Question In my mind, discrimination has always been about denying people rights or opportunities based on some irrelevant aspect of themselves (irrelevant to whatever is being denied, that is). However, we also use the word "discrimination" to describe such terms as "nigger" or "retard". These terms are obviously pejorative, and shouldn't be used by anyone hoping to appear kind or civilized, but they aren't, in and of themselves, denying anyone's rights or opportunities. So this is a different kind of discrimination, then. Why is this discriminating? What kind of discrimination is this? Is it related to the presumed stereotypes we assume people have in mind when using these terms pejoratively?

Accepted:
November 24, 2010

Comments

To begin with, I would define discrimination as the use of a person's membership in a group, such as a race or gender, to unfairly deny them access to some good or benefit, such as a job or admission to something desirable like a school. So when a woman, for example, is denied a job because she is a woman, that is an example of discrimination. Discrimination is, by definition, morally wrong, but not all moral wrongs done to members of groups can be characterized as discrimination.

So, when someone uses a term such as one of those you mention, that person is not thereby discriminating against anyone, for no one is being denied access to anything simply by means of the use of such derogatory language. This does not mean, however, that using such language is not morally wrong. But the harm done by their use is different than that done by discrimination. These terms are generally called slurs and they are condemned because they exhibit attitudes that are generally taken to be harmful to those targeted. There is disagreement about exactly what the harm caused by the utterance of a slur is, but the point is that slurs are morally abhorrent despite not being acts of discrimination.

Generally, the use of a slur indicates that a person possesses a set of demeaning attitudes towards members of a group and views the person to whom the slur as uttered as inferior because of their being a member of that group. I take this to be what you meant when you said that the use of a slur involves a stereotype. But a stereotype, such as blacks being "lazy and shiftless" or Jews all being "money grubbers," is different than a slur. Stereotypes are certainly not good when they are used to judge individuals and to characterize groups, but they are not morally problematic in and of themselves. Some stereotypes may have a grain of truth in them, but they need to be sharply distinguished from the use of racial and other slurs. Slurs are harmful and, as such, morally wrong.