The Ugly Face of Egalitarian Philosophy
It is now even uglier
Regarding D'ALESSANDRO, W. (2023). Is It Bad to Prefer Attractive Partners? Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 9(2), 335-354. doi:10.1017/apa.2022.3.
Some responses to the abstract.
>Philosophers have rightly condemned lookism—that is, discrimination in favor of attractive people or against unattractive people—in education, the justice system, the workplace, and elsewhere.
Those philosophers have wrongly condemned discrimination. The ability to discriminate with your person and legitimate (i.e., libertarian) property, on any basis you choose, just is interpersonal liberty in practice. Of course, if you are on someone else’s property or working in his business, then it is his discrimination rules that apply.
>Surprisingly, however, the almost universal preference for attractive romantic and sexual partners has rarely received serious ethical scrutiny.
Because people did not used to be misanthropic, totalitarian, wokeists. This thesis is plumbing new depths of that fanatically intolerant ideology.
>On its face, it is unclear whether this is a form of discrimination we should reject or tolerate.
On its face, it is clear that people should be free to reject or tolerate all discrimination within the confines of their own person and property, but not to impose their preferences on other people.
>I consider arguments for both views. On the one hand, a strong case can be made that preferring attractive partners is bad.
This is denying biology (which wokels love to do, of course). Next, they will be telling us that it is wrong to be attracted to only one sex (or even species).
>The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination.
There are no “objectionable forms of discrimination” in the sense that anyone should be able to aggressively prevent them.
>(In particular, the preference for attractive partners is arguably both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.)
Nature cannot be “unfair” (is it “unfair” that the lion eats the antelope?). “Harm” is a naive criterion of what is morally unacceptable. The correct criterion is whether we are initiating impositions on persons or their property. Choosing to reject someone is only to deny him a benefit; it is not to impose a cost on him.