Through Banaji and Greenwald’s writing, I was most surprised by the heavily researched correlation between our held implicit biases and our predispositions to certain behaviors. Banaji and Greenwald discussed the implications of women associating romantic partners with the fantasy of Prince Charming. Research done by Laurie Rudman showed that “‘associating romantic partners with chivalry and heroism may curtail women’s direct pursuit of power’” (Banaji and Greenwald, 116). That is crazy to think about. Growing up as a white, straight girl in the United States, the fantasy of Prince Charming was ingrained into me since I could watch Disney films or little kids shows. I am sure I hold that implicit bias (I wouldn’t argue against it), but the fact that that could subconsciously mean I have less drive to pursue power is hard to wrap my brain around. I think something could be said about balancing the exposure young girls, or boys, have to the Prince Charming stereotype as a romantic partner with exposure to material that shows self-efficacy and independence to help counteract the effects of this implicit bias. Showing girls and boys fighting for themselves and thriving on their own skills and talents could help prevent the fact that the Prince Charming stereotype could very well lead to “‘nonconsciously [inhibiting] women from competing with men for status and prestige’” (116). 

The discussion of the “romantic partner = fantasy hero” stereotype reminds me as well of the discussion in the podcast regarding white culture being the default culture in the US. Although the storyline of the damsel in distress being saved by the hero exists across almost all cultures, the United States for a very long time white washed this stereotype until it only represented white people. “Snow White”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Rapunzel”, “Cinderella”, all hold a message that could be understood across cultures, but the people remain to represent only one: white American culture. It’s scary to know that people who are looking to elevate one culture over another can do so even through unassuming children’s movies. The active decision to white-wash entire casts and scripts contributes to the lack of representation in the media for a very long time. As Bezio discussed, it’s exciting to see that it’s finally changing– but only a little bit in the grand scheme of things. We have a long way to go, but the heroes in movies are changing and the damsels in distress are beginning to fight their own battles and that is a really cool thing for future generations.

The results for my implicit bias test were pretty much what I was expecting, just not to the extreme that they determined. The results showed that I have a “strong” automatic preference for one group of people over another. This categorization of “strong” makes me feel a little uneasy for sure even though I definitely trust the results of the test and the methods that go into it. Maybe this is just my preexisting bias speaking, but even as I was taking the test I felt almost led towards one end of the spectrum of opinions than the other. My test was comparing two groups of people and also using vocabulary associated with good and bad things. The test started with relating the group of people that I more closely relate to and know more about in general with the good words. By the time I got to the section of the test that related the second group of people to the bad words, it felt like it was already ingrained in my habit of taking the test that I would associate the good words, no incorrectly, with the first group of people. The longer I spent with the test the more it felt like I was overthinking everything and psyching myself out! But maybe that was just my bias showing up 🙂

In the podcast episode, I was intrigued by the discussion of how the basic determinants in evaluating moral ethics overlap. In the reading, it seemed less obvious that all three types of reasoning, consequentialism, deontic, and aretaic, commonly overlap in the ways that they can. To break down these forms of reasoning into consequence, action, and intent, it is more apparent to me how often all three of these forms of reasoning appear in everyday or just common societal situations. 

Beyond the discussion of the general acceptance of killing as an immoral action based on all three forms of reasoning, I want to explore the generally accepted moral good of donating to charities. This question is obviously closely related to our upcoming GivingGames project and we would all have different thoughts and ideas on this generally accepted topic. On the basis of consequentialism, we would have to consider the consequences of someone donating their time or money. Some consequences could be curing cancer, eradicating disease, or providing clothing to a child in need. All of these things would arguably be good, and thus donating to charity would be good. But, some consequences could also be supporting a political campaign that could be against your beliefs or a child dies because the promised materials never actually get to them. These consequences are obviously not good, and thus donating to charity would be bad. On the basis of deontic reasoning, we would have to evaluate the actual action of giving and furthermore the universality of the action. I think that the action of giving itself would be good because intrinsically the action of giving is not considered to be immoral. If we consider the universality of the question however, I would say that giving fails Kant’s test. I don’t think that everyone ever should be donating to charity. Some people don’t have the means to support themselves and therefore should not feel obligated to donate to charity if we evaluate it from a deontic perspective. For aretaic reasoning, which I think is super important in the context of our GivingGames project, the intentions a person has would need to be evaluated. Some people donate to charity because they want to achieve a goal (like curing disease), or support a person close to them who have suffered through an illness, or help a community that is close to their heart. I think all of these reasons would be a sign of a virtuous person and therefore a moral action. But, we all know that some people donate to a charity in an act of virtue signaling. They desire the glory rather than the actual good that comes from their donation. In this case, I don’t think donating to charity would be a moral action at all. 

All of this being said, the complexity of evaluating the morality behind things within society happens way more than I have ever considered. As rational beings, we are constantly evaluating the situations that confront us to determine whether they fit into our definition of right and wrong. And we are constantly evaluating our definition with the way our cultures and environments also define the same things. Like Dr. Bezio said, no wonder philosophers still have jobs. 🙂