This question of the use of the word "prejudice" versus "discrimination" in the context of redefinition is worth exploring further.
In general, when a concept relating to some human state of being is defined, the essential features of the concept and the resultant connotations often fall into the following categories:
This question of the use of the word "prejudice" versus "discrimination" in the context of redefinition is worth exploring further.
In general, when a concept relating to some human state of being is defined, the essential features of the concept and the resultant connotations often fall into the following categories:
A set of characteristics, such as the symptoms that characterize a disease.
The causes that brought this state of being into existence
The causes that would result in the resolution of change of this state of being
The outcomes that result from this state of being
Any evaluations, judgemental or moral, or emotional states in response as a valence or sentiment, such as whether this state of being is good or bad.
I used the word "prejudice" deliberately and intend to consider prejudice to be a bare-bones case of pre-judging some aspects of a situation beyond the aspects that led to the classification. But I also want to attach the judgment that prejudice is considered to be a "bad thing" - something to avoid or ameliorate.
Discrimination does not fit either the characteristics or the judgment as well as prejudice does.
Discrimination is the process of making a distinction. But prejudice is more than that. Once you have made a distinction, prejudice kicks in when you draw inferences about the situation that are not directly observed. Instead, they are believed to be associated with the situation.
Also, discrimination does not always have a negative judgment.
A wine connoisseur shows discrimination in (hopefully) a good way: by upholding the best quality wines and denigrating the inferior plonk.
Racial discrimination is usually considered a bad thing, quite often because it involves prejudice.
Someone attuned to sight and sound, such as the ability to discriminate between different shades of color, is neither considered good nor bad - it just is.
Prejudice, though, is considered to be a type of sociopathy.
And here is where the slavish adherence to "common usage" can get you into trouble.
Let's draw a comparison to medical pathologies - diseases.
A stomach ulcer is simply a wound (Greek elkos = wound). But there was a connotation associated with it in relation to its cause. It was assumed to be due to stress. Marshall and Warren back in 1982 proposed that the real cause was H. Pylori infection, but the connotation of stress as a causal agent was so strong that it took a decade before people accepted this.
Sometimes, the name of a disease is the name of the cause. For example, as we can see by the name of the disease, "malaria" = "bad air" is caused by miasma. Of course, we know that to be false now.
This is the problem around the analysis of prejudice. The connotation that you mention is that prejudice is irrational. But it may well be very rational. My thesis is that the "pre-judging" aspect of prejudice is fundamental to human cognition, to the point where some prejudices are genetic. These prejudices are (or were) good for you, which is why they are not termed prejudice in the derogatory use of the term.
For example, we humans have a natural prejudice against predators such as the wolf or the lion. We observe an animal and make the discrimination of it as a wolf. Our pre-judging is that getting too close can be dangerous. Similarly, we have a prejudice against spiders and snakes.
So, I claim that prejudice is neither irrational nor inherently bad. It is a ubiquitous part of human reasoning. What makes the cases that we denigrate as "prejudice" (bad, sociopathic) may come not from the initial discrimination nor from the consequential conclusions of secondary characteristics and connotations, but in our inability to "update our priors" - to either fail to say that our assumptions do not apply in a particular case, or that our generalizations are misplaced.
This question of the use of the word "prejudice" versus "discrimination" in the context of redefinition is worth exploring further.
In general, when a concept relating to some human state of being is defined, the essential features of the concept and the resultant connotations often fall into the following categories:
A set of characteristics, such as the symptoms that characterize a disease.
The causes that brought this state of being into existence
The causes that would result in the resolution of change of this state of being
The outcomes that result from this state of being
Any evaluations, judgemental or moral, or emotional states in response as a valence or sentiment, such as whether this state of being is good or bad.
I used the word "prejudice" deliberately and intend to consider prejudice to be a bare-bones case of pre-judging some aspects of a situation beyond the aspects that led to the classification. But I also want to attach the judgment that prejudice is considered to be a "bad thing" - something to avoid or ameliorate.
Discrimination does not fit either the characteristics or the judgment as well as prejudice does.
Discrimination is the process of making a distinction. But prejudice is more than that. Once you have made a distinction, prejudice kicks in when you draw inferences about the situation that are not directly observed. Instead, they are believed to be associated with the situation.
Also, discrimination does not always have a negative judgment.
A wine connoisseur shows discrimination in (hopefully) a good way: by upholding the best quality wines and denigrating the inferior plonk.
Racial discrimination is usually considered a bad thing, quite often because it involves prejudice.
Someone attuned to sight and sound, such as the ability to discriminate between different shades of color, is neither considered good nor bad - it just is.
Prejudice, though, is considered to be a type of sociopathy.
And here is where the slavish adherence to "common usage" can get you into trouble.
Let's draw a comparison to medical pathologies - diseases.
A stomach ulcer is simply a wound (Greek elkos = wound). But there was a connotation associated with it in relation to its cause. It was assumed to be due to stress. Marshall and Warren back in 1982 proposed that the real cause was H. Pylori infection, but the connotation of stress as a causal agent was so strong that it took a decade before people accepted this.
Sometimes, the name of a disease is the name of the cause. For example, as we can see by the name of the disease, "malaria" = "bad air" is caused by miasma. Of course, we know that to be false now.
This is the problem around the analysis of prejudice. The connotation that you mention is that prejudice is irrational. But it may well be very rational. My thesis is that the "pre-judging" aspect of prejudice is fundamental to human cognition, to the point where some prejudices are genetic. These prejudices are (or were) good for you, which is why they are not termed prejudice in the derogatory use of the term.
For example, we humans have a natural prejudice against predators such as the wolf or the lion. We observe an animal and make the discrimination of it as a wolf. Our pre-judging is that getting too close can be dangerous. Similarly, we have a prejudice against spiders and snakes.
So, I claim that prejudice is neither irrational nor inherently bad. It is a ubiquitous part of human reasoning. What makes the cases that we denigrate as "prejudice" (bad, sociopathic) may come not from the initial discrimination nor from the consequential conclusions of secondary characteristics and connotations, but in our inability to "update our priors" - to either fail to say that our assumptions do not apply in a particular case, or that our generalizations are misplaced.