Peter Singer: The case for why racism and sexism are wrong...

This excert is from his article All Animals are Equal. Though the article is on his argument in favor of animal rights and against speciesits arguments, he makes some thoughtful points on racism and sexism...

 

When we say that all human beings, whatever their race, creed, or sex, are equal, what is it that we are asserting?  Those who wish to defend hierarchical, inegalitarian societies have often pointed out that by whatever test we choose it simply is not true that all humans are equal.  Like it or not we must face the fact that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with different moral capacities, different intellectual abilities, different amounts of benevolent feelings and sensitivity to the needs of others, different capacities to experience pleasure and pain.  In short, if the demand for equality were based on the actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop demanding equality.

 

Still, one might cling to the view that the demand for equality among human beings is based on the actual equality of the different races and sexes. Although, it may be said, humans differ as individuals, there are no differences between the races and sexes as such.  From the mere fact that a person is black or a woman we cannot infer anything about that person's intellectual or moral capacities.  This, it may be said, is why racism and sexism are wrong.  The white racist claims that whites are superior to blacks, but this is false; although there are differences among individuals, some blacks are superior to some whites in all of the capacities and abilities that could conceivably be relevant.  The opponent of sexism would say the same: a person's sex is no guide to his or her abilities, and this is why it is unjustifiable to discriminate on the basis of sex.

 

The existence of individual variations that cut across the lines of race or sex, however, provides us with no defense at all against a more sophisticated opponent of equality, one who proposes that, say the interests of all those with IQ scores below 100 be given less consideration than the interests of those with ratings over 100.  Perhaps those scoring below the mark would, in this society, be made the slaves of those scoring higher.  Would a hierarchical society of this sort really be so much better than one based on race or sex?  I think not.  But if we tie the moral principle of equality to the factual equality of the different races or sexes, taken as a whole, our opposition to racism and sexism does not provide us with any basis for objecting to this kind of inegalitarianism.

 

There is a second important reason why we ought not to base our opposition to racism and sexism on any kind of factual equality, even the limited kind that asserts that variations in capacities and abilities are spread evenly among the different races and between the sexes: we can have no absolute guarantee that these capacities and abilities really are distributed evenly, without regard to race or sex, among human beings.  So far as actual abilities are concerned there do seem to be certain measurable differences both among races and between se4xes.  These differences do not, of course, appear in every case, but only when averages are taken.  More important still, we do not yet know how many of these differences are really due to the different genetic endowments of the different races and sexes, and how many are due to poor schools, poor housing, and other factors that are the result of past and continuing discrimination.  Perhaps all of the important differences will eventually prove to be environmental rather than genetic.  Anyone opposed racism and sexism will certainly hope that this will be so, for it will make the task of ending discrimination a lot easier; nevertheless, it would be dangerous to rest the case against racism and sexism on the belief that all significant differences are environmental in origin.  The opponent of, say, racism who takes this line will be unable to avoid conceding that if differences in ability did after all prove to have some  genetic connection with race, racism would in some way be defensible.

 

Fortunately there is no need to pin the case for equality to one particular outcome of a scientific investigation.  The appropriate response to those who claim to have found evidence of genetically base differences in ability among the races or between the sexes is not to stick to the belief that the genetic explanation must be wrong, whatever evidence to the contrary may turn up; instead we should make it quite clear that the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact.  Equality is a moral idea, no an assertion of fact.  There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to their needs and interests.  The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols