free12thinker

This reminds me of the more general question; Are "naughty" thoughts immoral? Take a 28 year old man who dreams of 10 year old girls in a sexual manner. Is he immoral for thinking it but not acting on it? My personal opinion, and my favorite personal quote is this:

The only acts which are immoral are those which negatively impact others, beliefs aside

In this, I don't believe that someone who dislikes blacks, or asians, or indians, or whites is immoral unless they "act on" that dislike. Otherwise, they're just having thoughts, and we all have thoughts. And not everyone will agree with all of our thoughts.

Though, I'm quite sure most Xtians think it's immoral to not believe in god, even though, being atheist has no negative impact on someone else, beliefs aside of course. lol

long winded fool

This is true. However, can logically wrong morals be called morally right? Can irrational beliefs ever be "right?" Isn't this why these message boards are here? Aren't religious fundamentalists "wrong" whether they feel like they are or not? They do have the legal right to their beliefs. Do they have the right to label them "logical" and thereby anything which conflicts illogical? Aren't logic and reason an "absolute standard" by which humans have the ability to objectively label a notion? We don't have the right to change the laws of logic, so to say an illogical notion can ever be subjectively "right" seems to be universally wrong. (A can never be not-A.) Since racism is based on a logical fallacy, it can never be properly called "right." Those who think that it is are mistaken.

themistocles

Bigotry is a specific type of prejudice, and I think it's patently obvious that that sort of prejudice is irrational.

Prejudice itself is morally neutral and sometimes good. That's common sense.

Pyrrho

It is always wrong. I strongly recommend that you read William Kingdon Clifford's essay "The Ethics of Belief".

In short, your beliefs affect your actions, and your actions affect others, so your beliefs are properly the concern of others.

Pyrrho

There is a significant difference between having a fantasy and having a belief. A fantasy may never affect one's actions, but beliefs are crucial for the actions one takes (it is not one belief in isolation that 'causes' actions, but it is the aggregate of beliefs and emotions that do).

Pyrrho

"Prejudice" is:

An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.

It is judging before one has the relevant information (hence the name, prejudice), and that is always an error in judment.

themistocles

I think my earlier statement would be more accurate were "prejudice" replaced with "discrimination".

I remember when in mainstream news and pop culture, it was frequently mentioned that taxi drivers in NYC would pass blacks up for whites. I don't know whether NYC taxi drivers were racist or not. I do think, however, it's very reasonable for a taxi driver to pass someone who in their opinion "looks like trouble" for someone dressed rather "GQ", when they are in a line of work where robberies do sometimes happen. It's not immoral, it's common sense. They could be well wrong about the person they passed up, maybe wrong about the person they picked up, but cliches exist because they tend to be based upon truisms...

So, I think there's a distinction between irrational racism or bigotry and simply being judgmental.

meritocrat

Who is to say what a person can or cannot think? A person can easily think something and not execute the thought into action.

I think acting on the thoughts is immoral, not simply thinking them.

Nowhere357

I agree with this, and I agree with Pyrrho that "In short, your beliefs affect your actions, and your actions affect others, so your beliefs are properly the concern of others."

Does this make sense? The thought is not immoral but it points in an immoral direction. So we should resist and oppose such thoughts.

joedad

Looks like bigots can be informed or uninformed. But it would seem that there can and should be no such thing as an informed bigot. Even sounds axiomatic. If I'm informed, I can't be a bigot. Period.

FWIW bigotry and prejudice may make a person feel stronger, but only until he or she meets someone who feels even stronger. In my view, the real problem is self-supremacy, but that manifests as bigotry and prejudice. Supremacists do not compromise and discuss. Falwell, for example, is a supremacist in my opinion, because he targets people as groups, and doesn't see them first as individuals. To be a bigot or a supremacist, you simply have to make a judgement of someone based on a group identity, and we're all guilty to some degree on this count, but hopefully learn our way out. It's the ones that can't seem to learn that are the problem

Indeed, the reason we have laws against bigotry and supremacism is because we collectively value the individual over the individual's group identity. At least that's how I see it.