

The underrepresentation of women, people of color, and especially women of color—and the corresponding overrepresentation of white men—is more pronounced in philosophy than in many of the sciences. I suggest that part of the explanation for this lies in the role played by the idealized rational self, a concept that is relatively influential in philosophy but rarely employed in the sciences. The idealized rational self models the mind as consistent, unified, rationally transcendent, and introspectively transparent. I hypothesize that acceptance of the idealized rational self leads philosophers to underestimate the influence of implicit bias on their own judgments and prevents them from enacting the reforms necessary to minimize the effects of implicit bias on institutional decision-making procedures. I consider recent experiments in social psychology that suggest that an increased sense of one’s own objectivity leads to greater reliance on bias in hiring scenarios, and I hypothesize how these results might be applied to philosophers’ evaluative judgments. I discuss ways that the idealized rational self is susceptible to broader critiques of ideal theory, and I consider some of the ways that the picture functions as a tool of active ignorance and color-evasive racism

Strategic Source Evaluation: Addressing the Container Conundrum

Purpose This paper argues that information containers provide valuable context clues that can help students make choices about how to engage with information content. The authors present a strategic approach to source evaluation rooted in format and authority threshold concepts. Design/methodology/approach The authors developed a source evaluation strategy with the objective of deciding whether to trust an information source. This strategy involves a set of cues to help readers mindfully engage with both the container and content of a given source. Findings When conducting research, non-experts are asked to evaluate content in the absence of relevant subject expertise. The cues presented in this paper offer practical tactics informed by the concepts of authority (to help make an accessible judgment of intellectual trust) and format (to help make more informed decisions about the content they find in a browser). Originality/value While librarians have produced many evaluative models and checklists to help students evaluate information, this paper contributes a unique strategic approach grounded in two information literacy threshold concepts – format and authority – and enacted through a series of actions drawn from website evaluation models, fact-checking, and metacognitive exercises

A Fresh Look at Tests for Nonliteral Copyright Infringement

Determining whether a copyright has been infringed is often straightforward in cases involving verbatim copying or slavish imitation. But when there are no literal similarities between the works at issue, ruling on infringement claims becomes more difficult. The Second and Ninth Circuits have developed five similar yet distinct tests for judging nonliteral copyright infringement. This Essay argues that each of these tests is flawed and that courts have generally failed to provide clear guidance about which test to apply in which kinds of cases. This Essay offers seven specific strategies to improve the analysis of nonliteral infringements. Courts should do more, for instance, to tailor infringement analysis based on the nature of the works at issue (that is, are they fanciful or artistic works or are they factual or functional?). The goal of this Essay is to offer these strategies as a way to bring greater coherence and consistency to the determination of nonliteral infringements, and to do so in a manner that properly balances the interests of first and subsequent generations of creators

Feminist Judicial Decision-Making as Judicial Decision-Making: A Legitimate and Valuable Approach?

Feminist legal scholars argue that the rigid, formalist approach towards judicial decision-making is potentially harmful to the lives, experiences, and interests of women.  In critically analysing a feminist re-judgement within Feminist Judgments From Theory to Practice, this dissertation argues that the Feminist Judgments Project represents a legitimate and valuable approach, which effectively re-imagines judicial decision-making in line with women’s interests. This dissertation reinforces feminist judicial decision-making as a more responsive form of judgment making particularly for vulnerable and marginalised women whom regularly experience and are subjected to traditional judicial approaches. Further, the dissertation argues that feminist judicial decision-making constitutes a legitimate and valuable approach despite considerable criticism levelled at this methodology and judges who openly hold feminist beliefs. The dissertation positions the Feminist Judgments Project within the context of the legal realist approach to judicial decision-making, which serves as a critique of the formalist approach to judicial decision-making. The dissertation's analysis of the feminist re-judgment of R v Dhaliwal (R v D)[1] aims to promote the Feminist Judgments Project’s methodological approach as a mode of judicial best practice. This dissertation concludes that feminist judicial decision-making is a legitimate and valuable approach which recognises social inequalities and amplifies marginalised communities, whilst also remaining faithful to legal conventions

A critique of Tractarian semantics

This is a critique of the principal claims made within Ludwig Wittgenstein\u27s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It traces the development of his thought from the time he dictated the pre-Tractarian Notes on Logic to Russell up until about 1932 when he began work on the Philosophical Grammar. The influence exercised upon him by Frege, Russell and Moore are considered at length. Chapter one examines Moore\u27s relational theory of judgment which Wittgenstein apparently accepted upon his arrival at Cambridge in 1911. From Moore Wittgenstein would inherit one of the fundamental metaphysical theses of the Tractatus, namely, that the world consists of facts rather than things. Wittgenstein\u27s attempt to overcome the relational theory\u27s inability to account for falsehood, negation, and the possibility of truly ascribing false beliefs to others would herald some of the principal theses of Tractarian semantics: that propositional signs must exhibit bipolarity, that a distinction must be drawn between Sinn and Bedeutung, and that a distinction holds between what can be said and what can only be shown. Chapter Two examines how these theses are sharpened by considering the influence of Frege and the manner in which Wittgenstein disposes of Russell\u27s Paradox. considerable attention is given to the issue of whether Frege is to be interpreted as a semantic Platonist. It is argued that he is not, and that Tractarian semantics shores up the problematic features of Frege\u27s philosophy which make it susceptible to the paradox. From Frege Wittgenstein derives the idea that all representation requires a structured medium. The chapter concludes by considering how this entails the falsehood of semantic Platonism. Chapter Three studies Wittgenstein\u27s argument for logical atomism and gives it a favorable assessment. The influence of Russell\u27s conception of logical analysis is considered. The chapter concludes by showing the way Wittgenstein\u27s thesis that there must be simple subsistent objects depends upon the truth of his Grundgedanke, i.e., the claim that the logical constants are not referring terms. Chapter Four examines the argument for the Grundgedanke, and defends it against criticism based upon phenomenological considerations for objectifying negativity. It is demonstrated that Wittgenstein\u27s view entails that a distinction must be drawn between propositions possessing sense and those that are senseless but no less a part of our language. Chapter Five examines Wittgenstein\u27s claim that the essence of a proposition consists in a propositional sign\u27s projective relation to the world, and it considers the Tractarian analysis of propositional attitude ascriptions. It is argued that the analysis of these sorts of sentences forms the principal problem with the Tractatus. The chapter includes a discussion of why the Color Exclusion Problem need not be considered problematic for the author of the Tractatus, and it defends the realistic interpretation given of the Tractatus throughout the dissertation against criticisms arising from a consideration of Wittgenstein\u27s remarks on solipsism

‘Do you understand how much I have transgressed here?’: interrogating dynamics and consequences of noticing in the post-colonial legal self

This paper explores conditions of noticing through reflective analysis of emerging awareness in the postcolonial legal self. By unpacking Lithuanian judges’ involvement with popular culture, I explore how theatrical jurisprudence as performed through judges contributes to the transformation of understanding about the judicial role both for judges and the researcher. Since 1990 when Lithuania started a transition from a totalitarian system to democracy, the role of a judge is undergoing substantial change. In the reflexive analysis of data collected from interviews and focus group discussions with Lithuanian judges, I interweave post-colonial theories insights with theatrical jurisprudence to take implications of post-colonial legal identity seriously. In this paper, I clarify how awareness of a body (trans)forms an understanding of the judicial role and the consequences of body negation. I explore the inability to notice the law’s effects and consequences of judges whom I identified as body ignorant. Also, while emerging awareness of a body for judges acts transformative, I argue that embrace of a body is insufficient to foster the ability to notice injustice in the conditions created on the tension between the fiction and reality. I am indebted to theatrical jurisprudence (Leiboff, 2019) for being able to register a sacrifice of a courageous Lithuanian judge who through his transgressions created conditions for noticing injustice of instrumental law and algorithmic judging. In the context of transition from dogma to practice, responses to Judge Brook’s theatrical challenges animate not just post-Soviet legality but also a wider shift towards the digital legalities

Construction and evaluation of a scale for creative writing.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Susan Stebbing’s logical interventionism

We examine a contribution L. Susan Stebbing made to the understanding of critical thinking and its relation to formal logic. Stebbing took expertise in formal logic to authorise logical intervention in public debate, specifically in assessing of the validity of everyday reasoning. She held, however, that formal logic is purely the study of logical form. Given the problems of ascertaining logical form in any particular instance, and that logical form does not always track informal validity, it is difficult to see how she could justify her belief in logical interventionism. Her answer to this problem is the contribution we explore here. It involves the view that although the logician’s expertise is not sufficient to assess arguments made in everyday contexts on its own, it nevertheless plays a unique role in giving systematicity and direction to the critique of such arguments, in particular, in public debate.PostprintPeer reviewe

To Begin at the Beginning: Wittgenstein and the Problem of Metaphysics

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