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Si us plau utilitzeu sempre aquest identificador per citar o enllaçar aquest document: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/221575
The representational structure of implícit attitudes
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[eng] Implicit attitudes (IAs henceforth) are mental states that cause subtle discriminatory behaviors often referred to as “implicit bias”. For example, a hiring manager may sincerely think that race is irrelevant to intelligence and competence, yet systematically reject applications from members of a certain race. Such discrimination might be caused by the manager’s IA towards that race. In recent years, IAs have attracted significant attention in psychology and philosophy, partially due to the development of indirect measures of attitudes, which allow researchers to assess individuals’ attitude towards social groups, such as racial or religious groups, without relying on self-report questionnaires.
This thesis addresses the following central question in IA research: What is the nature of IAs? Or, differently put, what kind of mental states are IAs? This question is interesting in its own right and has important implications for issues such as moral responsibility for IAs and their mitigation. In a nutshell, I defend the belief view – the view that IAs are beliefs. More precisely, I formulate an objection to this account of IAs and show how it can be answered. I also clarify a notion that plays a key role in arguments for the belief view – the notion of inference – thereby strengthening the conceptual foundations of the debate over IAs.
The thesis proceeds as follows. In Chapter 1, I outline the phenomenon of IAs and the theoretical challenges they raise. After introducing the empirical methods used to study IAs, I discuss competing accounts of their nature and examine empirical evidence suggesting that IAs are beliefs. Chapter 2 addresses what I call “the self-knowledge objection” to the belief view: People are typically in a good epistemic position with respect to their beliefs, but they are often unaware of their IAs. But if IAs are beliefs, how can this asymmetry be explained? I argue that IAs constitute a special kind of belief – beliefs not accompanied by the relevant judgments and that judging is an important route to knowing one’s beliefs. Since this route is blocked for IAs, the epistemic asymmetry can be explained. Chapter 3 focuses on the notion of inference. An
important argument for the belief view holds that IAs feature in inferential transitions, thus indicating that they are beliefs. To assess this argument, we must clarify what inference is. I argue that there are two approaches to understanding inference. On one view, which I will call “the mental-processes approach”, inference is defined in terms of the psychological structure underwriting transitions between mental states. By contrast, the other approach – let’s call it “epistemic” – spells out the notion of inferential transition in epistemic terms while abstracting away from the structure of the mental processes underwriting them. I focus on one epistemic account of inference – Susanna Siegel’s Response Hypothesis – and argue that it allows for the possibility that states with associative structure feature in inferential transitions. This discussion shows that, if the inference-based argument for the belief view is to go through, one must adopt the mental-processes approach to characterizing inference.
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PATRONNIKOV, Ilia. The representational structure of implícit attitudes. [consulta: 2 de desembre de 2025]. [Disponible a: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/221575]