Failing to Treat Persons as Individuals

Abstract This chapter evaluates the claim that wrongful stereotyping fails to treat persons as individuals. It begins with an observation: judging persons by group membership is a fast way to form beliefs, expectations, and predictions. When people have the option to judge others in a more conscientious way but don’t take it, and end up stereotyping, those targeted have an ethical complaint at their fingertips. We all have a right—a moral right, the thought goes—to be treated as individuals. Stereotyping can violate this right. Not only have activists pressed this ethical objection (including those from the early homophile movement in the United States), but it has also been posited as “the wrong” of all stereotyping by philosopher Lawrence Blum. This chapter argues that the last claim is overblown. Only sometimes does wrongful stereotyping fail to treat persons as individuals. Thus, the wrong can at most play a limited role in the best theory of wrongful stereotyping. Moreover, its deeper ethical moorings and connection to power dynamics suggest that it should be fitted into such a theory via respect for persons or social equality.