Implicit Bias: What are we Missing?

Paper submissions are invited for the special issue/collection of Topoi entitled: Implicit Bias: What are we Missing? The special issue aims to explore the nature and explanation of implicit bias. Special issue article publications often bring higher citations and visibility than regular papers and attract more relevant readership due to its scope. The journal is indexed in the Web of Science under AHCI, currently in Quartile 1 and placed in the top-10 ranked Philosophy-Category journals, with a 2022 IF of 1,4 and CiteScore of 2,8.

Guest Editor:

Lieke Asma, Munich School of Philosophy email

DESCRIPTION:

One widely shared assumption in the literature on implicit bias is that a certain kind of psychological state or process, an implicit attitude, is causally responsible for implicitly biased behaviors, decisions, feelings, and thoughts. Accordingly, two main research aims have been to (1) develop and improve ways to measure this implicit attitude, for example by means of the Implicit Association Test; and (2) to identify what kind of state implicit attitudes exactly are. Are they beliefs, associations, or idiosyncratic psychological states? Whether this picture is indeed the best way to understand and overcome implicit bias has received less attention and requires further reflection.

The aim of the Special Issue is to critically reflect on philosophical assumptions underlying this picture of implicit bias, for example about the nature of action and the mind, and to discuss alternative perspectives and approaches to making sense of the problem of implicit bias. Contributions that explicitly support or criticize the aforementioned picture are welcome, but we are particularly interested in proposals that offer alternative perspectives on implicit bias.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• What is the nature of implicitly biased behavior (and decisions, feelings, and thoughts)? Could they be implicit in themselves, instead of in virtue of their causal explanation? And if so, in what sense?

• Are certain behaviors (and decisions, feelings, and thoughts) implicitly biased in virtue of the way the agent interacts with their environment? How can this be explained?

• Is implicit bias best understood as a characteristic of an individual, or is it better conceived of as a characteristic of a group, or perhaps of behaviors and decisions themselves?

• What role does the body play in implicit bias?

• What is the relationship between causal explanation of biased behavior (and decisions, feelings, and thoughts) and our norms and values?

• Does a dispositional account of implicit bias offer advantages over a representationalist account, and if so, why? Are there perhaps other approaches that haven’t been discussed in the literature?

• What are the implications of the alternative picture of implicit bias for how to diminish the problem, and/or for the extent to and way in which people are morally responsible for it?

This Special Issue is part of the research project “Implicit bias: What are we missing?”, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and is, partly, the outcome of the workshop ‘Implicit bias: What are we missing?’, organized at the Munich School of Philosophy on the 11th and 12th of October 2023.

Submission DEADLINE: Please submit your paper by August 1st, 2024. Should you not be able to meet this deadline, please contact the Lead Guest Editor (contact details below).

Online SUBMISSION: Please use the journal’s Online Manuscript Submission System (Editorial Manager), accessible here Editorial Manager®. Do note that paper submissions via email are not accepted.

Author Submission’s GUIDELINES: Authors are asked to prepare their manuscripts according to the journal’s standard Submission Guidelines.

EDITORIAL PROCESS:

• When uploading your paper in Editorial Manager, please select “SI: Implicit Bias“ in the drop-down menu “Article Type”.

• Papers should not exceed a maximum of 9000 words.

• All papers will undergo the journal’s standard review procedure (double-blind peer-review), according to the journal’s Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance

• Reviewers will be selected according to the Peer-Reviewer Selection policies.

• Publication will be available on the page Collections once published.

CONTACT: For any questions, please directly contact the Guest Editor: Lieke Asma, email.