Let me note that what is correlated with badness may be more the fact of speaking racist beliefs, not of ‘having them’—the latter is hard to collect info about, absent mind-reading technology.
It seems extremely likely that there’s a correlation between having racist beliefs and speaking them. In particular, the more extreme one’s racist beliefs are, the more likely that one will a) consider racist beliefs acceptable to say (some combination of illusion of transparency and typical mind fallacy) and b) will consider more moderate racial claims as less controversial in comparison.
True, though in general I don’t think we have much trouble discovering the unspoken beliefs of other people through their behaviors. I grant of course that if a racist belief has no relationship to someone’s behavior whatsoever, then it cannot be the cause of being a bad person (since this seems to be very much an issue of behavior).
But in such a case, I think serious questions could be raised about whether or not this belief is actually a belief the person holds.
Let me note that what is correlated with badness may be more the fact of speaking racist beliefs, not of ‘having them’—the latter is hard to collect info about, absent mind-reading technology.
It seems extremely likely that there’s a correlation between having racist beliefs and speaking them. In particular, the more extreme one’s racist beliefs are, the more likely that one will a) consider racist beliefs acceptable to say (some combination of illusion of transparency and typical mind fallacy) and b) will consider more moderate racial claims as less controversial in comparison.
True, though in general I don’t think we have much trouble discovering the unspoken beliefs of other people through their behaviors. I grant of course that if a racist belief has no relationship to someone’s behavior whatsoever, then it cannot be the cause of being a bad person (since this seems to be very much an issue of behavior).
But in such a case, I think serious questions could be raised about whether or not this belief is actually a belief the person holds.