What are the similarities and differences among preferences, prejudices and discrimination?
What are the similarities and differences among preferences, prejudices and discrimination?
"Do you like black or white?"
"Black."
"Do you think black or white looks good?"
"Of course it's black."
"Do you think blacks or whites look good? Do you like black people or white people? Would you treat blacks or whites better?
"This..."
"Do you think men are better or women are better? Do you think blacks are better or whites are better? Do you think young people are better or old people are better? What kind of people do you prefer?"
"..."
We may be willing to admit our preferences or even dare to express our prejudices, but we don't think we have any kind of discrimination.
Everyone has a preference.
Specifically, there are preferences for food and aesthetics. I like sweet tofu brain and hate all meat. I like the beauty of neatness and symmetry, not the beauty of disorder and abstraction. This preference may be based on my innate genes or on my upbringing. Some children think broccoli is terrible. Some children don't think so. It's not because the child lies to the adults. For some children, some substances in broccoli are harmful to their specific constitution, while others are not so sensitive. This broccoli is really not bad for him. This taste preference for the same substance is the product of evolution.
Besides taste, olfaction has a similar preference. Even the visual and auditory perceptions of each individual are different. Organ differences are bound to occur, and we fully believe that preferences based on physiological differences are reasonable. Some people's tongues can be rolled, some people can't. Some people can bend their thumbs inward, others can't. Some people are color blind, some people are not. Closer to common sense is sexual preference based on gender differences. Some are women, some are men. Some people prefer women, others prefer men. It's normal, and we're not surprised.
However, in the Chinese context, our daily use of the word "bian" implies derogatory meanings. Children say that parents are biased and prefer brothers to themselves. The students said that the teacher was partial and liked Xiaoming more than himself. In fact, they are all expressing their opposition, hoping that parents or teachers can treat themselves and their brothers or themselves and Xiaoming fairly.
Preferences for non-personas do not seem to elicit much response. But people's preferences will lead to a series of moral problems. Stranger than
People, we all have preferences for our relatives. Compared with others, we all have preferences for ourselves. We can find innumerable rules, come on.
Defend these preferences. These preferences exist objectively, naturally and seemingly should not be forcibly altered.
What about Prejudice?
From the etymology, we can see that judice is just ify, pre-is before, pre judice is not through justify, No.
Having been proved, we have already made a judgment.
This is similar to the word "prejudice" in Chinese. "Opinion" is opinion. The "preferences" in opinions and preferences are different. Preference is a direct feeling, you prefer black coffee or milk coffee, is direct. But opinions often take the form of a proposition. For example, propositions like "Black coffee is better than milk coffee". According to the definition we learned in middle school, propositions are statements that can judge whether they are true or false. Since opinions are usually expressed in the form of propositions, opinions can be used to judge whether they are true or false. Some opinions are true, others are false. We sometimes say that some are smart and some are inferior. The opposite of "prejudice" is "all-round view" and "right view". All-round view, unbiased, is the correct view.
Unfortunately, we are not God, we are not omnipotent. In this sense, no one has an all-round view, and everyone's views are all prejudices. But we usually don't say so extreme. To a certain extent, we still believe that there is a criterion for judging right and wrong. Prejudice refers to opinions that are unfounded, or based on opinions that do not support conclusions. For example, we sometimes think that women are not good at math. The reason is that our parents told us so. That's a prejudice. Parents'statements are not necessarily correct, as a rationale, to support the proposition that "women are not good at mathematics" is not powerful.
Or, we still think that "women are not good at mathematics", but the reason has changed. The reason is that the structure of women's brain is different from that of men's brain. The area where women deal with mathematics is smaller than that of men. Is that prejudice?
Still yes. First of all, we have not found any brain regions specialized in Mathematics in neuroscience research. Neither does it exist that the bigger the brain area, the better. If so, the smarter the bigger the brain is. Secondly, there is a difference between the brains of men and women, but the difference is not big, and the differences in macro-behavior that these differences may lead to are still being studied. Moreover, our macro behavior is not only influenced by the structure of the brain, but also by social culture. Neither the factual evidence nor the explanation of the evidence can support the conclusion that women are not good at mathematics. We can still say that this conclusion is biased. But appealing to contemporary neuroscience is a less biased bias than appealing to the authority of parents.
If we measure "opinions" by such a requirement, in fact, the vast majority of opinions are prejudices. None of us can adequately defend our opinions. Even some people think that there is no uniform standard to judge which defenses are effective and which ones are invalid. However, we have not yet neglected these postmodern propositions. Or go back to the moment when science holds the power of interpretation, and most of us don't have a Ph.D. today, what can we fully defend? Socialism or capitalism? Premier Zhu Rongji is better or Premier Zhou Enlai is better? ThinkPad and Macbook are better? Arts and science students are better? Brush their teeth first, eat first or eat first? Brushing your teeth after dinner? Are there any aliens? What is the meaning of life? Are you confident of defending your opinions? What kind of defense is sufficient?
What is prejudice?
Let's put aside the truth of that opinion and focus on ways to get it. As long as the way to get an opinion is not to support it.
Yes, that's prejudice. For example, if your parents tell you what it is, you think it is. Society tells you what it is. You recognize
Why? These are prejudices. And when you come to the conclusion that a rigorous set of methods has been used, we may be able to say that you
This view is not prejudice. Most people are not scientifically trained, and many of their opinions are expressions of their preferences, preference tables.
When it arrives, it becomes prejudice.
Everyone has prejudice. In absolute numbers, the vast majority of "see" are also prejudices. What about Discrimination?
In English, Dis crimination, Dis - is separation, and - crimination is etymologically separate and distinct. This word is actually the meaning of difference. If we emphasize that this difference is unreasonable, it can be translated as "discrimination". In Chinese, discrimination means looking askew and not facing up to it. This is also differential treatment. Therefore, what we generally call discrimination is unreasonable differential treatment, which is an act.
Why does discrimination exist as unreasonable differential treatment? Doesn't it mean "existence is reasonable"?
In fact, only when an act is deemed unreasonable by some people in a society is it called discrimination. If everyone thinks it's reasonable, it's not discrimination.
For example, all of us think so. On buses, give seats to the elderly, but not to the dog, nor to a stone. Such behaviour is reasonable. Such behaviour does not constitute discrimination against dogs or stones. If everyone thinks that an act is unreasonable, it will not actually happen, and it will not constitute discrimination. For a more specific example, if we go to some sweatshops, many factory line workers are paid very low wages, but they themselves do not know about it. So they don't feel discriminated against themselves. The factory owners may have deliberately depressed their wages, but they may not. On the contrary, as bystanders, we have a certain understanding of the discrimination theory, only then think that their wages are so low, is unreasonable.
Gary S. Becker has made a delicate description of discrimination based on economics, which is called discrimination when a person would rather give up part of the utility and insist on making some differentiated behavior.
Is such a person irrational? Does not a rational person want to maximize his own utility?
No, not too. Becker pointed out that such people would rather give up part of the utility because they can get a corresponding or more other utility from this discriminatory behavior, which you can call psychological utility. Suppose a business owner discriminates against female employees, so he would rather pay more for male employees than employ female employees for less. Then he discriminates against female employees. He gave up part of the utility and increased the operating costs of the enterprise. But he also reaped some psychological benefits.
What causes such discrimination?
There may be too many reasons. Maybe the business owner was abused by women from an early age, so he was afraid of women. Perhaps the business owner is a male chauvinist who believes that women should not go out to work. Maybe the boss thinks that women are inefficient, so he is reluctant to hire women. Of course, if a woman is really inefficient and he doesn't employ women, that's not discrimination. Because he is for the sake of enterprise operation, it is very reasonable not to employ inefficient people. This kind of differential treatment is considered to be what should be done, just as enterprises employ highly educated employees instead of low educated employees.
Perhaps not all discrimination is caused by prejudice. But discrimination caused by prejudice deserves special attention. Discrimination
Nian, in fact, is closely interwoven with the concept of fairness. Discrimination is unreasonable differential treatment. The unreasonable difference is unfairness.
But the concept of fairness will change with the times. Rawls'theory of justice has greatly changed the concept of fairness. he
The fairness constructed in the theory of justice is indeed very convincing, and can even influence our judgment on whether a phenomenon is fair or not. Yes
The emphasis on the concept of discrimination also stems from our emphasis on the concept of fairness. And does fairness need to be emphasized? That's another one.
That's a question.
Preferences are natural. Prejudice is almost inevitable. Discrimination is also widespread in society, but sometimes it is human.
Know, sometimes not known. The study of preference is mostly in the fields of biology, physiology and psychology. Research on Prejudice
Maybe we can make some conceptual analysis from a philosophical point of view. Discrimination is concerned by politics, sociology and economics.
Object. We always think of a system to fight discrimination, an education to reduce prejudice, and then ignore those that may lead to prejudice and discrimination.
Preference.
While making conceptual analysis, I am also thinking about how to deploy knowledge of psychology, biology, sociology and economics.
Make an ethical evaluation of preferences, prejudices and discrimination. But the more detailed the analysis and the more comprehensive the consideration, the more difficult it is to draw a conclusion.
A clear conclusion. If physiological differences are true, is preference based on physiological differences natural? If preference is natural, right?
When so, is prejudice based on preference justified? Is discrimination based on prejudice justified?
In any case, even if it is just for the sake of upholding the idea of fairness, it is still worthwhile to combat discrimination. And eliminating prejudice
It is an important task. If we all admit that our preferences are only our own preferences, we don't try to build on our own preferences.
Set up a standard proposition and make your prejudice the so-called truth. If we all realize that our vast opinions are nothing more than
Our prejudices, and even many so-called social customs, are just social prejudices. As the atomic individuals of society, we are reflecting on them.
At the same time, it has also changed the society. Maybe we can live in a more inclusive and pluralistic society.