The Right to Feel Comfortable: Implicit Bias and the Moral Potential of Discomfort

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (1):237-250 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

An increasingly popular view in scholarly literature and public debate on implicit biases holds that there is progressive moral potential in the discomfort that liberals and egalitarians feel when they realize they harbor implicit biases. The strong voices among such discomfort advocates believe we have a moral and political duty to confront people with their biases even though we risk making them uncomfortable. Only a few voices have called attention to the aversive effects of discomfort. Such discomfort skeptics warn that, because people often react negatively to feeling blamed or called-out, the result of confrontational approaches is often counterproductive. To deepen this critique, I distinguish between awareness discomfort and interaction discomfort, developing a contextual approach that draws on recent research on negative affect and emotions to chart a more complete picture of the moral limits of discomfort. I argue that discomfort advocates risk overrating the moral potential of discomfort if they underestimate the extent to which context shapes the interpretation of affect and simple, raw feelings.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

On being tolerated.Leslie Green - 2008 - In Matthew H. Kramer (ed.), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Discomfort, Judgment, and Health Care for Queers.Ami Harbin, Brenda Beagan & Lisa Goldberg - 2012 - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 9 (2):149-160.
Implicit Bias.Alex Madva - 2020 - In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (5th Edition). Wiley-Blackwell.
On Agonising: Street Charity and First Ethics. [REVIEW]John Miles Little - 2010 - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 7 (3):321-327.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-01-25

Downloads
38 (#365,484)

6 months
4 (#319,344)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?