Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Risse and Zeckhauser on Racial Profiling: A Reply

2010; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0953820810000117

1741-6183

Reginald Williams,

Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies

This article criticizes Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser's recent utilitarian defense of racial profiling. I use a novel thought-experiment to argue that even if a negative phenomenon could be reduced by profiling members of certain groups who happen to be disproportionately associated with it, the practice can be implausible. Specifically, I explore the possibility that in a given society, platinum blondes have a higher per capita incidence of a serious sexually transmitted disease, D . And I argue that doctors and health officials in the society would not be justified in profiling such blondes, given that there is nothing about being a platinum blonde that causes one to have D .