# Steophan: '"Blacks are subhuman" is either true or false, and by itself has no moral component' **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 20, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514 "2015-03-20T17:32:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/61 "2015-03-20T21:54:45Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > > [@Steophan](#): > > > > It’s entirely possible that, centuries ago, someone could have genuinely believed that blacks were subhuman, and yet also treated everyone no matter their race fairly - because no matter what their beliefs about the group, they were capable of judging on what they actually saw. > > If they were capable of judging on what they actually saw, and not on their beliefs, why wouldn’t they go “Huh, you know what, I _don’t_ see any kind of difference between blacks and whites. They must not be subhuman as I thought.”, and thereby change their mind? That would depend on the sample size. Suppose Joe is a farmer in France in the year 1200, and he is an absolutely fervent and devout Christian, and his pastor is very racist, and his pastor has repeatedly stated that black people (who Joe has never met any of and never expects to meet any of) are subhuman. Then by chance Joe has a brief interaction with a black traveller, and Joe, who even more than his belief that blacks are subhuman really really believes in The Golden Rule, treats this individual with politeness and respect. And at the end of it, Joe’s belief is “well, blacks are obviously subhuman, because my pastor said so and that’s the word of God. But that one guy I met must have been an exception, because he was very nice and seemed intelligent”. Is Joe racist? I’d say definitely yes, even though no action he ever took in his entire life (during which he never encountered another black person) could meaningfully be called racist. I think there are two things we can definitely agree make someone racist: (1) treating someone more poorly due to their race (2) believing that knowing someone’s race allows you to judge their value as a human being To me the debatable sticky point (and I freely admit that these are generally NOT the types of positions one actually encounteres “in the wild” very often, but hey, if we can’t debate crazy hypotheticals what’s the point of debating?) are positions like: (3) believing, and believing that there is objective evidence for this belief, that there are differences in the average characteristics of people in different races, without necessarily making that a value judgment and its stronger cousin (4) believing, and believing that there is objective evidence for this belief, that there are GENETIC differences in the average characteristics of people in different races, without necessarily making that a value judgment An example of 3 or 4 would be someone who notices that the NBA is dominated by black people, and believes that black people are better than white people, ON AVERAGE, at basketball. (“On average” could be shorthand here for “is more likely to produce people at the extreme end of the bell curve”, it doesn’t necessarily have to mean taking every black guy and assigning them a basketball skills score and doing the same for every white guy, and averaging those numbers.) And I think many people would be generally accepting of that belief, regardless of whether it’s a type 3 or a type 4 belief. The problem is, there’s really no difference between that and “white people are better than black people, ON AVERAGE, at xxx”, where xxx is just about any human endeavor. If it’s NOT racist to say that blacks are better than whites at basketball, then is not also NOT racist to say that whites are better than blacks at, say, calculus? Why or why not? What’s the difference? Is it only racist if it involves mental as opposed to physical pursuits? Is it only racist if it’s the dominant majority being judged as better at whatever the skill is? Is it only racist if the belief is that it’s genetic and inborn, not cultural? I don’t have a good definition here, but I think that it’s facile to simply say that any sentence which begins “black people are…” is automatically racist. (Although it’s overwhelmingly likely that anyone who spends a lot of time MAKING such statements, no matter how hedged around by disclaimers, is racist.) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/62 "2015-03-20T22:02:13Z")
I predict Mr Dribble is going to have an exciting post filled weekend. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/63 "2015-03-20T22:17:19Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.- John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider > > Not to derail the thread, but I believe that this quote from a book published in 1975 predates the Pratchett reference. I agree there are much earlier people who have said similar things. However, Pratchett has been very much on my mind because of his death a few days ago. [QUOTE=Little Nemo] I’m an engineer determining the carrying capacity of an elevator. I treat its passengers as objects that weigh an average of two hundred pounds. Am I being evil? [/QUOTE] I don’t know - I suspect most engineers would respond that they treat people like people, and that the very calculation of carrying capacities of elevators is done in such a way as to preserve the lives and limbs of people. ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/64 "2015-03-20T22:21:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not to go off on a tangent, but that’s ridiculous. > > I’m an engineer determining the carrying capacity of an elevator. I treat its passengers as objects that weigh an average of two hundred pounds. Am I being evil? You are an engineer testing a prototype elevator design to destruction to find the fail point. You keep adding real human beings until the cable snaps and it falls thirty stories and the occupants die. You will get told, in no uncertain terms, you have been a very naughty person indeed. TCMF-2L ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/65 "2015-03-20T22:25:57Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > I don’t know - I suspect most engineers would respond that they treat people like people, and that the very calculation of carrying capacities of elevators is done in such a way as to preserve the lives and limbs of people. I agree their intentions are good. Which is why I disagree with the suggestion that treating a person as a thing is necessarily evil. Because in my example, you are treating people as things. It’s not like you have one carrying capacity for people and a different carrying capacity for inanimate objects. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/66 "2015-03-20T22:33:41Z")
> [@TCMF-2L](#): > > You are an engineer testing a prototype elevator design to destruction to find the fail point. You keep adding real human beings until the cable snaps and it falls thirty stories and the occupants die. > > You will get told, in no uncertain terms, you have been a very naughty person indeed. Let’s examine the logic. Suppose I test an elevator to destruction as you describe using sacks of cement. And based on my test with sacks of cement, I establish that this particular elevator design can carrying eight passengers. Would you then object that I’m treating people like sacks of cement? After all, I’m establishing a weight limit for people without ever having used a single person in my test. I’m using the results from my sacks of cement test and applying it to people. This is literally treating people like things. Taking Brunner’s argument at face value, I would be morally obligated to use real people in my test rather than substitute some other object for a person. ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/67 "2015-03-20T22:48:43Z")
Brunner says it is wrong to treat a human being as a thing. That’s not the same as treating a thing like a human being. In my opinion. TCMF-2L ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/68 "2015-03-20T23:25:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I agree their intentions are good. Which is why I disagree with the suggestion that treating a person as a thing is necessarily evil. Because in my example, you are treating people as things. It’s not like you have one carrying capacity for people and a different carrying capacity for inanimate objects. I disagree because I think you are mistaking the author’s intention in using the word “treating.” Perhaps you’re being overly literal? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/69 "2015-03-20T23:27:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This hypothetical is taking a rather unscientific sort of hypothesis (huge group X is more or less intelligent than huge group Y) and assuming that science could resolve it. > > How is “intelligent” defined, here? Is it scores on a test? Is it something broader? Is the assertion about every member of the group, or group averages? Is it about unscientific groupings like “blacks” or “whites” (which, of course, have many overlapping and shared clinal relationships and are not two distinct groups – some black populations are more closely related to some white populations than to other far-flung black populations, genetically speaking) or is it about some actual distinct genetic groupings (like “those with Yoruba ancestry compared to those with Japanese ancestry”)? Is it attempting to find the cause (for example “genetics” or “disparate treatment” or something else) for whatever disparity it is, or does it just identify a disparity? > > Here’s how I think of it: it’s not racist to say “on average, members of group X score 10 points lower on this test then members of group Y”. It’s not racist to say “on average, members of group X are less likely to have gene ABC123 than members of group Y”. It’s not racist to say “within each group, those who have gene ABC123 score 15 points higher on average than those who do not have the gene”. > > But none of these assertions are about “intelligence”, unless you define intelligence strictly as the ability to score highly on that test (and I don’t). So I see your hypothetical as problematic and confusing as it would be were you to replace “blacks” with “Jews” and “intelligence” with “greediness and untrustworthiness”. I think you’re fighting the hypothetical. Intelligence is hard to define. I can not define intelligence. That does not meant that it is categorically and eternally IMPOSSIBLE to define. In fact, there are statements I am quite capable of making which involve judgments of intelligence. The average 20-year-old is smarter than the average 8-year-old. For that matter, the average human is smarter than the average crow, who is smarter than the average hummingbird. There’s no reason to think that we could NEVER come up with a method for objectively measuring intelligence which sufficiently aligned with real-world observed problem solving skills and whatnot that it was generally accepted as useful and relevant. And if we did come up with such a test, then there’s no reason you couldn’t just go to every single resident of the US, ask them what race they self-identified as (if any), and give them that test, and then do statistical analysis of the results, and maybe you’d find some correlations with self-identified-race and maybe you wouldn’t. I certainly don’t think it’s the case, and don’t WANT it to be the case, that black people are “less intelligent” than white people; but I think it’s being a bit willfully blind to assert that the entire concept is automatically and permanently unmeasurable. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/70 "2015-03-20T23:29:59Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > I disagree because I think you are mistaking the author’s intention in using the word “treating.” Perhaps you’re being overly literal? Even for the SDMB, this is a ridiculous tangent. The point of the original quote was obviously that evil comes from lacking empathy for other human beings, from viewing them as other, as unworthy of compassion and identification. Maybe the language used was less than precise, but there’s no reasonable way that the author of the original quote would object to weighing average humans and using that information for elevator safety trials. Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/71 "2015-03-20T23:33:36Z")
I admit I’m not feeling the reflexive outrage the OP suggests I should. I think I’d be curious enough to ask a claimant how he defined “blacks” and “subhuman”, just for the heck of it. Hell, I’ve asked people on this board to support similar assertions, even though the most obvious reason by far for their assertion is that they were bigoted. Putting them on the spot at least has some entertainment value. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/72 "2015-03-20T23:35:29Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I don’t have a good definition here, but I think that it’s facile to simply say that any sentence which begins “black people are…” is automatically racist. (Although it’s overwhelmingly likely that anyone who spends a lot of time MAKING such statements, no matter how hedged around by disclaimers, is racist.) How are you defining black people? Unless you can come up with a definition that is not racist (that doesn’t separate out a group of people based on an artificial distinction that has no real meaning), then any statement beginning with “black people are” is either a) your personal definition of what “black people” means or b) racist. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/73 "2015-03-20T23:44:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Because in my example, you are treating people as things. Actually, now that I think about it - that’s not true. There’s only one person in your example - the engineer. The quote’s about interactions between people, and so you need at least two people in your example to interact. Perhaps the engineer later meets an elevator rider and expresses an opinion to them? Or even _about_ them… the engineer doesn’t need to _directly_ interact with a person in order to treat them in some way - it could be overheard, or read. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Even for the SDMB, this is a ridiculous tangent. But it is much more fun than discussing the persistent racism in many parts of the SDMB. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/74 "2015-03-20T23:44:52Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > How are you defining black people? Unless you can come up with a definition that is not racist (that doesn’t separate out a group of people based on an artificial distinction that has no real meaning), then any statement beginning with “black people are” is either a) your personal definition of what “black people” means or b) racist. If the definition is “people who self-identify as black”, I don’t believe it’s either. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/75 "2015-03-20T23:46:49Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > If the definition is “people who self-identify as black”, I don’t believe it’s either. It’s still a definition only, which is my point. You aren’t saying anything about black people other than how you are defining them. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/76 "2015-03-20T23:54:36Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > It’s still a definition only, which is my point. You aren’t saying anything about black people other than how you are defining them. I… don’t see what you’re saying. It’s pretty well accepted in the US today that black men are incarcerated at a disproportionately high rate. I’ve heard that enough times in enough different contexts that I’m pretty sure it’s uncontroversially accepted as true. I do not know whether that’s based on individual-self-reported-race or genetic markers which indicate African ancestry, or something else entirely. Does that lack mean that in fact I really don’t know anything at all, and am racist for even thinking I knew something? Heck, what about all the people recently who have been upset about incidents in which unarmed black people keep getting killed by cops. How do they know those people are really “black”? Are they racists for noticing that pattern? Is associating Eric Garner and Michael Brown something only a racist would do? It’s one thing to say that it’s hard (or impossible) to come up with a rigorous and inarguable definition of “black” which lets us scientifically measure any individual and determine whether they are black or not (or, perhaps, give them a numerical “blackness” ranking). But that doesn’t mean that the word has no meaning at all. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/77 "2015-03-21T05:11:24Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I predict Mr Dribble is going to have an exciting post filled weekend. :rolleyes: I feel sorry for that guy, whoever he is. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/78 "2015-03-21T05:16:21Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > If the definition is “people who self-identify as black”, I don’t believe it’s either. Gosh, **Chief Pedant** has taught you well. But next time, you can just say “SIRE”, we’ll all know what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/79 "2015-03-21T05:50:32Z")
It’s racist to make the statement as an illustration of a principle of logic because it argues over a racist belief, giving it publicity, which even bad ideas need, when another illustration could be used that wouldn’t be racist. Such as the moon is made of green cheese, true or false. It isn’t going to inflame or encourage the righteous or morons or righteous morons. People actually arguing over this question also run the risk of arguing with an idiot: people watching can’t tell the difference. Arguing with racists over this is like wrestling with pigs: everyone will be covered with filth and pig shit, and the pig (racist) will probably have enjoyed it. So Steophan is a stupid, racist, shit covered and sexually gratified by this thread. QED ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514/80 "2015-03-21T06:59:58Z")
What the hell _is_ a subhuman? Is a chimp a “sub-human”? They’re the closest living relative to humans that aren’t human. What about Homo erectus? They are ancestors of modern humans. Are neanderthals sub-humans? They are not (for the most part) ancestors of humans, but they were displaced by humans, so they have sort of an objective reason to be called inferior to humans, at least on a basis of might-makes-right. Sub-human is not a factual term, and therefore statements containing it are not factual statements. It is a term heavy on emotional baggage and light on clear definition. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steophan-blacks-are-subhuman-is-either-true-or-false-and-by-itself-has-no-moral-component/715514.md?page=5)