Lecture 15, 2022
“The Importance of Being Partial: The Constructive Role of Bias in Human Life”
Louise Antony
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Abstract
The term “bias,” as it is generally used, connotes something bad: a prejudging that is unfair or
illegitimate, or an improper favoring of some viewpoint or some person's interest over others'.
But fundamentally, “bias” means simply a “bent or tendency; an inclination in temperament
or outlook” I argue that “bias,” in this neutral sense, plays a constructive - indeed, absolutely
crucial - role in human life. There are two areas of human life where this is especially true:
first, in our cognitive/epistemic life - in our attempts to come to know our world, and second,
in our “affective” lives - in our relations and emotional connections to other human beings.
When human biases are bad, I contend, it is not because they are biases, but because they are
operating in the wrong contexts. In the cases that concern those of us interested in social
justice, there are many contexts in which biases - both epistemic and normative - are problematic,
but the problem lies with the environment, not the biases.
Preferred citation
Antony, Louise. “The Importance of Being Partial: The Constructive Role of Bias in Human
Life.” The Amherst Lecture in Philosophy 15 (2022): 1–18. <http://www.amherstlecture.org/antony2022/>.
