I’m giving a talk ‘at’ the Royal College of Psychiatry next week on implicit bias called ‘Implicit bias: the ‘dark side’ of hinge epistemology?’ The idea is that bias is the flipside of what has become known, following some remarks by Wittgenstein in his late masterwork On Certainty as ‘hinge epistemology’ and hence (bias) cannot easily be jettisoned if hinges are a necessary aspect of knowledge.
Here is the context. Descartes presents a conception of his own epistemic project in which, once suitably resourced, he sits in his study in his dressing gown and reflects upon the status of his knowledge claims. He says:
It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since constructed on this basis; and from that time I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences… To-day, then, since very opportunely for the plan I have in view I have delivered my mind from every care [and am happily agitated by no passions] and since I have procured for myself an assured leisure in a peaceable retirement, I shall at last seriously and freely address myself to the general upheaval of all my former opinions. (Descartes 1911)
He commends this to any
self-conscious epistemic agent. Seen from this perspective, it seems that a self-conscious rational agent ought to be in a position to assess their
beliefs, rejecting all those which do not pass muster. In fact, the start of
the Meditations makes this clear. Its epistemology is individualistic.
Descartes uses the shortcut of the ‘method of doubt’ to reject every belief
except his cogito. From there, he builds back to full normal knowledge.
This provides a context for thinking about bias. Standard
dictionary definitions of bias tend to contain two aspects. One is that bias is
a vice in that it causes a moral harm to others. The other is that it is also a
narrowly epistemic failing. That is, it involves a failure of justification. (Both are in the link to prejudice.) If
Descartes’s views of epistemology were correct then it might be possible to
offer a procedural description of the epistemic failing that bias involves.
There is, however another way to think of bias: evaluatively neutrally.
The term “bias,” as it is commonly used, implies something morally or rationally negative. I mean to use the term in its more general, normatively neutral sense, as meaning “a tendency; an inclination of temperament or outlook.”… I am counting as a “bias” any structure, database, or inferential disposition that serves in a non-evidential way to reduce hypothesis space to a tractable size. Biases, in this sense, may be propositions explicitly represented in the mind, or they may be propositional content realized only implicitly, in the structure of a cognitive mechanism. (Antony 2016: 161)
So following this idea I will think how bias so understood can be distinguished from epistemic virtues.
In On Certainty, Wittgenstein presents a distinct view of the nature of knowledge and its relation to certainty. Crucially, this involves the idea of ‘hinges’.
§105 All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more of less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments: no, it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which arguments have their life.
§341 That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.
§342 That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted.
§343 But it isn’t that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.
§344 My life consists in my being content to accept many things. (Wittgenstein 1969)
These are held immune from justification or doubt and it is about them that the game of giving and asking for reasons turns. So understood, hinges clearly do not fit the Cartesian model of individualistic rational autonomy. But if this is so, there is no easy way to distinguish procedurally between hinges and mere bias. Bias comprises hinges that have an evaluative failing. One cannot merely eliminate attitudes that lack an appropriate epistemic pedigree, understood in Descartes’ individualistic way, because that would also eliminate virtuous hinges. Wittgenstein argues that hinges are presupposed in the context of inquiry giving it the meaning or content. So there is no possibility of attempting to reconstruct epistemology in Descartes’ image.
One response to this might be to reject Wittgenstein’s rejections
of the Cartesian ideal. But there is an analogy that suggests that there is
a high price to pay for that. Testimony offers recipients the knowledge of their
testimonial sources. Knowledge can rub off ‘like a contagious disease’ in the
phrase that John McDowell attributes to Gareth Evans. But it is not that we
normally first find independent validation of the knowledge-status of our
informants. If testimony can yield knowledge – as we normally think it can –
then it is a lived reputation of the Cartesian ideal.
Returning to hinges, there is a complication raised by the
traditional reading of Wittgenstein. On this reading, knowledge and certainty are
distinct. So hinges – as expressions of
certainty – are not instances of knowledge. This may encourage the idea of
relativism, which is sometimes ascribed to late period Wittgenstein. But I think
we should learn a lesson from the mid C20 intellectual movement called Oxford Realism (cf J.L. Austin). Knowledge too is certain. Hinges can be instances of knowledge providing that they are true. (I am writing a book on this at the moment.)
What lessons does this have for an understanding of bias? Clearly implicit bias is the norm if bias is modelled on hinges. There is also no procedural way to root out bias since virtuous hinges resemble vice-laden bias. And hence it seems that we need to look to the evaluative aspect of bias as well as it’s specific content in order self consciously to reassess our fundamental commitments. There is no guarantee that this can be done easily. Take the example expressed in the maxim ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. This might serve as the opposite of bias: a virtuous hinge, expressive of a valued form of life. But, if it were true, what could make it true? How could we be reassured that this was an expression of genuine knowledge rather than mere bias? Clearly much work will need to be done to articulate the view of life that underpins it. If hinges are implicit commitments that aim to track the Good and the True, holding knowledge claims rather than subscribing to bias will be much harder than Descartes suggests.
