What's Wrong with Stereotyping? A Philosophical Inquiry into Bias and Prejudice

FAIN: FEL-262024-19

Erin Beeghly
University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9049)

Research and writing of a book-length study on the problem of stereotyping.

The human mind is built to stereotype. When navigating the world, we categorize individuals as instances of types. These judgments—often automatic and unconscious—affect what we pay attention to and ignore, what we expect of individuals, and how we treat them. Yet, if we hear someone say, “You’re stereotyping,” we recognize the claim as an accusation of wrongdoing. My book project examines these apparently conflicting thoughts. How, I ask, should we conceptualize stereotypes and stereotyping? What are the best ethical objections to stereotyping? Is stereotyping always wrong or is it only sometimes wrong? Exploring competing philosophical theories of wrongful stereotyping, I argue that stereotyping is a special form of discriminatory treatment and advance a pluralistic theory of when and why it is wrong.

Associated Products

What's Wrong with Stereotyping? (Book)
Title: What's Wrong with Stereotyping?
Author: Erin Beeghly
Abstract: What’s Wrong with Stereotyping? offers a groundbreaking, accessibly-written philosophical account of the ethics of stereotyping. The book advances a complex and often surprising notion of what stereotyping is, and when and why it is wrongful. Using philosophy, law, psychology and history, as well as thought-provoking examples and models for social change drawn from the lived experiences of marginalized groups, the book emphasizes the messiness of moral reality and the importance of looking to the past to understand the ethical perils of social generalizing. Readers come away with a radically pluralistic, open-ended understanding of stereotyping that they can use to identify wrongful stereotyping in their own lives and our contemporary world.
Year: 2025
Secondary URL: http://https://books.google.com/books/about/What_s_Wrong_with_Stereotyping.html?id=SH7x0AEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780198829669
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Stereotyping as Discrimination: Why Thoughts Can Be Discriminatory (Article)
Title: Stereotyping as Discrimination: Why Thoughts Can Be Discriminatory
Author: Erin Beeghly
Abstract: Can we treat people in a discriminatory way in virtue of how we think about them? In this essay, I argue that the answer is yes. According to the constitutive claim, stereotyping constitutes discrimination, either sometimes or always. This essay defends the constitutive claim and explores the deeper justifications for it. I also sketch the constitutive claim’s larger ethical significance. One upshot is that we can wrongfully discriminate against (or in favor of) others in thought, even if we keep our views of others to ourselves. Second, if stereotyping is a form of discrimination, theories of wrongful discrimination bear on the ethical questions associated with stereotyping, including this one: under what conditions is it wrong to stereotype? In closing, I introduce an intriguing possibility, namely, that stereotyping is wrong if and when it constitutes wrongful discrimination.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02691728.2021.1930274
Primary URL Description: Journal home page
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Social Epistemology
Publisher: Routledge

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