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Racial Profiling And Cumulative Injustice[Note 1. I'm very grateful to Ben Eidelson and Tom Sinclair ...]
Author(s) -
Mogensen Andreas
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/phpr.12451
Subject(s) - injustice , appeal , racial profiling , profiling (computer programming) , inequality , constraint (computer aided design) , sociology , epistemology , psychology , social psychology , law and economics , positive economics , political science , law , economics , philosophy , computer science , race (biology) , mathematics , gender studies , mathematical analysis , geometry , operating system
This paper tries to explain why racial profiling involves a serious injustice and to do so in a way that avoids the problems of existing philosophical accounts. An initially plausible view maintains that racial profiling is pro tanto wrong in and of itself by violating a constraint on fair treatment that is generally violated by acts of statistical discrimination based on ascribed characteristics. However, consideration of other cases involving statistical discrimination suggests that violating a constraint of this kind may not be an especially serious wrong in and of itself. To fully capture the significant wrong that occurs when racial profiling is targeted at black Americans or other similarly situated groups, it is argued that we should appeal to the idea that this basic injustice is exacerbated when it forms part of a larger pattern of similar actions that collectively realize a state of cumulative injustice.