Recently there has been a lot of discussion of the value of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of implicit bias — discussion generated largely by a new paper by Calvin Lai, Patrick Forscher and their colleagues that presents the results of a meta-analysis of studies conducted using the IAT, plus a provocative article in New York magazine by Jesse Singal that discusses that paper and the methodological controversy it’s a part of. The title of Singal’s article? “Psychology’s Favorite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job: Almost two decades after its introduction, the implicit association test has failed to deliver on its lofty promises”. (Please bear in mind that headlines are usually written by someone other than the author.)

In light of this I invited several philosophers to share their views in a roundtable discussion of the value of the IAT and the general question of how to understand, and properly measure, implicit bias. (For other coverage, see this post at Daily Nous, as well as our series of posts last year from the authors of chapters in Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul’s Implicit Bias and Philosophy.) The participants in this roundtable are Michael Brownstein (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY), Nick Byrd (Florida State University), Keith Frankish (The Open University), Jules Holroyd (Sheffield), Neil Levy (Oxford / Melbourne), Edouard Machery (University of Pittsburgh), Alex Madva (Cal Poly Pomona), Shannon Spaulding (Oklahoma State University), and Chandra Sripada (University of Michigan).

You can read each contribution by clicking on the author’s name below. Many thanks to all those involved!

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