Zoom Talk: Thomas Kelly (Princeton)

Title:

Bias,Rationality, and Perspective

Abstract:

Whatis it to be biased, in a pejorativesense of ‘bias’? What norms govern ourpractices of attributing bias, to people and to sources of information? In this talk, I sketch a general frameworkfor theorizing about bias and bias attributions. A central theme is the perspectival character of bias attributions, or the ways in whichour first-order judgments about a topic rationally constrain, and arerationally constrained by, our higher-order judgments about who is biased aboutthat topic. I argue that the proposedframework illuminates a number of well-confirmed psychological phenomena. (Note: this talk presents some general ideasabout bias originally presented in my book Bias:A Philosophical Study (2023) but then further develops and extends thoseideas in new directions.)