Scanlon’s
discussion of discrimination successfully highlights why it is useful to bother
thinking about intention and action separately despite the fact that the two
seem so intimately tied to each other.
The wrongness
of discrimination, to me, and I think Scanlon, lies in two main issues. First, there seems to be something
particularly distasteful with actions that normally sprout from an ideology
that suggests that certain people are somehow below others due to
characteristics like race, gender, or sexuality. The historical atrocities that provoke some
of our strongest negative reactions are ones like the Holocaust or the European
conquest of Native Americans in which prejudicial actions are central. The intent behind these people seem to be so intimately
tied to the action of discrimination that it is natural for us to concentrate
only on this and question why action and intent should be thought of
separately.
However, there
is a second factor that contributes to the wrongness of discrimination that
does not depend on intent. To me, the
fact that discrimination can lead to systems that pervade society and oppress
certain groups seems significant. And as
Scanlon points out, “decisions that deny important goods to members of the
group discriminated against… are wrong even if they express no judgment of
inferiority on the agent’s part” (73). In
other words, people can perform an action that is discriminatory and,
therefore wrong, even if they are not consciously prejudiced. This seems especially relevant to the state
of racism today in which people are often not explicitly racist, yet perform
actions that are wrong because of the discriminatory nature of the actions. If we assume that intent is the fundamental
factor that makes discrimination wrong, we are required to say that an employer
who does not hire people of a certain race simply because that is what he is
used to doing and not because of some malicious or prejudicial intent somehow
does something fundamentally different from a racist employer who performs the
same action. To me, this way of thinking
seems to be both mistaken and dangerous.
Thus,
considering the action and the intent separately has utility that is
highlighted in cases of discrimination.
When we assess the two employers, we may judge the intent of the racist employer
and say that there is something particularly troubling about his attitude
towards others and his potential future actions. However, to be unable to also consider the
action on its own, separately from the intent, is to underemphasize the wrongness
of the action of the accidentally discriminatory employer and to mistakenly assume
that the same action performed by non-racists would somehow be fundamentally
different.
This is a good point. The consequences of intentional and unintentional discrimination are both very harmful, and to suggest that intentional discrimination is different or worse than unintentional discrimination can be a problem, when we are searching to defeat discrimination.
ReplyDeleteYet making a differentiation between the two kinds of intent (or in this case, the intent and non-intent) has important utility in addressing ways to end the consequence.
For example, if some discrimination, hypothetically, happens only because it is intended, the problem could be solved by getting different (not racist) staff to do the job. However, if the discrimination is systemic and unintended (as arguably most is) different strategies must be used to counter it.
So intention does, as Scanlon and you point out, have utility and can't be ignored. But this utility goes towards ending the terrible consequences, which are the same regardless and must be judged the same..
I would agree with idea that consequences of intentional and unintentional racism are both serious problems. I also agree that removing intention from the criteria for permissibility allows us to make--in my opinion an important--move which is that, regardless of if the discriminator is being intentionally racist or unintentionally racist, the act of discriminating against, for example, a black renter as opposed to a white renter is morally wrong.
ReplyDeleteMy gut, however, has an issue with placing blame on someone who genuinely has no intention of doing something morally wrong, or someone who genuinely is unaware of the circumstances that make their actions wrong. In the case of racism, I agree with much of the sentiment of yesterdays discussion--that most people in America are somewhat aware of the institutionalized racism in this country and acknowledge that it is a inarguable fact. I must, however, point out that there are without a doubt people who are not aware of the concept of institutionalized racism. I will admit I was not aware of it, at least not in any meaningful way that it would affect my decision making, until participating in extensive service work and engaging in collegiate level discussion. Furthermore, there are without a doubt people who have heard of and explored the concept of institutionalized racism but then conclude that it is untrue, misinformed, not an actual problem. There are even people who believe their treatment of black people stems from multiple, legitimate, negative first-hand experiences, ones that validate their reasons for denying them their house.
Whether these people are rare or not is not my concern. Lets say they are a very small minority. Still, I wonder that if in the case of these types of people it is reasonable to blame them for their discrimination when they genuinely have no awareness of, or genuinely disagree with the claim that, there actions contribute to a long-term and terribly unjust system of racism. Let me clarify, I agree that the action in itself is still IMPERMISSIBLE, its a wrong act to refuse housing to someone for being African American, whether they realize it or not. But BLAMING them for picking the white person over of the black person when they either: 1) do not having an awareness of institutionalized racism, 2) do not believe it is actually a legitimate problem, or 3) genuinely believe their choice is based off of first-hand negative experiences and nothing more, sounds like we are blaming people for either not having a certain belief or for not acting in contradiction to their beliefs.
In conclusion, as dangerous as it might sound, I still think that there are situations today where acts of discrimination are morally wrong and yet not blameworthy.