In doing this reading and listening to the podcast, I think one of the most interesting and important points made was the relationship between culture and the assumptions and/or beliefs we hold. Dr. Bezio describes in the podcast how the culture we belong to plays a significant role in the forming of our assumptions, and subsequent actions such as laws and policies that work to protect these assumptions. One example of this is the wearing of a hijab or other head and/or face coverings by women who are typically Islamic or another subset of a religion. As Dr. Bezio says, in the United States and many European countries, this wearing of the hijab and/or other facial coverings is uncommon because the cultures of these countries are largely rooted in and dominated by Christian beliefs; however, in many other parts of the world, these religious practices are seen as the norm, for Islam, instead of Christianity, serves as a base for the culture. Thus, culture strongly impacts the assumptions we hold and the actions we take, for in many Western countries, wearing a hijab and/or other covering is seen as outside the normal culture and odd, leading to assumptions such as that these women are being forced to wear these coverings and are being oppressed, and it is these assumptions that have led some countries to even ban the wearing of these covers, even though it is only seen as more restrictive or unnatural because of the culture.
Flanigan goes on to relate to this belief of the influence of culture on our assumptions, beliefs, and actions. In describing the doctrine of informed consent, Flanigan goes on to describe one of the justifications of the doctrine of informed consent, which is epistemic authority. Epistemic authority refers to the idea that “physicians ought to treat the whole patient, not just the condition”, and that individuals know best what their overall interests and well-being is (Flanigan 580). One example of the epistemic authority justification for DIC is Flanigan’s discussion of blood transfusions. In some religions, blood transfusion is not allowed, as it is seen as morally wrong; thus, in this situation, individuals of this religion know what is best for their interests, per their religion, and have the right to deny this medical treatment, even if it would help them, because of their beliefs. Like in the podcast, the culture of individuals helps to form their beliefs, such as this religious individual whose religion, and the culture associated with the religion, helped them to form the assumption that blood transfusions are wrong, even if they may be acceptable in other societies, and something they can deny. Our culture, oftentimes with its religious underlying, influence our making of assumptions, whether it be that hijabs are restrictive or that blood transfusion is unallowable, and causes us to take actions in accordance with these assumptions, such as ban the wearing of hijabs or refuse a blood transfusion, even if these actions appear unnatural or uncommon to others from different cultures.

For this assignment, I decided to take the Gender-Career IAT. Overall, I was not surprised with the results that I received, which showed that I, for the most part, had a moderate automatic association of Male with Career and Female with Family. I think that this association of male with career and female with family comes largely due to the influence of the culture around me, for oftentimes, the American culture pushes the image of a nuclear family as the ideal, with the father as the “breadwinner”, while the mother stays at home. While I am a career-oriented woman, I have been ingrained with this culture for my entire life, and thus I believe the constant pushing of this ideal, and the view of men as the “breadwinner” has become an implicit bias of mine that I can become more aware of. I think one thing that has made my implicit bias closer to being borderline moderate instead of strong is that growing up, both my mother and father worked full-time jobs, and overall split many of the family duties, and pushed strongly for my sister and me to focus on our educations and careers. Additionally, my mother comes from a family that, even in the early 1930s, had woman pursuing careers; thus, I believe that it is this combination of being strongly influenced by the male-career dominated culture, along with a family that strongly pushes for woman to pursue careers, that lead to my implicit bias being quite moderate.

In listening to Podcast 2: Culture & Implicit Bias, the main point, and one that I have not truly thought about before was the connection between culture and implicit bias. As it is commonly viewed, culture is the combination of different elements, such as food and dress that separate people into different subgroups. For example, as an Italian-American, a large amount of my family speaks Italian and makes Italian food, while also incorporating other aspects of American culture, such as their liking of “People” magazine and Americanized foods. Looking more largely at American culture, to understand the tie between culture and implicit bias in our country, it is critical to acknowledge that what we see as “American” culture is really white culture. In America, things we see as the default culture are typically associated with white people, while other aspects, such as certain foods eaten or music listened to, are labeled as the culture of different ethnic groups. I think this is important to recognize because as a white American, it is eye-opening to realize that the culture we live in commonly pushes the “default” to be white culture, while we tend to ignore or mark off the cultures of other groups, whether they be ethnic, religious, etc.

Once we understand this tie between white culture and American culture, we can view the development of implicit bias. An interesting point raised in this podcast that I was unaware of was the adaption of human brains to see patterns around us as a survival method. This physiological tie of a pattern can be seen in the development of implicit bias, for in our American culture, which is essentially white culture, oftentimes certain images of certain ethnic groups are shown. As the podcast described, white people are often placed as the hero, while other individuals, such as black Americans and Chinese individuals, are continuously shown in other roles. This constant feeding from the culture, along with the use of media, including movies, music, etc, creates a pattern of these certain individuals of certain ethnic groups in certain positions, and thus implicit bias develops, for we see these patterns and begin to implicitly assume the position of a certain individual from a certain ethnic group. From this podcast, I think the most important point to take away is that to begin the process of alleviating the impact and consequences of implicit bias, we must begin to increase representation in the media and put people of different ethnic groups in different positions to break these patterns and thus break these implicit biases.

In the first podcast episode, Dr. Bezio discussed the different ways that people think about how the world works. The dominant ways of viewing the world are through either a normative or relative framework. A normative framework is when the individuals believe that there is a universal truth out there, while a relative framework is one in which there is no universal truth, and instead, individuals hold different ethics and evaluate what is morally good or bad based on these individuals ethical reasonings. In listening to this podcast, I think that one of the most interesting points raised was the overlap of these different frameworks with the different ways to evaluate ethics, which includes consequentialism, deontism, and virtue ethics. To evaluate whether an action is moral, these different means can be used, with consequentialism involving the evaluation of the consequences or outcomes of an action, deontism involving the evaluation of the action itself, and virtue ethics involving the evaluation of the virtue of the individual. It is the overlapping use of these different means of evaluation that offers the most interesting take on and way to further look at the different frameworks through which we view the world.

In understanding how these different methods of evaluation work, a hypothetical explanation can be used. One explanation that was mentioned quickly was a robbery. In evaluating robbery, from a consequentialist view, this action could be seen as immoral because the action results in the original owner having less than he did before; however, the act of robbery could also be seen as immoral through a deontistic evaluation, for if the action of robbery is seen as immoral itself, then this robbery would be immoral as well. And yet, robbery can again be seen as immoral but for a different reason using the virtue ethics evaluation, for if the individual and they intended to hurt another by stripping them of their goods, then the person and their intentions are immoral and the robbery would, in turn, be immoral. This example of robbery depicts the idea that the reason we see something as immoral can be deducted in several different ways. Immorality, as such, is not a fixed state. Different individuals, thinking in different normative or relative frameworks, will see different things as immoral based on their views, culture, and beliefs. And even if these individuals come to the same conclusion that something is immoral, they can come to these same conclusions using several different methods of evaluation, and maybe even a combination of the consequentialism, deontism, and virtue ethics means of evaluation. The concept of mortality, as such, incorporates the ideas, beliefs, and culture of the individuals, and will continue to be questioned and re-evaluated as people search for a clear way to