This paper considers the potentially wrongful discriminatory nature of certain of our dating preferences. It argues that the wrongfulness of such preferences lies primarily in the simple lookism they involve. While it is ultimately permissible for us to date people partly because of how they look, I argue that we have a duty to ‘look behind’ people’s appearance, which I take to mean that we ought not, on the basis of their appearance, to regard them as absolutely out of the (...) question for us to engage with in a romantic setting. Further, constraints similar to those suggested by a duty to look behind people’s appearance gain support from another duty we have, namely, a duty to counteract, also in our daily lives, the fact that people are undeservedly disadvantaged in various ways. (shrink)

Anti‐discrimination laws draw a distinction between two kinds of discrimination by non‐state actors. Intimate choices are protected even if they are morally wrong. For example, even if it is morally wrong to discriminate on the basis of race in deciding whom to date, marry or befriend, anti‐discrimination laws permit these acts. By contrast, commercial decisions are commonly regulated. I argue that the reasons for regulating commercial decisions also extend to an intermediate case, commercial facilitators of marriage choices. In the context (...) of the caste system, I argue that commercial facilitators should be banned from allowing customers to filter by caste. The argument is based on two considerations. First, this could mitigate the harmful effects of such discriminatory marriages choices in the (re)production of the oppressive caste system. Second, even if the ban fails in changing behaviour, it serves as an expressive goal of communicating the state's opposition to the caste system. (shrink)

Many believe that we have a duty not to discriminate when we act in certain ‘public’ capacities, for example when it is our job to select among various candidates for a job. In contrast, they deny that we have duties of a similar kind in our private lives, for example in our romantic lives. In this paper, we challenge this well‐entrenched asymmetry. We do so primarily by canvassing and rebutting central arguments to the effect that acting discriminatorily, for example when (...) we date, is something we have a right to, including arguments from: (1) freedom of association, (2) legitimate self‐interest, (3) power and (4) love versus duties. In this way, we challenge a common permissive view regarding private discrimination. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore ethical considerations that might arise from the use of collaborative filtering algorithms on dating apps. Collaborative filtering algorithms can predict the preferences of a target user by looking at the past behavior of similar users. By recommending products through this process, they can influence the news we read, the movies we watch, and more. They are extremely powerful and effective on platforms like Amazon and Google. Recommender systems on dating apps are likely to group people (...) by race, since they exhibit similar patterns of behavior: users on dating platforms seem to segregate themselves based on race, exclude certain races from romantic and sexual consideration, and generally show a preference for white men and women. As collaborative filtering algorithms learn from these patterns to predict preferences and build recommendations, they can homogenize the behavior of dating app users and exacerbate biased sexual and romantic behavior. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often found objectionable. One natural explanation of why this is objectionable appeals to the moral notion of respecting individuality: to properly respect individuality, we need individualized evidence, not pure statistical evidence. However, this explanation has been criticized on the ground that there is no fundamental difference between the so-called “individualized evidence” and “pure statistical evidence”. This paper defends the respecting-individuality explanation by developing an account (...) of what it means to respect individuality. It combines an idealistic account of respecting individuality and a prioritization account of respecting individuality, and offers a principled way to distinguish individualized evidence from non-individualized evidence. (shrink)

Normative questions about discrimination and preferences in dating have recently received mounting attention. I first argue that the current discourse can be reconstructed as between two theoretical camps: proponents of mere preference accounts and proponents of obligation accounts. Second, I argue that both positions presuppose a framework assumption to the effect that attraction is to be conceived of in terms of (positive or negative) obligations. This is because the mere preference account denies obligations in dating, whereas obligation accounts embrace (at (...) least weak) duties. This framework assumption is ill‐begotten once we apprehend that the reality of other people always already outruns our sideways‐on theorising about what property in others we ought to be attracted to. The aim is not to solve the stand‐off between proponents of mere preferences and obligations, but to dissolve the need to conceive of attraction and dating in terms of obligations at all. (shrink)