scholarly journals The Myth of Objectivity: Implicit Racial Bias and the Law (Part 2)

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Willem Hendrik Gravett
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Implicit Racial Bias ◽  
The Law

The centrality of race to our history and the substantial racial inequalities that continue to pervade society ensure that "race" remains an extraordinarily salient and meaningful social category.  Explicit racial prejudice, however, is only part of the problem.  Equally important - and likely more pervasive - is the phenomenon of implicit racial prejudice: the cognitive processes whereby, despite even our best intentions, the human mind automatically classifies information in racial categories and against disfavoured social groups. Empirical research shows convincingly that these biases against socially disfavoured groups are (i) pervasive; (ii) often diverge from consciously reported attitudes and beliefs; and (iii) influence consequential behaviour towards the subjects of these biases. The existence of implicit racial prejudices poses a challenge to legal theory and practice. From the standpoint of a legal system that seeks to forbid differential treatment based upon race or other protected traits, if people are in fact treated differently, and worse, because of their race or other protected trait, then the fundamental principle of anti-discrimination has been violated. It hardly matters that the source of the differential treatment is implicit rather than conscious bias. This article investigates the relevance of this research to the law by means of an empirical account of how implicit racial bias could affect the criminal trial trajectory in the areas of policing, prosecutorial discretion and judicial decision-making.  It is the author's hypothesis that this mostly American research also applies to South Africa. The empirical evidence of implicit biases in every country tested shows that people are systematically implicitly biased in favour of socially privileged groups. Even after 1994 South Africa – similar to the US – continues to be characterised by a pronounced social hierarchy in which Whites overwhelmingly have the highest social status. The author argues that the law should normatively take cognizance of this issue.  After all, the mere fact that we may not be aware of, much less consciously intend, race-contingent behaviour does not magically erase the harm. The article concludes by addressing the question of the appropriate response of the law and legal role players to the problem of implicit racial bias.

scholarly journals The Myth of Objectivity: Implicit Racial Bias and the Law (Part 1)

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Willem Hendrik Gravett
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Implicit Racial Bias ◽  
The Law

The centrality of race to our history and the substantial racial inequalities that continue to pervade society ensure that "race" remains an extraordinarily salient and meaningful social category.  Explicit racial prejudice, however, is only part of the problem.  Equally important - and likely more pervasive - is the phenomenon of implicit racial prejudice: the cognitive processes whereby, despite even our best intentions, the human mind automatically classifies information in racial categories and against disfavoured social groups. Empirical research shows convincingly that these biases against socially disfavoured groups are (i) pervasive; (ii) often diverge from consciously reported attitudes and beliefs; and (iii) influence consequential behaviour towards the subjects of these biases. The existence of implicit racial prejudices poses a challenge to legal theory and practice. From the standpoint of a legal system that seeks to forbid differential treatment based upon race or other protected traits, if people are in fact treated differently, and worse, because of their race or other protected trait, then the fundamental principle of anti-discrimination has been violated. It hardly matters that the source of the differential treatment is implicit rather than conscious bias. This article investigates the relevance of this research to the law by means of an empirical account of how implicit racial bias could affect the criminal trial trajectory in the areas of policing, prosecutorial discretion and judicial decision-making.  It is the author's hypothesis that this mostly American research also applies to South Africa. The empirical evidence of implicit biases in every country tested shows that people are systematically implicitly biased in favour of socially privileged groups. Even after 1994 South Africa – similar to the US – continues to be characterised by a pronounced social hierarchy in which Whites overwhelmingly have the highest social status. The author argues that the law should normatively take cognizance of this issue.  After all, the mere fact that we may not be aware of, much less consciously intend, race-contingent behaviour does not magically erase the harm. The article concludes by addressing the question of the appropriate response of the law and legal role players to the problem of implicit racial bias.

scholarly journals Bad World: The Negativity Bias in International Politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 96-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic D.P. Johnson ◽  
Dominic Tierney
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Negativity Bias ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Research

A major puzzle in international relations is why states privilege negative over positive information. States tend to inflate threats, exhibit loss aversion, and learn more from failures than from successes. Rationalist accounts fail to explain this phenomenon, because systematically overweighting bad over good may in fact undermine state interests. New research in psychology, however, offers an explanation. The “negativity bias” has emerged as a fundamental principle of the human mind, in which people's response to positive and negative information is asymmetric. Negative factors have greater effects than positive factors across a wide range of psychological phenomena, including cognition, motivation, emotion, information processing, decision-making, learning, and memory. Put simply, bad is stronger than good. Scholars have long pointed to the role of positive biases, such as overconfidence, in causing war, but negative biases are actually more pervasive and may represent a core explanation for patterns of conflict. Positive and negative dispositions apply in different contexts. People privilege negative information about the external environment and other actors, but positive information about themselves. The coexistence of biases can increase the potential for conflict. Decisionmakers simultaneously exaggerate the severity of threats and exhibit overconfidence about their capacity to deal with them. Overall, the negativity bias is a potent force in human judgment and decisionmaking, with important implications for international relations theory and practice.

scholarly journals THEORIES OF VAGUENESS AND THEORIES OF LAW

Legal Theory ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-152
Author(s):  
Alex Silk
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Conventional Meaning ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Judicial Practice ◽  
Content Determination ◽  
The Law

ABSTRACTIt is common to think that what theory of linguistic vagueness is correct has implications for debates in philosophy of law. I disagree. I argue that the implications of particular theories of vagueness on substantive issues of legal theory and practice are less far-reaching than often thought. I focus on four putative implications discussed in the literature concerning (i) the value of vagueness in the law, (ii) the possibility and value of legal indeterminacy, (iii) the possibility of the rule of law, and (iv) strong discretion. I conclude with some methodological remarks. Delineating questions about conventional meaning, legal content determination, and norms of legal interpretation and judicial practice can motivate clearer answers and a more refined understanding of the space of overall theories of vagueness, interpretation, and law.

scholarly journals The Role of Status in the Emergence of Pro-White Bias in Rural Uganda

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Marshall ◽  
Anton Gollwitzer ◽  
Kellen Mermin-Bunnell ◽  
Tara M Mandalaywala
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
White Children ◽  
Black African ◽  
Racial Biases ◽  
Status Cues

Research investigating the early emergence of racial prejudice has been largely limited to contexts in which racial prejudice is most likely to emerge—multiracial societies that have pronounced racial inequality (e.g., United States, South Africa). The present study assessed whether pro-White racial bias is also early emerging in a homogenous Black community that has little exposure to modern media and where children presumably experience less overt discrimination than in past samples (e.g., South Africa). Black African children (N = 214) between 5- and 12-years-old living in rural Uganda exhibited substantial pro-White racial bias, preferring White over Black children 78% of the time. Ugandan children also judged White children as higher status than Black children, and these status judgments predicted their degree of pro-White bias. Our results indicate that pro-White racial biases can emerge even in a homogenous Black community and that, in some contexts, minimal status cues are sufficient for the early development of racial prejudice.

Part III Regimes and Doctrines, Ch.31 Theorizing International Organizations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klabbers Jan
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Atomic Energy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law

This chapter outlines a broad history of the development of thinking about the law of international organizations, with a focus on the legal theory of functionalism, as well as a discussion on the latter’s considerable strengths and weaknesses. Functionalism holds that states create international organizations to do things they are unable or reluctant to do on their own, yet consider inherently useful: organize postal relations, control the uses of atomic energy, regulate global health, etc. The chapter also includes a brief discussion of scholarship regarding international organizations in the broader academic landscape, with the concluding section hinting at a few challenges for both theory and practice.

The Voluntary Principle in the Colonial Situation: Theory and Practice

1986 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 381-390
Author(s):  
Margaret Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Situation Theory ◽  
Financial Responsibility ◽  
Church Polity ◽  
The Government ◽  
London Missionary Society

When the London Missionary Society (LMS) came into being in 1795 two principles formed the twin pillars of its existence: the Fundamental Principle, which declared that the Society existed to preach the gospel to the heathen and not to promote any particular form of church polity: and the voluntary principle, which declared that financial responsibility for a church devolved upon its members, and not upon the government or, in the long term, upon the missionary society. This paper examines the problems of applying the voluntary principle in a colonial situation. The investigation focuses on the work of the Revd Richard Birt, LMS missionary in South Africa from 1838 to 1892. Birt was a supporter of the voluntary principle by conviction, by background and by commitment to the LMS. In practice, however, his life’s work was to show the difficulty of maintaining the voluntary principle in a pioneering missionary situation.

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