Philosophy Stapledon Seminar Series - Neil Levy, Oxford: Am I Racist?
3:00pm - 5:00pm /
Monday 14th March 2016
Type: Lecture /
Category: Department
- Daniel Hill
- Admission: Free. No registration needed
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The School of the Arts and the Department of Philosophy are delighted to present to you: Neil Levy, Oxford: Am I Racist?
There is good (though still controversial) evidence that ordinary agents harbour implicit attitudes that are sometimes at odds with their explicit beliefs. Many white Americans, for instance, exhibit an implicit bias against black people. Assuming that they are sincere in professing non-racist beliefs, are they racist? There are three influential models of racism in the literature: doxastic, behavioural, and affective. I will consider whether such agents are racist, measured against the standard each provides. I will argue that given the best evidence of the nature of implicit attitudes, they should be assessed as largely though not exclusively non-racist against the doxastic and behavioural standard, while the affective standard delivers a more mixed verdict.
Neil Levy is Deputy Director (Research) of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, and Head of Neuroethics at the Florey Neuroscience Institutes, University of Melbourne. Having been awarded Ph.Ds from Monash University in Continental and Analytic Philosophy, Professor Levy worked as a Principal Research Fellow for CAPPE (Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, then as a James Martin Research Fellow for the Oxford-based Programme on the Ethics of the New Biosciences. Neil Levy’s work ranges across the entire spectrum of neuroethics – unsurprisingly, since he has written a monograph on the topic (Neuroethics, Cambridge University Press 2007). He has a special interest in the science of moral decision-making and in topics in free will and moral responsibility. He is currently engaged in empirical research testing the claim that some ethical intuitions are the product of heuristics triggered by irrelevant factors. Levy also has a background in continental philosophy and conducts research on the phenomenology of consciousness. He is the author of many papers on conceptual issues in free will and moral responsibility, as well as of papers on the psychological mechanisms involved in self-control and in addiction. He also works on issues in the scientific study of consciousness. Neil Levy is editor in chief for the journal Neuroethics (Springer Publishing), and has published extensively in all 4 key areas. He organised Consciousness in the Vegetative State: Philosophical and Methodological Issues’(March 2008), a major conference that brought together leading neuroscientists, philosophers and ethicists to debate borderline states of consciousness.
There is good (though still controversial) evidence that ordinary agents harbour implicit attitudes that are sometimes at odds with their explicit beliefs. Many white Americans, for instance, exhibit an implicit bias against black people. Assuming that they are sincere in professing non-racist beliefs, are they racist? There are three influential models of racism in the literature: doxastic, behavioural, and affective. I will consider whether such agents are racist, measured against the standard each provides. I will argue that given the best evidence of the nature of implicit attitudes, they should be assessed as largely though not exclusively non-racist against the doxastic and behavioural standard, while the affective standard delivers a more mixed verdict.
Neil Levy is Deputy Director (Research) of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, and Head of Neuroethics at the Florey Neuroscience Institutes, University of Melbourne. Having been awarded Ph.Ds from Monash University in Continental and Analytic Philosophy, Professor Levy worked as a Principal Research Fellow for CAPPE (Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, then as a James Martin Research Fellow for the Oxford-based Programme on the Ethics of the New Biosciences. Neil Levy’s work ranges across the entire spectrum of neuroethics – unsurprisingly, since he has written a monograph on the topic (Neuroethics, Cambridge University Press 2007). He has a special interest in the science of moral decision-making and in topics in free will and moral responsibility. He is currently engaged in empirical research testing the claim that some ethical intuitions are the product of heuristics triggered by irrelevant factors. Levy also has a background in continental philosophy and conducts research on the phenomenology of consciousness. He is the author of many papers on conceptual issues in free will and moral responsibility, as well as of papers on the psychological mechanisms involved in self-control and in addiction. He also works on issues in the scientific study of consciousness. Neil Levy is editor in chief for the journal Neuroethics (Springer Publishing), and has published extensively in all 4 key areas. He organised Consciousness in the Vegetative State: Philosophical and Methodological Issues’(March 2008), a major conference that brought together leading neuroscientists, philosophers and ethicists to debate borderline states of consciousness.