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Profiling Color

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Abstract

This paper examines philosophically the nature and possible moral justification of racial profiling in terms of color profiling. Precisely what is such profiling, and can it ever be morally justified? If so, under what conditions is it morally justified?

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Notes

  1. Those who have written on the problem include Applbaum (1996), Boylan (2007), Corlett (1993), Lever (2005, 2007), Lippert-Rasmussen (2006), McGary (1996), Risse (2007), and Risse and Zeckhauser (2004).

  2. Risse and Zeckhauser (2004: 132). This definition is adopted in Lever (2005).

  3. This requirement also ensures that if there is unavoidable and unintentionally visited humiliation that accompanies such profiling due to public arrest and other lawful means of search and seizure, for example, that such measures of humiliation visit all relevant parties and racial groups in roughly equal terms. The concern for humiliation due to racial profiling is raised in Paul Bou-Habib, “Racial Profiling and Background Injustice” (The Journal of Ethics, this issue). I assume here that some humiliation experienced during criminal racial profiling is unavoidable since, for example, most people think that anyone investigated by the police is a “trouble-maker” regardless of race. But this in itself is not a sufficiently sound reason to prohibit color profiling on moral grounds. That onlookers often do misconstrue with racist bias those who are suspected, pulled over and profiled for criminal conduct is not in itself a good reason to not profile by color, other conditions of fairness obtaining.

  4. For a discussion of color profiling that can be either expressive or non-expressive, see Lever (2005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

    J. Angelo Corlett

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  1. J. Angelo Corlett
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Correspondence to J. Angelo Corlett.

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Corlett, J.A. Profiling Color. J Ethics 15, 21–32 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9093-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9093-8

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