Michael S. Brownstein

Monographs

Brownstein, M. 2018. The Implicit Mind: Cognitive Architecture, the Self, and Ethics. Oxford University Press.

NDPR review by Neil Levy

Edited Volumes

Brownstein, M. and Saul, J. (Eds). 2016. Implicit Bias and Philosophy: Volume 1, Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxford University Press.

Brownstein, M. and Saul, J. (Eds). 2016. Implicit Bias and Philosophy: Volume 2, Moral Responsibility, Structural Injustice, and Ethics. Oxford University Press.

Journal Articles

Madva, A., Kelly, D., and Brownstein, M. 2022. Change the People or Change the Policy? On the Moral Education of Anti-Racists. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

Brownstein, M., Kelly, D., and Madva, A. 2021. Individualism, Structuralism, and Climate Change. Environmental Communication.

Brownstein, M. and Levy, N. 2021. Philosophy’s other climate problem. Journal of Social Philosophy.

Brownstein, M., Madva, A., and Gawronski, B. 2019. Understanding Implicit Bias: Putting the Criticism into Perspective. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.

Brownstein, M., Madva, A., and Gawronski, B. 2019. What do implicit measures measure? WIREs Cognitive Science.

Brownstein, M. 2018. Self-Control and Overcontrol: Conceptual, ethical, and ideological issues in positive psychology. The Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 9(3), 585-606.

Madva, A. and Brownstein, M. 2018. Stereotypes, Prejudice, and the Taxonomy of the Implicit Social Mind. Noûs, 52(3), 611-644.

Brownstein, M. and Michaelson, E. 2015. Doing without Believing: Intellectualism, Knowledge-How, and Belief-Attribution. Synthese, 193(9), 2815-2836.

Brownstein, M. 2015. Attributionism and Moral Responsibility for Implicit Bias. The Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 7(4), 765-786.

Banaji, M., Bhaskar, R., and Brownstein, M. 2015. When bias is implicit, what should be the model for repairing harm? Current Opinion in Psychology, 6, 183-188.

Brownstein, M. 2014. Rationalizing Flow: Agency in Skilled Unreflective Action. Philosophical Studies, 168(2), 545-568.

Brownstein, M. and Madva, A. 2012. Ethical Automaticity. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 42(1), 67-97.

Brownstein, M. and Madva, A. 2012. The Normativity of Automaticity. Mind and Language, 27(4), 410-434.

Media

“Coronavirus calls for an aggressive Green New Deal,” in The Hill

Reviews and Encyclopedia Articles

Brownstein, M. 2022. Mind as magic eight ball: A review of Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein’s Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. Philosophical Psychology.

Brownstein, M. and Kelly, D. 2019. Review of The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory, by Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Brownstein, M. 2015. Implicit Bias. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition). Zalta, E. (Ed.) . 

Book Chapters

Brownstein, M. Forthcoming. Debiasing, Skill, and Intergroup Virtue.  In Fridland, E., and Pavese, C. (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Skill and Expertise. New York: Routledge.

Brownstein, M. Forthcoming. Skepticism about Implicit Bias. In Madva, A. and Beeghly, E. (Eds.) An Introduction to Implicit Bias: Knowledge, Justice, and the Social Mind. New York: Routledge.

Brownstein, M. 2018. Implicit Bias and Race.  In Taylor, P., Anderson, L., and Alcoff, L. (Eds.) The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race. New York: Routledge.

Brownstein, M. 2017. Implicit Attitudes, Social Learning, and Moral Credibility. In Kiverstein, J. (Ed.) The Routledge Handbook on Philosophy of the Social Mind. New York: Routledge. 

Brownstein, M. 2016.  Context and the Ethics of Implicit Bias.  In Brownstein, M. and Saul, J. (Eds.) Implicit Bias and Philosophy: Volume 2, Moral Responsibility, Structural Injustice, and Ethics.  Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Michael Brownstein Curriculum Vitae October 2022

Brownstein, M., Madva, A., and Kelly, D. Structural Change: From Individuals to Institutions and Back. In contract with MIT Press.

Kelly, D. and Brownstein, M. The Ethics of Consistency.

Public Philosophy and Social Change

University of Utrecht. Info here.

Nature of Bias

Multi-disciplinary workshop at Claremont-McKenna. Info here.

Hey Nice People!

Comedy variety show with me as ethics “subject area expert.” Info here.

113th Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology

Invited symposium on social change, with Alex Madva and Dan Kelly. Info here.

The Lucas Brothers and Michael Brownstein on Philosophy and Comedy

You probably know the Lucas Brothers from their Netflix special On Drugs or their appearances in TV shows and movies like Lady Dynamite and 22 Jump Street. You might not know that they are serious students of philosophy. Join us on Wednesday, November 28th at 7:30 in the Strand's 2nd Floor Art Department as Kenny and Keith Lucas join Michael Brownstein (Associate Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College and author of The Implicit Mind) to discuss how philosophy shapes their comedy, how comedy works, the weirdly popular idea that comedians are today's philosophers, and more.

This event is organized by Brooklyn Public Philosophers and hosted by the Strand Bookstore.

Skepticism About Bias: Social Structures, Biased Minds, and Discrimination

Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology, Bioethics Program, Icahn School of Medicine, December 13, 2018

Stats for Philosophers

Free one-day workshop at the CUNY Graduate Center for philosophers interested in becoming more competent readers of empirical literature.  

Workshop speakers: Joshua Knobe (Yale, philosophy and psychology); Edouard Machery (Pitt, HPS); Virginia Valian (Hunter, psychology); Siminie Vazire (Washington, psychology)

Video of the talks here: Knobe, Machery, Valian, Vazire

Implicit Bias Training

For the Pima County Superior Court, Juvenile Court, and Consolidated Justice Court, with Alex Madva.  Participant survey results both immediately following the training and 3 months later here.  Coverage from the National Association of State Judicial Educators here.

Workshop: Can Psychology Improve Policing?  

Organized with Susanna Siegel.  April 29th 2016 at Harvard University.  Details here.

Climate Change and Social Change

Climate change will be among the most influential forces shaping human life in the 21st century and beyond, if not the most influential force. It is not just a technical problem, an environmental issue, a moral challenge, or a political quandary. Rather, as environmental engineer Costa Samaras put it, climate change is the landscape on which our future unfolds. While there is well-developed philosophical literature on some aspects of climate change, this course focuses on topics in need of more attention from philosophers. As such, the course presents an opportunity for graduate students to begin work in areas that likely will, and should, gain prominence over time. Syllabus

Philosophy of Comedy

This course uses a diversity of tools—historical, psychological, philosophical, and more—to consider the nature of comedy as a form of creative expression.  Understanding comedy requires considering questions such as: what makes something funny?  When is it okay (and not okay) to laugh at a joke?  Why do we laugh at all?  Can comedy be used as a tool for pursuing social justice?  Syllabus

Intellectual Foundations I: What is the Common Good?

This course emphasizes how different disciplines frame seminal questions about the historical, religious, scientific, and philosophical contexts that have shaped and continue to shape questions of the common good. This semester, the course will focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.  Syllabus

Living Well During Dangerous Times: An Incomplete Philosophical History

How does one live well during dangerous times?  This course considers various answers to this question.  Key themes covered are stoicism, virtue ethics, existentialism, and civil disobedience.  Syllabus

Race and Education

This course focuses on the role of stereotypes, prejudice, and social group membership in student experiences and outcomes from primary school through college in the United States.  Readings are drawn from philosophical and psychological literature, and well as popular narratives.  The aim of the course is to address the intersection of race and education from both theoretical and practical perspectives.  What are the best ways to understand the relevant social and individual challenges?  And how can these challenges be overcome?  Syllabus

Philosophy and Psychology of Race and Gender

Persistent inequalities between social groups are a blight on modern, liberal democracies, which pride themselves on the idea of justice and fairness for all.  This course focuses on inequalities having to do with race and gender, with special emphasis of the psychology of prejudice.  Syllabus

Understanding Technological Society (through Food)

This course examines the impact of science and technology on politics, economics, culture, health, and morality.  We will focus on one particular example: food.  Topics include: industrial agriculture, food and justice, food and community, and the ethics of eating.  This course includes a service learning component, guest lectures, film, and a variety of technical and non-technical readings.  Syllabus

Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature

This course focuses on four topics that philosophers have thought about for thousands of years: happiness, morality, virtue and free will.  In recent years, scientists have begun to examine these same subjects, bringing to bear on them the modern tools of their trade (experimental studies, statistical analysis, etc.).  This course has three aims: (1) to use any tools we can in order to understand something about these really really really important questions; (2) to examine the very methodological promiscuity assumed in (1); and (3) to re-examine our beliefs and maybe even change our lives a little in light of what we learn.  Syllabus

Mind and Machines

 Is the mind like an extraordinarily complex machine?  If so, what kind of machine is it like?  This course examines the most contemporary mechanical metaphor for the mind: the computer.  The idea that the mind is like a computer is the founding assumption of modern cognitive science.  In trying to understand how the mind is or is not like a computer, we will take what John Haugeland calls a “mind design” approach; that is, we will try to understand what the mind is like by thinking about how it is built.  Syllabus

I write about science and ethics, with emphasis on leveraging the insights of the social sciences to create change in societies fractured by intergroup conflict. My current research focuses on the moral and political psychology of climate change.

My PhD is from Penn State, and before that I attended Columbia University and Deep Springs College.

I live in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn with my partner, three kids, two laying hens, one dwarf hamster, one snake, and Janet, the best dog ever.  

I helped start and run the Ft. Greene Tennis Association, which recently raised over $60,000 to repair our neighborhood tennis courts (before and after). Nowadays I race triathlons with the Brooklyn Tri Club, like this one in Iceland.