1.2.1 |
CONDEMNATORY MEANINGS OF DISCRIMINATION |
When we define discrimination as (act or instance of)
making a nonrelevant distinction or as
practise of
making nonrelevant distinctions, we will be talking about something
else than someone who fights racism (or ethnocentrism), but who
calls it "racism and discrimination". The statement of such a
person saying that
'e opposes
'racism and discrimination' is terminologically as bizarre as that of
someone saying that 'e loves 'women and (also) human beings' or, for that
matter, 'men and (also) human beings'. If racism denotes
the belief, attitude, practise or act in which one or more nonrelevant
distinctions are made between human beings on the basis of race,
ethnicity or skin color, then racial discrimination is simply
part of it. Perhaps some confine the meaning of racism
strictly to the belief or attitude, but then the corresponding
form of discrimination is racial discrimination and not discrimination
in general.
Conversely, what corresponds to discrimination is not racism but
exclusivism.
(This term, however, we
will use ourselves to refer to discriminatory practises and acts
as well.) By speaking of "racism and discrimination" it is
suggested that discrimination is nothing else than racial
discrimination (and that exclusivism is nothing else than
racism), and that it would be wrong because it has something to
do with race. This is about the narrowest conception of
discrimination possible. The practical implicature of this
(seemingly exclusive) antiracism, when recognized and mentioned
as an ideal in isolation, is that people might be allowed to
make nonrelevant distinctions on all other grounds than race.
(This also applies to the exclusive emphasis on a right to
freedom from racial discrimination.)
Altho we all
denounce discrimination, and are talking about discrimination in a
condemnatory sense, it is not race or any other particular factor which is
at issue here but the
principle of relevance itself which
is violated regardless of the kind of factor concerned.
Our own definition of discrimination is therefore etymologically
entirely justifiable. Yet, we must admit that etymology is never a
sufficient criterion in itself. (Thus, (to) live derives from
caelebs which means unmarried, but no etymologist, celibate
or not, can seriously maintain that 'to live is to be unmarried'.) Another
fact --and a more important one-- which favors
our definition is that it does seem to agree with what many ethical
theorists have always understood by discrimination in general, or by
racism, sexism and so on, in particular. Sexism,
for instance, has been described as counting sex as relevant in contexts
where it is not. (See
I.5.1.2.) As regards
the grounds for discrimination between human beings of different races
which racists sometimes offer, it has been said that they are 'not relevant
to the question of the capacity for bearing acute pain' and that
they 'therefore should be disregarded'. It has been pointed out,
in turn, that if this argument is valid against discrimination
on the basis of race, it is valid in an analogous way for
discrimination on the basis of species.
Taken literally our definition might still be considered too
broad compared with the traditional usage of the word (not so
much by those who speak of "racism and discrimination", but by
many others). For lots of people 'discrimination' seems to be
confined to irrelevant (or nonrelevant) distinctions which are
disadvantageous to people (sometimes sentient beings) in a
social environment. This typically moral (rather than generally
normative) use of discrimination also explains why quite
a few theorists tend to speak of "a discriminatory action or
practise based on a morally irrelevant property" or "factor".
Hence, they do not only qualify the
fundament of the relevance
relation (a distinction) but also its
terminus (a moral goal or
other moral entity) and even the effects of something that is
not part of the terminus proper. Not only would making an
irrelevant distinction when alone on a deserted island not count
as 'discrimination', making an irrelevant distinction to someone's
advantage would not either. Yet, if the happiness, well-being or
interests of personal, human or sentient beings are to be regarded as
ends in themselves, this requires an extra
principle of happiness or another maxim of that nature (besides,
possibly,
the right to personhood).
All these additional terminological
and normative considerations do not concern the
principle of relevance as such, and from the point of view of
this principle they do not justify a narrower sense of
discrimination than we have started out with.
Sometimes theorists do not explicitly refer to the nonrelevance
of the distinction drawn, or to the 'making of
distinctions' (leaving irrelevant as superfluous). Instead,
they speak of a difference in treatment or favor on a
basis other than individual merit. In this formulation it is implied
that such a difference made is never relevant. Also when the
reference is just to favor (instead of difference in favor), it
carries implicitly with it that the favor itself is not
justified, as it is founded upon --again-- a nonrelevant
distinction. (If the distinction actually is relevant, the term
favor would not be employed to imply partiality.) Finally,
discrimination is sometimes also defined as making an
unjustified distinction, but the only thing this definition is
good for, is that it tells us that there are 'just' and 'unjust'
distinctions. Just and unjust themselves are normative or
evaluative concepts which do not describe any factual(-modal)
state of affairs. According to the relevance principle, a
distinction is unjustified because it is not relevant, and not
the other way around. It is only with this principle in mind
that unjustified can be substituted for nonrelevant.
All the above definitions are 'objective' in that discrimination
can even occur when the group or person concerned does not
notice it, or feel it that way. The normative question on the
performatory level is
what is discrimination? and not what do people
discrimination believe to be? or when do people feel
discriminated against?. The latter, doxastic notion is
primarily interesting from the empirical point of view of the
social sciences. Thus, one phenomenological sociologist attempted
to define discrimination by means of a discrepancy between
the (doxastic) relevances prevailing in different groups. This
discrepancy was said to be one between an 'objective' and a
'subjective' definition of a concrete group situation. The
'subjective definition' is the one of the afflicted member of
the group and the 'objective definition' the one of those
'imposing a typification' on this individual and the group 'e
belongs to. At the same time the sociologist in question wrote
that others create the 'group' and invest it 'with a fictitious
scheme of relevances which can be manipulated at will'. Somehow,
'e had to intuitively admit that discrimination involves more
than a mere difference in relevancy judgments, and that some
people are indeed discriminated against by others 'imposing
fictitious schemes' on them.
