What is prejudice?

Given that accusations of racism, sexism and so on are usually denied by the accused, it is quite likely that people disagree about what exactly counts as prejudice and how we could decide when a view does or does not meet the definition. In the Oxford English Dictionary, it is defined as “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”. If we work with this definition, then disagreements about whether a view is prejudiced can in theory be settled by determining whether it is or is not “based on reason or actual experience”, but this is not necessarily easy to achieve in practice. To get a sense of the difficulties, consider the challenges of applying this criterion to the following examples, some of which may involve prejudice and others not.

1. Employing a more attractive person over a less attractive person for an office job
2. Employing a more attractive person over a less attractive person for a customer service job
3. Employing a more attractive person over a less attractive person for a modelling job
4. Not employing someone with a disability that would affect that person’s capacity to do the job well
5. Not employing someone with a disability that would affect that person’s capacity to do the job well unless the employer provided resources to compensate for it
6. Not employing a person from an ethnic minority because you would be likely to lose business from important customers who are known to be racist
7. Not employing a woman who is thinking of having a baby because it likely that she will need to take maternity leave
8. Believing that people who are receiving benefits don’t contribute to society
9. Believing that it is better for children to grow up with two parents
10. Believing that a mother should get custody of her children in preference to the father if they separate
11. Believing that “a woman is totally or partially responsible for being raped if she behaved in a flirtatious manner, is drunk, is wearing sexy or revealing clothing, has had many sexual partners, has failed to say ‘no’ clearly to the man or is alone and walking in a dangerous or deserted area”
12. Believing that men are incapable of controlling their sexual desires
13. Believing that immigration should be reduced because “it erodes the country’s cultural traditions”
14. Patriotism
15. Being suspicious of African Americans because “more crimes are committed by them than white Americans”
16. Setting minimum quotas of school places for particular groups to ensure that they are adequately represented even if that means that people with lower scores on entry examinations get a place above those with higher scores
17. Being suspicious of Muslims because of Islamic terrorism
18. Disliking Americans because of the US occupation of Iraq
19. Disliking the US government because of the US occupation of Iraq
20. Disliking Jews because of Israeli policies towards the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories
21. Disliking the Israeli government because of its policies towards the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories
22. Comparing Jews to concentration camp guards
23. Comparing a particular Jewish person to a concentration camp guard
24. Comparing any particular person to a concentration camp guard
25. Believing that homosexuality is immoral “because it is unnatural”
26. Believing that air travel is immoral because it is unnatural
27. Believing that air travel is immoral because it is heavily polluting
28. Finding blondes more attractive than brunettes
29. Finding members of one race more attractive than another
30. Being heterosexual or homosexual rather than bisexual
31. Finding one person more attractive than another
32. Caring more for your own children than for other people’s
33. Exploiting animals for food, animal products or experimentation
34. Exploiting plants for food, plant products or experimentation
35. Being suspicious of people who you don’t know
36. Being suspicious of atheists because “they reject the moral teachings of the bible and the church”
37. Being suspicious of people who adopt alternative lifestyles
38. Being suspicious of people who take drugs
39. Disliking fat people because “they are lazy”
40. Being suspicious of people who suffer from mental illness
41. Preferring to be around people you know over people you don’t know
42. “I have nothing against A – I just prefer B”
43. Believing that people who speak with a non-standard accent are less intelligent
44. Believing that a person’s family history is indicative of his or her moral virtue
45. Believing that classical music is superior to rock music
46. Believing that there is such a thing as good taste
47. Preferring apples to oranges
48. Loyalty to other people of your race
49. Loyalty to other people of your nationality
50. Loyalty to other people of your height

The issues raised by the above list are among those that I will attempt to confront over the next months in this blog. It may be that we all inevitably exhibit some prejudices, but this does not mean that we should fatalistically accept them as part of human nature and make no attempt to minimise them unless we wish to argue that it is occasionally desirable to hold views that are “not based on reason or actual experience”, which you may notice comes very close to the definition of faith.