'It's Discrimination!'

by Ben O'Neill
by Ben O'Neill

If there were a prize for the most boneheaded thing that one hears very frequently, it would have to be the astonishment and revulsion that is commonly expressed at the existence of discrimination. You are likely to have heard this horrified expression before: "It's discrimination!" Heavens above! Alert the authorities!

Quite often, this tiny statement, without any elaboration or explanation, is enough to provoke looks of shock or revulsion from others, or at the very least, solemn looks of concurrence and disapproval. In many cases, it will provoke fervent denials and apologetic defensive maneuvers from those accused of this heinous act, even if the accuser has made no attempt to deliver his case. The mere charge is enough.

People do not often realize it, but when they disparage "discrimination" without any attempt to elaborate or justify what they are talking about, they are disparaging an abstraction. Moreover, they are disparaging an abstraction on which they rely to think – an abstraction without which they would be docile vegetables unable to make sense of the world around them. When someone shrieks "It's discrimination!" the irony is usually lost on them, but without their own discrimination they would not be able to establish that others are discriminating, and be offended by it.

If one does venture to ask questions about why discrimination is to be condemned, one may be treated to a slight elaboration as to what is upsetting people. One may be informed that so-and-so is discriminating on the basis of race, sex, age, sexual orientation, political affiliation, attractiveness, or some other factor that should not be a part of his decision making, and that just settles the matter, consarn it!

But what is relevant to rational thinking, moral conduct, and justice is not whether discrimination has occurred, or even whether such discrimination is made on the basis of some particular set of purportedly prohibited criteria; what should ultimately be at issue is the reasons why the factors used in a decision were used, and whether these factors do indeed form a rational basis for the inferences that underlie discriminatory decisions (by which I mean, all decisions). In assessing the rationality, irrationality, morality, or immorality of particular instances of discrimination, it behooves us to ask the reasons for discrimination and to assess these reasons in the light of the logic of inference. This may sound trite, but it is a step rarely taken in the rush to disparage the ghastly abstraction of "discrimination."

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Discrimination and Statistical Inference

Discrimination is ubiquitous. It is not some conceptual defect or manifestation of hatred or stupidity. In its widest and most proper sense, discrimination is merely the drawing of distinctions between things, which is the basis for all concept formation and human knowledge. Whenever we form concepts from observations of the things around us and attempt to integrate these concepts into a consistent whole to form a sensible view of the world, we do so by differentiating between different things on the basis of their observable characteristics. In particular, when we form anthropic concepts – concepts pertaining to man – we do so by discriminating between different types of people on the basis of their observable characteristics. Discrimination between people is the basis for all anthropic concepts and all knowledge about man. It is the means by which we are able to condense all of our many experiences with other people down into some economized conceptual units that can be used to predict the unknown characteristics and behavior of others.

One of the reasons that discrimination is of such predictive value is that, like it or not, human beings have characteristics that are statistically dependent, meaning that, for whatever reason, these characteristics tend to occur with one another or tend not to occur with one another (as opposed to occurring statistically independently of one another). Sometimes these characteristics are causally related, and sometimes they are merely correlated, meaning merely that they tend to appear together (or in the case of negative correlation, tend not to appear together). Discrimination on the basis of observable characteristics can be rationally justified in any situation in which there is a statistical dependence between these characteristics and some other characteristics of direct interest to us, given whatever information is available. In such cases, the predictive characteristic gives us information on the characteristic of ultimate interest to us, even if there is no causal relationship between them.

I'll give you an example: A study by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under the Law found that taxicab drivers in Washington DC are less likely to pick up young black males than other people, and are less likely to drive passengers of any race to areas of the city with larger proportions of the black population. Does this mean that cab drivers – including many black cab drivers – are incorrigible racists who see blacks as being genetically predisposed to crime? Not at all! To a cab driver in this situation, it doesn't make a lick of difference whether a particular race of people are genetically predisposed to commit crimes or not. All that matters in this context is that race and crime are correlated – they tend to occur together for some reason. And because these things tend to occur together, in the absence of having some more detailed information about a prospective passenger, the driver is correct to use the passenger's race, sex, and age as factors in his decision. He is correct to conclude that picking up a young black man in his cab (as opposed to picking up someone else) will increase the probability that he will be a victim of assault or other criminal conduct. The rational cab driver knows this, and acts accordingly, avoiding fares that he thinks are high risk, based on those characteristics he is able to observe about his prospective passengers.

Discrimination on the basis of predictive characteristics which are correlated with characteristic of direct interest is a form of rational discrimination. While it is often slandered as an injustice, rational discrimination is both rational and morally proper. In fact, since justice is the rational assessment and treatment of other people, rational discrimination is a necessary requirement for justice and the refusal to engage in such discrimination is itself an injustice.

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July 11, 2009

Ben O'Neill [send him mail] is a PhD student at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Send him mail. See his article archives at Mises.org.