I took the implicit bias about age and it suggested that I have a slight automatic preference for old people over young people. This means that I linked being old with good at a quicker speed than old with bad. I was surprised by this result because the majority of test-takers revealed the opposite. Furthermore, based on my own age, I was surprised that I wouldn’t favor those closer in resemblance to my own appearance. I wonder, if my results are true, maybe because of my age the older people’s pictures stood out in my brain more as different. With the same logic, if my results are inaccurate, I wonder what the average age of this test’s sample size was because I might be on the younger spectrum. 

Professor Bezio introduced the concept of cultural and implicit bias in her second podcast episode. Most notably, she discussed the ways in which bias has been framed as a “dirty word,” and in turn, having bias is a bad thing. However, we forget that each one of us experiences biases every single day. The environment in which one grows up in and their experiences shape their biases, making each of us have different thoughts and feelings. Biases become a problem when we do not recognize their presence, and use them to categorize ourselves vs. “others.”

Professor Bezio gives the example of Shakespeare as an example of how our perceptions of low and high culture change. Because of Shakespeare’s use of inappropriate sexual innuendos, in his time, he was considered by the upper classes as low culture or “other.” In today’s world, Shakespeare and his work are considered the epitome of theatre and high culture. I think this is a really important example to emphasize the importance and presence of change within our biases.  Exposure to new things and changing biases are not bad: Prof. Bezio also pointed out Dinsey’s recent inclusion of multicultural princesses as a means of change.

I thought the discussion on page 354 about flu shots in reference to instrumental and inherent value was a helpful way to think about consequential moral arguments, especially during a time of intense debate regarding COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Instrumental value is defined as something one values in order to receive something else they value more. Inherent values are defined as things that are valued on their own. In reading this section, I kept thinking about opportunity costs, and how in most things that we have a choice, we will pick the thing that will give us the lowest opportunity cost.

It is easy to think that something that you do not want to do on its own, like getting a flu shot or the COVID-19 vaccination because of the potential pain and displeasure or chance of ineffectiveness, is not valuable. However, as we know, the value of not getting the flu or not getting COVID-19 outweighs the consequence of enduring the pain of the initial vaccination. Furthermore, things that we want to do do not always come with pleasure, or that pleasure varies among each person. I think addressing flu shots and COVID-19 vaccine distribution in these ways to the public, as consequences that are inherently morally important rather than in terms of instrumental value, would help increase the number of people willing to receive the vaccines.