No matter how strongly you are committed to egalitarian values, it is likely that you harbour unconscious prejudices that affect the hiring decisions you make, the way you treat the people around you, and the politicians for whom you vote. In this talk, we describe some of the social psychology research that uncovers these widespread prejudices; and we ask what steps we might take to reduce their potency or mitigate their effects.
Havi Carel grew up in Tel Aviv. She came to the UK in 1998 to study for her PhD, on the concept of death, which she completed in 2002, at the University of Essex, under the supervision of Simon Critchley. Havi was made Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol in 2014. Her research examines the experience of illness and of receiving healthcare. In 2014 she was awarded a Senior Investigator Award by the Wellcome Trust, for a five year project entitled ‘Life of Breath’ (with Prof Jane Macnaughton, Durham University). She recently completed a monograph for Oxford University Press, entitled Phenomenology of Illness (out in September 2016). Havi is the author of Illness (2008, 2013), shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and of Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger (2006). She is the co-editor of Health, Illness and Disease (2012) and of What Philosophy Is (2004). She uses film in teaching and has co-edited a volume entitled New Takes in Film-Philosophy (2010).
Richard Pettigrew grew up in Edinburgh. Between 1999 and 2003, he read Mathematics and Philosophy at University of Oxford. After that, he moved to Bristol, reading for an MA in Philosophy (2003-4) and then a PhD in Mathematical Logic (2004-8). From 2008 until 2011, he was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at University of Bristol; in 2011, he was appointed to a Lectureship there. In 2012, he was appointed to a Readership and, in 2014, he became Professor of Philosophy. Between 2014-5, he acted as Head of Department. Richard’s research has moved from the proof theory of set theory and bounded arithmetic through the philosophy of mathematics and modal logic to formal epistemology and the foundations of statistics and, most recently, into decision theory. In his future work, he hopes to focus on the decision theory of major like decisions, such as becoming a parent, choosing a career, or choosing to undergo risky medical treatment.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx