I took the Transgender Implicit Bias Test and received a result of a slight automatic preference for transgender people over cisgender people. I was surprised by this result, as I believe that I likely have implicit biases that follow societal norms which, historically have been biased against transgender individuals. I was glad to not receive that result saying I was biased against transgender people, however, I am slightly skeptical. After taking the test, I went back and read that this particular test requires the ability to distinguish between the faces of transgender and cisgender celebrities. As someone who knows very little about celebrities, this takes away the biases that comes with easily recognizing famous people, and so I wonder if my result also suggests that I cannot distinguish between transgender and cisgender faces. If this is true, I would be comfortable with this idea, because I don’t think it should be up to someone else’s perception to determine someone else’s identity. Both cisgender and transgender individuals have a wide range of physical appearances, and many physical attributes that we ascribe to certain identities actually can overlap greatly, so in some ways using physical appearances to determine preference of transgender or cisgender individuals may be deceptive. I am glad to have received a result that suggests I am not biased against transgender individuals, however, I am skeptical of this result, and I think I still have a long way to go in fully aligning with the my implicit bias test result.

One aspect of the reading I found very interesting is the application of knowing versus endorsing in relation to automatic beliefs. Although humans are able to reflect and determine whether or not we endorse or subscribe to a particular belief or stereotype, however, this does not always line up with how an individual reacts at an automatic level. This difference between the conscious mind and unconscious mind creates implicit biases which an individual is often unaware of, or even if they realize they hold this bias, they may not want to admit because when they consciously reflect they disagree with their implicit biases.

This concept aligns with an idea that has become more prominent in the past year about acknowledging your biases, but actively reflecting and combating them to avoid engaging in biased or harmful behaviors towards specific social groups or individuals, in particular to the ideas of anti-racism. This approach recognizes that unconscious bias based on automatic beliefs exist, but also attempts to consciously combat them, and even implies the opportunity to unlearn these biases. While the reading later says that the evidence supporting that this un-learning or re-conditioning away from formerly held automatic beliefs is not completely conclusive about its success long-term, this popular narrative accounts for this uncertainty, explaining this active reflection and re-conditioning as something to strive for as a constant practice. I think it’s interesting to see this logic in combating, racism, sexism, ableism, etc. enter mainstream media in the past year. If this idea of a constant reflective practice were taken up by the majority of the population, would we learn to be aware of our implicit biases at a younger age? Would the types of implicit biases we have change?

I found it interesting to reflect on how as I read “Moral Arguments” and listened to the podcast, emotion easily influenced my judgement of the different theories and approaches to moral arguments. Rainbolt and Dwyer discuss the concept of standardization, and how this helps to remove emotional force from an argument, but cannot do so entirely. Even though the examples given to explain these approaches and were, to my understanding, not intended to influence the reader’s opinion on the approach itself, I found myself having to check in with myself as I was reading and listening ask whether or not I was focusing the examples to determine my opinion about the different kinds of moral arguments, or if I was focusing on how the moral arguments approached the topic used for the example. 

Considering how ingrained the idea of morality tends to be, it makes sense that I would align more or appreciate the discussion of certain concepts more, such as universalism from the reading and cultural relativism from the podcast, and how other approaches, such as egoism, I was immediately judgemental of and strongly opposed to this perspective. However, it was interesting to see how I had such a notable reaction to the explanation of certain approaches, and at times it was difficult to determine if these reactions were due to my pre-existing beliefs about morality, my stances on the example topics, or a combination of the two. 

One concept that I did not have such an immediate reaction to was that of universalizability and Kant’s test. This concept was one of the ones that I was most uncertain about my opinion on. On the one had, being able to apply something universally seems like a very unifying approach to moral arguments, however, I think it could struggle with understanding the social and cultural context of a situation. As I had less knowledge about this concept, and struggled more to understand it, it made it easier to approach that particular concept from a somewhat more neutral perspective. For me this brought up the tension between how the more we learn and conditioned by the world around us, the more we take in information with preconceived notions and opinions. I think this has both benefits and weaknesses, but poses an interesting take on learning, knowledge, and our judgements and biases. I recognize that this was not directly related to the homework, but I found it important to observe my own biases and reactions to the information presented, or my lack of response on topics I knew minimal about.