I will argue that US society’s failure to blame historical figures such as Christopher Columbus and Robert E. Lee for their racist beliefs and actions at least partly explains the moral ignorance from which US police murder Black persons in the US such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner. Three premises support this conclusion. First, blaming these figures in the past can promote belief in the moral truth in the present. Second, statues and monuments that honor these figures represent this failure to blame. Third, this failure to blame promotes the pervasiveness and persistence of the ignorance from which US society and thus police act.
Website: https://www.ericbayrunsgarcia.com/
Twitter: @E_BayrunsGarcia
Eric Bayruns García is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University and Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg. During the 2022-2023 academic year, he was Fellow in Residence at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. He specializes in philosophy of race, epistemology and Latin American philosophy. His research focuses on epistemological and ethical issues raised by racial injustice and colonialism. His work has been published in peer-reviewed academic philosophy journals such as Episteme, Social Epistemology, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, the Inter-American Journal of Philosophy and the Journal of Social Philosophy.
Website: https://www.shannonspaulding.com/
Shannon Spaulding is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oklahoma State University. Her general philosophical interests are in cognitive science, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of science. The principal goal of her research is to construct a philosophically and empirically plausible account of social cognition. Her current research projects are on motivated empathy, the relationship between trust and perspective taking, and the cognitive structure of implicit bias. She recently published a book on social cognition called How We Understand Others: Philosophy and Social Cognition.
