Serious What's Wrong with Lookism? Personal Appearance, Discrimination, and Disadvantage

[InMemoriam]

What's Wrong with Lookism? Personal Appearance, Discrimination, and Disadvantage
Andrew Mason

4 Appearance, Race, and Employment​

Andrew Mason

https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192859792.003.0004

Abstract​

This chapter considers the morality of lookism in the context of employment decisions. It does so not merely by applying the account of what makes discrimination wrong developed earlier, but also by drawing an analogy between appearance discrimination and racial discrimination. It argues that, like racial discrimination, appearance discrimination can be disrespectful or demeaning, especially when it concerns a stigmatized feature of appearance. Appearance discrimination can also involve deliberative unfairness when selectors are influenced by their prejudices, their non-rational reactions, or their own personal aesthetic or moral judgements concerning appearance features. Furthermore, appearance discrimination may have unjust consequences, especially in relation to its impact on its victims’ interest in autonomous agency. The analogy between appearance discrimination and racial discrimination has limits, however, which come to the fore when we consider appearance discrimination rooted in aesthetic or moral judgements, or discrimination concerning appearance features over which a person has control.