I think the Race Relations Act (1976) covers most immoral racism: "to treat someone less favourably because of the colour of their skin, their race, their nationality or their ethnic or national origin."
"Treating someone less favourably" is obviously a horrible thing to define, hence my difficulties with the poll, but it does make it slightly easier to judge whether any particular incident is morally wrong.
Pragmatically*, I think it's OK to use prior experience to judge certain situations, which may include use of stereotypes that 'discriminate' between (though not against) certain races, sexes etc. I think that becomes morally wrong when there is neglect in (1) using the available evidence about an individual (2) collecting evidence where reasonable. That means that our moral duty is in testing our assumptions wherever that's reasonably possible.
Eg I might plan a forces lesson for a new tutee based on an assumption that 'boys tend to know more than girls about cars, and be more interested in them'. I think that I have a duty to assess the tutee at the beginning of the lesson, and make changes if he cares naught for cars. If I were planning worship for a particular ethnic group of 200 people, and couldn't reasonably contact them in advance, I would draw from their cultural tradition despite not knowing whether they would appreciate this. In both cases, a mismatch based on racist assumptions would be 'treating them less favourably' because of their race/sex. I can't see any way to get around this without treating everyone exactly the same, which seems both silly and impractical.
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Date: 2006-07-13 04:54 pm (UTC)"Treating someone less favourably" is obviously a horrible thing to define, hence my difficulties with the poll, but it does make it slightly easier to judge whether any particular incident is morally wrong.
Pragmatically*, I think it's OK to use prior experience to judge certain situations, which may include use of stereotypes that 'discriminate' between (though not against) certain races, sexes etc. I think that becomes morally wrong when there is neglect in (1) using the available evidence about an individual (2) collecting evidence where reasonable. That means that our moral duty is in testing our assumptions wherever that's reasonably possible.
Eg I might plan a forces lesson for a new tutee based on an assumption that 'boys tend to know more than girls about cars, and be more interested in them'. I think that I have a duty to assess the tutee at the beginning of the lesson, and make changes if he cares naught for cars. If I were planning worship for a particular ethnic group of 200 people, and couldn't reasonably contact them in advance, I would draw from their cultural tradition despite not knowing whether they would appreciate this. In both cases, a mismatch based on racist assumptions would be 'treating them less favourably' because of their race/sex. I can't see any way to get around this without treating everyone exactly the same, which seems both silly and impractical.
*Yes, I do *know* the word. I just don't like it.