In-Between Believing: The Implicit Racist
Many Caucasians in academia sincerely profess that all races are of equal intelligence. Juliet, let's suppose, is one such person, a Jewish-American philosophy professor. She has, perhaps, studied the matter more than most: She has criticially examined the literature on racial differences in intelligence, and she finds the case for racial equality compelling. She is prepared to argue coherently, authentically, and vehemently for equality of intelligence, and she has argued the point repeatedly in the past. Her egalitarianism in this matter coheres with her overarching "liberal" stance, according to which the sexes too possess equal intelligence, and racial and sexual discrimination are odious.
And yet -- I'm sure you see this coming -- Juliet is systematically racist in her spontaneous reactions, judgments, and unguarded behavior. When she gazes out on class the first day of each term, she can't help but think that some students look brighter than others -- and to her, the black students never look bright. When a black student makes an insightful comment or submits an excellent essay, she feels more surprise than she would were a white or Asian student to do so, even though her black students make insightful comments and submit excellent essays at the same rate as the others; and, worse, her bias affects her grading and the way she guides class discussion. When Juliet is on the hiring committee for a new office manager, it won't seem to her that the black applicants are the most intellectually capable, even if they are; or if she does become convinced, it will have taken more evidence than if the applicant had been white. When she converses with a janitor or cashier, she expects less wit if the person is black. Juliet may be perfectly aware of these facts about herself; she may aspire to reform; she may not be self-deceived in any way.
So here's the question: Does Juliet believe that the races are intellectually equal? Considering similar cases, Aaron Zimmerman and Tamar Gendler have said yes: Our beliefs are what in us is responsive to evidence, what is under rational control; and for Juliet, that's her egalitarian avowals. Her other responses are merely habitual or uncontrolled responses. But this seems to me to draw too sharp a line between the rational and the irrational or merely habitual. Our habits and gut responses are inextricably intertwined with our reason, perhaps often themselves a form of reasoning. Furthermore, imagine two black students in Juliet's class. One says to the other, in full knowledge of Juliet's sincere statements about equality, "and yet, she doesn't really believe that the black people are as smart as white people". Is that student so far wrong? Aren't our beliefs as much about how we live as about what we say?
Does Juliet have contradictory beliefs on the issue (as Brie Gertler seems to suggest about a similar case)? Does she believe both that the races are intellectually equal and that they're not? It's hard for me to know what to make of such an attribution. We might say that part of her believes one thing and part believes another, but there are serious problems with taking such a division literally. (Like: How do the different parts communicate? How much duplication is there in the attitudes held by the different parts and in the neural systems underlying those attitudes?)
Should we simply say that Juliet does not believe that the races are intellectually equal? That doesn't seem to do justice to her sincerity in arguing otherwise.
I recommend we treat this as an "in-between" case of believing. It's not quite right to say that Juliet believes that the races are intellectually equal; but neither is it quite right to deny her that belief. Her dispositions are splintered -- she has, we might say, a splintered mind -- and our attribution must be nuanced. Just as it's not quite right either to say that someone is or is not courageous simpliciter if he's courageous on Wednesdays and not on Tuesdays, it's not quite right to simply ascribe or deny belief when someone's actions and reactions are divided as Juliet's are.
Zimmerman tells me I'm whimsically throwing overboard classical two-valued logic -- the view, standard in logic, that all meaningful propositions are either true or false -- but I say if two-valued logic cannot handle vague cases (and I think it can't, not really), so much the worse for two-valued logic!