Lookism: The Morality of Appearance Discrimination

Abstract Appearance discrimination, or lookism, occurs in many different contexts, including education, politics, the criminal justice system, employment, and personal relationships. We shall focus on two of these contexts, namely employment and personal relationships, and consider when appearance discrimination in them is morally objectionable. In doing so we shall draw upon a number of theories of what makes discrimination wrong when it is wrong: Deborah Hellman’s theory that discrimination is wrong when it is demeaning; Larry Alexander’s and Benjamin Eidelson’s theories that discrimination is wrong when it is disrespectful; Sophia Moreau’s pluralist theory that considers the impact of discrimination on subordination, deliberative freedom, and access to basic goods; and Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s theory that discrimination is wrong when it fails to maximize moral value, e.g. when it harms people who are (undeservedly) worse off than others.