I do not believe that Scanlon does enough to address the morality and involvement of intent in discrimination. He states that "individual acts of discrimination on certain grounds become impermissible because they support and maintain this practice (structural racism). They are thus wrong because of their consequences- the exclusion of some people from important opportunities- and because of their meaning- the judgement of inferiority that they express and thereby help to maintain." It seems to me that he supports the idea that intent has weight on the morality of an action when it comes to discrimination. Previously he made some bold claims as to the various reasons why intent should be disregarded in the judgement of morality. This should apply for racism and discrimination as well if he does not want his argument to fall apart and he wants his argument to have continuity.
He also states that "once a practice of discrimination exists, decisions that deny important goods to members of the group discriminated against- and do so without sufficient justification- are wrong even if they express no judgement or inferiority on the agent's part." There are two big things that I see wrong with this statement First, In order for a practice of discrimination to exist there had to have been events that started such discrimination on such a big scale. I would argue that America's and Europe's enslavement of African American for manual labor was a big start to this systemic discrimination. I would ask Scanlon: was the enslavement of African American people wrong simply because it was enslaving other people or also because it created a culture that discriminated against African Americans? If he adds the second claim, which I feel he must given his statement, then I would argue that intent holds weight in the morality. In enslaving African Americans they intended to make them inferior. My second argument is that there should be a scale as to how morally wrong an action is. This would depend on whether or not the person doing the discrimination is doing it either intentionally or unintentionally. Both actions are wrong, however I believe that it is important to distinguish between the two and not group them together in terms of morality. A person who is intentionally and consciously racist, for example, a man who lynches an African American boy because he "whistled at a white woman," should be found more morally wrong than, for example, a woman who hold her purse closer to her when she walks past a black man than a white man. Both actions are wrong, however I would argue that the first example is clearly more morally wrong.
I would agree that there is a significant difference between how we should view the intentionality... but further argue but the actions--due to their consequences--are largely the same.
ReplyDeleteDiscrimination of the intended and the unintended kinds both have disastrous consequences, and should both be fought against and/or avoided equally. However, what the intent gives us is a possible clue as to how we best approach avoiding and fighting it. Discrimination that is the result of unintended, systemic issues must be dealt with differently than the intentional discrimination.
Of course systemic discrimination, as you point out, must and did come from intentional discrimination... centuries of it! This is a factor that must be taken into account in understanding modern discrimination and thus fighting it.
I admit this assumes that the consequences of either kind of discrimination are the same. In many cases it is, but not always. When intentional discrimination does/did result in greater harm than unintentional discrimination, then the intentionality plays a greater role in the consequences. This I'll concede.