8. "Discrimination," Rational and Irrational.

Can I rationally discriminate against green people?

No, friend, because your word "against" shows that you are singling them out just because they are green, and not for any purpose. That's not rational, that's sentimental, done for emotional satisfaction. Hitler's killing of the Jews was, in that sense, sentimental. If he'd been rational he'd have preserved them, since their loss weakened, on the whole, his war effort. Some of them might have helped him build an atom bomb.

So if I single green people out for a purpose, like reducing the chances of explosion on my airplane, I discriminate rationally.

Yes. And what has caused you to worry about this is the ambiguity in the word "discriminate." It means both "distinguish" and "distinguish with prejudice." While the former uses reason vitally, the latter abandons it. You judge before you have relevant knowledge. That's prejudgment, or prejudice.

So if I have studied previous explosions on airplanes and know that a high percentage have been caused by green people, and have studied their faith and know that there are stronger justifications of martyrdom in it than in other faiths, and find that this bears on their behavior, my discrimination is rational. I can then, after I have done everything I can within time and money constraints to avoid offense, support airport profiling, something I have not supported in the actions that gave it a bad name, policemen stopping drivers just because they were black people.

Absolutely. It's rational to distinguish a religion from others and connect the behavior of its adherents (though of course not all of its adherents) to the teachings in it. Only an irrational person would say that there's no connection between teachings and behavior.

So it will be rational for me to do the same thing I did with green people when I look at blue people.

It would be irrational not to.

Very well, I see that a man nominated to be an adviser to our President is blue. I examine the blue religion and see that a central belief in it, one that distinguishes it from other religions, is that a higher power, God, gave its adherents the land some of them are now contesting for. I know that claims to be backed in a contest by a higher power make such contests very hard to adjudicate and dangerous to friends who may be appealed to for support. I look at the evidence and calculate the probabilities of danger to myself and my country — just as I did with the green person in the airport — and decide to ask my congressman to back the other nominee. That meets all the standards of rationality, doesn't it?

I'd hesitate to say so until I knew how thoroughly you looked at the evidence. You may have concluded too quickly that the nominee shares his fellow blues' belief in the gift of land. In that case I'd have to call your request to your congressman irrational. You judged to soon. The word for that is "prejudice."

How close does a look at evidence have to be before it ceases to be irrational and becomes rational? How thoroughly did I look at the green person? With us mortals, rationality consists in calculating probability on the basis of what you can learn in the time given you. With so much at stake I don't need to find more than a very slight probability that the blue will be swayed, but all I have, really, are labels: "Academic," "Liberal," "Scholar," and the like. The only one that distinguishes him from the other nominee is "Unbelieving Blue." I check the evidence and find very little difference between believing blues and unbelieving blues in support of settlements on the land. I let that label sway me. Is that a "prejudice"?

No, it's not, it's a "judice." Rational. But if those unbelieving blues quit supporting the believers then your judgment-tipping evidence changes. If your judgment doesn't change with it then it's no longer rational. But remember, "rational" doesn't mean "good" or "wise." Those words apply to the choice of ends. "Rational" applies only to the choice of means to ends. You can be called good, and even wise, while you do something irrational.