Discrimination

To discriminate is to treat someone unfairly. People discriminate against others based on all kinds of traits. To name a few: race, sex, age, class, able-bodiedness, height, perceived attractiveness, species, and generation. None of these traits should be an indicator of how to treat someone. That is to say, they are not morally relevant.

Our society has done a pretty good job at condemning some forms of discrimination. For example, discrimination on the basis of race is highly stigmatized, and people are terrified of being labeled a racist. That’s good. Our social norms should deter racial discrimination.

But for other forms of discrimination, our society is yet to condemn them as strongly. For example, discrimination on the basis of disability is not nearly as stigmatized. Certainly, most of us would prefer not to be labeled an ableist. But still, ableism lacks the same degree of stigma & shame we associate with racism.

And for other forms of discrimination, they’re yet to be condemned at all, except maybe at the outermost margins of society. Speciesism, for example. Few people have even heard of this concept, and even fewer take it seriously. But just like race & sex, species membership isn’t a valid reason to discriminate. Torturing a pig is no more justified than torturing a dog. They both suffer the same. It’s super important we actively oppose this bias, because there are billions of animals being tortured on factory farms right now, and their suffering matters no less simply because they’re cows & pigs, instead of cats & dogs.

Likewise, I think discrimination on the basis of perceived attractiveness deserves a lot more attention than it receives. I think this might actually be one of the most problematic forms of discrimination. If a person is perceived to be attractive, they’re more likely to win political elections, to get hired, to be taken seriously, to receive attention. From everyday social interactions to important life decisions, “attractive” people receive preferential treatment. That’s super unfair. We should do our best to change this.

Similarly, I think discrimination based on generation is a very neglected bias. We consistently preference current generations over future generations. This is wrong, because future humans are capable of suffering just as much as current humans. This bias is evidenced by global warming, the depletion of earth’s resources, and the contamination of our air, water, & soil. We understand future humans will suffer greatly from these environmental damages, and yet we do nothing. I worry that if we don’t aggressively oppose this bias, our civilization will collapse.

To conclude, there are many forms of discrimination, and they’re all very bad. Prejudice should be abolished in all forms. While society has certainly progressed in some respects, many blind spots remain, and there is lots of work to be done.

Below is a table with the different forms of discrimination I could think of. I categorize them as either “unacceptable”, “tolerable”, or “normalized”, based on how I believe society perceives them.

Discrimination on the Basis of	Normalized	Tolerable	Unacceptable
Race			x
Sex			x
Sexuality		x
Class		x
Able-Bodiedness	x
Nationality	x
Age	x
Height	x
Weight	x
Perceived Attractiveness	x
Perceived Intelligence	x
Political Affiliation	x
Species	x
Generation	x

I hope in the future, all these prejudices fall under the category of “unacceptable”. I hope we stop using morally irrelevant traits to make moral judgments. I hope everyone gets treated fairly.