Implicit biases have been studied by social psychologists for almost three decades, mainly as an individual phenomenon. Recent proposals, however, reframe implicit biases as a collective or structural phenomenon. The “Bias of Crowds” framework is one influential such proposal. Its label carries a clear reference to the idea of the “Wisdom of Crowds”. The connection between these two frameworks has, however, hitherto only been stated at the level of superficial analogy, rather than in-depth analysis. Thus, the details of any proposed similarity, and the specific implications for the very idea of a Bias of Crowds, remain as of yet unclear. This paper provides a detailed assessment of the idea of a Bias of Crowds through the Wisdom of Crowds framework. It shows that there are several interpretations of the former expression, which go well beyond what is suggested by the vague analogy. The results are not just conceptual, however, but moreover have explanatory power: the analysis uncovers how collective decision-making can amplify bias. This provides a novel explanation of the observed correlations between average collective bias scores and large-scale structural inequalities, which inspired the Bias of Crowds framework in the first place. An important byproduct of the analysis is the insight that, on an overall picture, amplified collective bias may fly under the radar of amplified collective competence, and thus be nay invisible. Clarifying the idea of a Bias of Crowds in this way answers the crucial question how extremely small-scale biases can have extremely large-scale social effects.

This entry considers the global justice movement of #MeToo: the social media-based, hashtag-driven resistance and solidarity movement against sexual harassment and violence. The entry brings into focus key aspects of the #MeToo movement, from a moral- and political-philosophical perspective. The section on “Empirical matters” sketches key events from 2017 onward. The section on “Conceptual Matters” turns to two core concepts: sexual harassment and consent, providing some historical backdrop by highlighting feminist forerunners of the #MeToo/“Me too” movement. The section on “Normative Matters” assesses the normative status of sexual harassment: why it is wrong, and in which ways unjust. It also briefly addresses the role of intersecting social identities. The section “Analytical Matters: Two Models” offers two analytical models of the dynamics of recurring anti-harassment campaigns and persisting sexual harassment. The final section “Aftermath: What Is To Be Done?” considers upshots concerning what ought to be done.

This chapter examines the moral status of age discrimination by bringing together accounts of the wrongness of discrimination with accounts of the specialness of age (as opposed to, e.g. gender or race). It provides an overview of the main specialness considerations concerning age-based treatment and suggests a taxonomy for different forms of age discrimination. It then relates three influential accounts of the prima facie wrongness of discrimination to this taxonomy. It shows how these accounts differ in their moral assessment of different forms of age discrimination. Finally, it explores different ways in which specialness considerations can affect the prima facie and overall moral status of age-based treatment on these different accounts.

This chapter explores the phenomenon of implicit gender bias within a higher education context. Implicit biases are, roughly speaking, stereotypical associations (e.g., “woman–family”; “man–career”) or prejudices (e.g., “women aren’t good at math”) that are held by people against their own explicit convictions. The chapter discusses moral and political issues regarding the effects of implicit bias: do implicit biases lead to wrongful discrimination and social injustice? It then turns to epistemological issues: do implicit biases contribute to epistemic injustice and knowledge deficits? Finally, the chapter assesses both individual interventions and structural measures that aim to address implicit gender biases and provides examples that are relevant within a context of academic teaching and learning.

This article sets out to describe and solve two puzzles that emerge in segregated labour markets (e.g. the USA or Sweden). First, in many hiring contexts people profess to adhere to egalitarian norms, and specifically to a qualification norm according to which job qualification should be the basis of employment. Still there is evidence of frequent norm violations (discrimination). Surprisingly, the norm persists and people do not frequently protest against such norm violations. The second puzzle is that people are suspicious of the hiring of minorities, perceiving such hirings as evidence that a 'political correctness' norm has replaced the qualification norm. The article proposes that both puzzles can be solved within a game-theoretical model of social norm-following, where implicit bias is introduced into an 'employment game'. Within this model, implicit bias plays a double role. First, it interferes with employers' hiring decisions regarding ethnic majority and minority members, respectively. This is the standard way of understanding the effects of implicit bias. Second, implicit bias interferes with bystander evaluations of hired candidates' qualifications. This is a hitherto overlooked effect of implicit bias. The article concludes that once we understand the double role of implicit bias, the two puzzles are resolved.

Recent social-psychological research suggests that a considerable amount of, for example, racial and gendered discrimination may be connected to implicit biases: mental processes beyond our direct control or endorsement, that influence our behaviour toward members of socially salient groups. In this article I seek to improve our understanding of the phenomenon of implicit bias, including its moral status, by examining it through the lens of a theory of discrimination. In doing so, I also suggest ways to improve this theory of discrimination, by creating conceptual space for implicit bias discrimination. I explore two ways of distinguishing direct and indirect discrimination and spell out the resulting four different forms of discrimination. The resulting taxonomy provides some room for implicit bias discrimination. I also deal with four challenges to my proposal for capturing implicit bias within discrimination theory: the metaphysical challenge, the moral insignificance challenge, the causal connection challenge, and the challenge from irreducibly collective bias.

In this article we distinguish two versions of the non-identity problem: one involving positive well-being and one involving negative well-being. Intuitively, there seems to be a difference between the two versions of the problem. In the negative case it is clear that one ought to cause the better-off person to exist. However, it has recently been suggested that this is not so in the positive case. We argue that such an asymmetrical treatment of the two versions should be rejected and that this is evidence against views according to which it is permissible to cause the less well-off person to exist in the positive non-identity case.

Many legal, social, and medical theorists and practitioners, as well as lay people, seem to be concerned with the harmfulness of discriminative practices. However, the philosophical literature on the moral wrongness of discrimination, with a few exceptions, does not focus on harm. In this paper, I examine, and improve, a recent account of wrongful discrimination, which divides into (1) a definition of group discrimination, and (2) a characterisation of its moral wrong-making feature in terms of harm. The resulting account analyses the wrongness of discrimination in terms of intrapersonal comparisons of the discriminatee’s actual, and relevantly counterfactual, well-being levels. I show that the account faces problems from counterfactuals, which can be traced back specifically to the orthodox - comparative, counterfactual, welfarist - concept of harm. I argue that non-counterfactual and non-comparative harm concepts face problems of their own, and don’t fit easily with our best understanding of discrimination; hence they are unsuitable to replace the orthodox concept here. I then propose a non-orthodox - comparative, counterfactual, hybrid (partly welfarist, partly non-welfarist) - concept of harm, which relies on counterfactual comparisons of ways of being treated (rather than well-being levels). I suggest how such a concept can help us handle the problems from counterfactuals, at least for my account of discrimination. I also show that there are similar proposals in other harm-related debates. An upshot of the paper is thus to corroborate the case for a non-orthodox, hybrid concept of harm, which seems better able to fulfil its functional roles in a variety of contexts.

In this study I analyse the performance of a democratic decision-making rule: the weighted majority rule. It assigns to each voter a number of votes that is proportional to her stakes in the decision. It has been shown that, for collective decisions with two options, the weighted majority rule in combination with self-interested voters maximises the common good when the latter is understood in terms of either the sum-total or prioritarian sum of the voters’ well-being.

The main result of my study is that this argument for the weighted majority rule — that it maximises the common good — can be improved along the following three main lines. (1) The argument can be adapted to other criteria of the common good, such as sufficientarian, maximin, leximin or non-welfarist criteria. I propose a generic argument for the collective optimality of the weighted majority rule that works for all of these criteria. (2) The assumption of self-interested voters can be relaxed. First, common-interest voters can be accommodated. Second, even if voters are less than fully competent in judging their self-interest or the common interest, the weighted majority rule is weakly collectively optimal, that is, it almost certainly maximises the common good given a large numbers of voters. Third, even for smaller groups of voters, the weighted majority rule still has some attractive features. (3) The scope of the argument can be extended to decisions with more than two options. I state the conditions under which the weighted majority rule maximises the common good even in multi-option contexts. I also analyse the possibility and the detrimental effects of strategic voting. Furthermore, I argue that self-interested voters have reason to accept the weighted majority rule.