Profiling, Neutrality, and Social Equality

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (4):808-824 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I argue that traditional views on which beliefs are subject only to purely epistemic assessment can reject demographic profiling, even when based on seemingly robust evidence. This is because the moral failures involved in demographic profiling can be located in the decision not to suspend judgment, rather than supposing that beliefs themselves are a locus of moral evaluation. A key moral reason to suspend judgment when faced with adverse demographic evidence is to promote social equality—this explains why positive profiling is dubious, along with more familiar cases of negative profiling, and why profiling is suspect even when no particular action is at stake. My suspension-based view, while compatible with revisionary normative positions, does not presuppose them. Philosophers of all stripes can reject demographic profiling both in thought and deed.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Moral Encroachment and Positive Profiling.Lisa Cassell - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (5):1759-1779.
Racial profiling versus community.Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen - 2006 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 23 (2):191–205.
Profiling Color.J. Angelo Corlett - 2011 - The Journal of Ethics 15 (1-2):21 - 32.
race and racial profiling.Annabelle Lever - 2017 - In Naomi Zack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race. New York, USA: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 425-435.
Ethical Profiling.Michael Boylan - 2011 - The Journal of Ethics 15 (1-2):131 - 145.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-04-25

Downloads
742 (#34,072)

6 months
140 (#33,459)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Lewis Ross
London School of Economics

Citations of this work

Relational Justice: Egalitarian and Sufficientarian.Andreas Bengtson & Lasse Nielsen - 2023 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 40 (5):900-918.
Morality of Belief I: How Beliefs Wrong.Rima Basu - 2023 - Philosophy Compass (7):1-10.
Criminal Proof: Fixed or Flexible?Lewis Ross - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly (4):1-23.
Acceptance and the ethics of belief.Laura K. Soter - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (8):2213-2243.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

What is the point of equality.Elizabeth Anderson - 1999 - Ethics 109 (2):287-337.
Doxastic Wronging.Rima Basu & Mark Schroeder - 2018 - In Brian Kim & Matthew McGrath (eds.), Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology. New York: Routledge. pp. 181-205.
The wrongs of racist beliefs.Rima Basu - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2497-2515.

View all 46 references / Add more references