#   Colloquium Lecture: Elizabeth Barnes (University of Virginia), "Moral-Epistemic Dilemmas: The Case of Gender in Medical Diagnosis" 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 21, 2025** 

 03:00PM - 05:00PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Emerson Hall 210**  



 

 



 

Abstract: In this paper, I describe what I call ‘moral-epistemic dilemmas’. The central features of such cases are: (i) an agent is obligated to take a view (i.e. they cannot simply refrain from drawing a conclusion); (ii) the view the agent takes is action-guiding; (iii) there are competing options for how the agent should evaluate evidence (and what information they should consider as evidential) when taking a view; (iv) there are both moral *and* epistemic costs associated with each of their competing options. To illustrate this phenomenon, I use the example of statistical inferences based on gender in medical diagnosis. In such cases, I argue, there are potential costs to both accuracy and fairness if a physician applies potentially-stigmatizing gender-based generalizations to a female patient, and likewise potential costs to both accuracy and fairness if a physician fails to apply such generalizations. The net result is a dilemma in which both horns have epistemic and moral costs.



 

 



 

 

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