My how horrible they are! Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him' — andrewk

This is a completely irrational reason to vote for someone, or to agree with their views, as is voting for or agreeing with, someone simply because the accusations against them are carried violently. We know people do not behave this way. The Nazis were extremely violent right from the beginning, this didn't bolster support for their opposition in any meaningful way (I'm not saying it didn't happen, but the effect was insignificant). On the other side of the political divide, the civil rights movement in the 60s and the gay rights movement in the 70s and 80s quite often became violent, again the violence probably didn't help their cause, but in the end it made little difference to the groundswell of opinion. I'm struggling to find an example from history which demonstrates the effect you're claiming, perhaps you could provide the examples you're working from?

Notwithstanding the above, I still can't quite see how your "Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him" influenced voter would be persuaded otherwise by the alternative. Lets say the students behave and let the person speak, some academic responds in the media rebutting his racist claims (though what would have prevented him from doing so anyway I don't know but we'll skip over that for now). What difference would that have made to your voter? We've already established that they are completely irrational, so the actual argument will be irrelevant to them. If they're the sort of person to be persuaded by the 'victimisation' of the speaker, then what's going to happen when the racists speaks, tells everyone how badly treated white minorities are in some ghettos, how positive discrimination is robbing white people of jobs, how white girls can't even walk the street in areas dominated by immigrants?

This is the point that I don't think is being addressed. Racists lie, and people are persuaded by the lies they want to hear. Once they're out in the public discourse, it doesn't matter how much they're logically and calmly rebutted, people simply don't care about logical calm rebuttal. People are not so impressed by dignified protest that they're going to turn away from the persuasive and powerful rhetoric that's saying exactly what they want to hear just because the opposition to it are well-behaved.

Your theory is just storytelling, I can't see any evidence that it actually happens, by which I mean people who would have voted/though otherwise are persuaded to change their minds because of the suppression of racist rhetoric.

It's de-platformed -> the people opposing it talk less about it -> the people opposing it argue less against it -> less rational and logical arguments are presented against it -> it's easier to rationally come to the conclusion that the idea is correct. — BlueBanana

Why because it's de-platformed must people talk less about it? I think there's been quite a bit of discussion about the university protests. What is preventing anti-racists from talking about why they feel speaker x should not be allowed to speak, explaining what it is about his previously expressed views that they so strongly disagree with. Students are not de-platforming people because they 'look a bit shady'. They're de-platforming people whose opinions are already in the public sphere, we can argue against the opinions they've already expressed we don't need to give them a platform to do it again.

This is another strawman frequently brought out in these arguments, it is always presumed that the person in question has something to say that's not been said before. If that were the case, no-one would be de-platforming them. These are people who've expressed their views already, and the community where they are about to speak has decided that they do not want to allow that kind of language in their community. The 'rational debate', such as there is one, has already been had, the racists have lost, but they want to keep going anyway because they know that the rationality of their argument is irrelevant to winning people over to it.

Mill would have strongly disagreed with you. — Marchesk

Actually, Mill specifically said that whilst talking about the greed of the Corn dealers should be allowed, talking about the greed of the Corn Traders to an angry mob outside the house of a Corn dealer would be immoral and a government would be legitimate in banning it.

An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. — J S Mill

As Peter Singer has said, now that we live in an age of global communication, anyone could be addressing the 'excited assembled mob' and so this caution needs to be extended to all and every form of communication.

I think we have to be careful about shutting down speech. I think you're right in that certain platforms (businesses, etc) have a right to limit what's said. Where I think we have to be careful is in the public square, and at Universities where students are there to learn and be challenged.

But there is something more going on in our society, i.e., some politicians are using the term bigot or racist to shut down the other side (this happens on both sides), so they paint their opponents as bigots or racist in order to shut down their arguments. They create a narrative about someone they don't like (justified or not) in order to shut them up, or to get others to not listen to them, or even hate them.

What I've observed, is that if you want to see racism in someone you'll find it. There are many things we say that might be interpreted as racist, yet not fully reflect a person's belief about racism, or not fully reflect how a person really acts towards others of a different race. For example, someone might say something in anger that may or may not reflect what they truly believe.

People's actions are more complicated than some might imagine. I've seen people talk in a way that's racist, and yet I've seen that same person act with kindness toward someone of a different race. Some people can struggle with immorality in their lives, and yet generally act in ways that are moral. It's more important to look at a person's actions over a long period of time than to look at a couple of isolated remarks.

Do you think that comes first, or do you think we actually need to decide what method we're going to use before applying it. By that I mean, if we were to exclude racists from the debate, why would we be doing so? Once we've answered that question it would become a matter of arguable (but ultimately resolvable?) fact as to whether a particular point of view fits this criteria or not. I don't know if I've just missed it, but I don't feel like we've actually decided, as a society, what it is about racist views that makes us feel able to flatly deny them. Is it the fact that they're unfair (no-one chooses who they're born to), or the fact that they're wrong (you race does not determine your character in any way), or that fact that they're harmful (potentially)? The problem is I can think of lots of commonly held ideas that could fall into any of these categories (though perhaps not all three). — Pseudonym

I'd say laying out the basic features of racism would come first combined with giving reasons for its incompatibility with the guiding cultural and political values underlying our multiracial society. Racism is antithetical to everything our nation (should) stand for and I think something like your three basic reasons for this being so would convince most people--on rational and non-rational grounds alike--as long as the rules guiding the elimination of racist speech were applied impartially.

I don't find the idea of personal identity being essentially bound up with one's racial background to be a compelling position at all. I've actually listened to lengthy interviews with Richard Spencer a few times and found his ideas of "racial identitariansim" to be pretty silly. The idea of United States becoming a racially homogeneous nation at some point in the future seems both absurd and impractical.

I also think the main reason he draws interest in his views is because of perceived hypocrisy surrounding this topic. It seems to be acceptable for some groups to form racial identities and to attack other groups on those grounds (whites) but not acceptable for that latter group to advocate for their own collective racial identity and attack back. The standard justification for the discrepancy ("one can't be racist if one doesn't have power to adversely influence the dominant group...") is a good example of how an argument may be rational but also completely alienating on emotional or non-rational grounds.

Circling back to the topic I'd say lay out the rules, explain why they're necessary, and apply them impartially. That'd be the simple formula I'd use to justify de-platforming racist speech. Only if each of these conditions were met would I consider limiting freedom of speech, and this despite the fact that Mill's spirited defense of free speech in On Liberty has always resonated with me a great deal. It'd take a lot to get me to change my opinion on the matter but I'm open to the idea of limiting it in this case.

Getting back to the point/question you made at the very start, I guess if I had to pick I'd be in the camp which values free, open and rational debate as a means of influencing popular opinion. I'd add that the more reasonable position--especially in this particular debate--is usually the more emotionally-satisfying one. The two are mutually reinforcing IMO.

I don't see this as being a problem personally. Racism is quite clearly defined as being treating someone differently because of their birth parents. If people wish to have a net migration target, for example, there's clearly no racism involved there, but if people want to have an immigration target (regardless of emigration) from particular countries, I don't see how that's anything but racist, it's clearly saying that the potential immigrants are somehow of a lower value than the native population, or some other population, purely on the basis of where they were born. — Pseudonym

Yeah I agree with this. This is a good example of what I was getting at because disagreements over immigration policy these days are often interpreted by one side (pro-immigration) as being covers in which racists safely hide their views behind specific policies. That obviously does happen but there's no necessary connection. I know quite a few Mexican-Americans who support Trump's position on building a wall between Mexico and the United States and their reason(s) for doing so have nothing to do with hatred for other Mexicans.

Sometimes--actually oftentimes--support for Trump is seen as implicating one in racism and general bigotry. Again, that may be the case for many of his supporters but there's no necessary link between the two. It's a debatable point, especially given his own statements concerning Mexicans, Muslims, "shithole" countries, etc. but I can imagine how some people could (e.g.) find his economic policies to be preferable to alternatives.

I'd like to emphasize here that my own personal views run completely contrary to Trump's economic agenda, but I also try to be charitable enough to assume that people can have honest disagreements over important issues like this (and the related immigration one) without implicit racism or other nefarious character flaws being involved. My fear is that there are others who wouldn't be nearly so charitable in their dealings with ideological foes. By making those connections between racism and policy that I've mentioned they'd endeavor to eliminate more than just obvious forms of racist speech.

But perhaps I'm overly paranoid. Maybe what bothers me is this: it's not that I distrust the public's ability to make rational decisions if given all the facts in a fair and charitable manner--it's that politicians can't be relied upon to be moderate and fair and to encourage honest, non-manipulative debate.

My fear is that others wouldn't be nearly so charitable and would try to forge necessary connections between racism and the holding of certain positions that are not overtly racist. By doing so they'd endeavor to eliminate more than just obvious forms of racist speech.

But perhaps I'm overly paranoid. — Erik

I don't think you are, I share your concerns. The issue I'm raising here is that we do not respond to those concerns with a blanket support for free speech (so long as it is not breaking any law). Nothing so simple will do the job.

To me the issue is simply about the most effective way to oppose ideas which are rhetorically persuasive, but ultimately harmful in the social environment we have.

I do not find arguments that rational debate is the best way to do this at all persuasive as they massively overestimate the motivation and ability of the majority of the population to make choices rationally rather than get swept along by the rhetoric.

Nor do I find arguments which raise concerns about the Ideology of free-speech particularly persuasive as it is clear we already limit free-speech for all sorts of compelling reasons of societal well-being.

So the only arguments I do find persuasive are the ones you outline here, the 'slippery slope' problem of creating an environment where suppression of free-speech is so commonplace that all sorts of legitimate views are suppressed by groups who simply have sufficient numbers to do so.

The reason why I'm not too concerned though, are twofold.

Firstly, I really don't see it working this way round, I think we have cause and effect mixed up with this concern. I can't imagine a society, or community sufficiently numerous and united to mount a serious attempt to restrict the free-speech of a moderate speaker, but on which simple constitutional rights and social convention actually have an impact.
It is remarkable to me that people are still citing the US constitution as if that made any difference whatsoever. The genocide of the Native Americans was continued, and later black segregation initiated, under the US constitution supposedly guaranteeing Equal Protection. The 18th Amendment was abolished barely a decade after everyone realised it was ridiculous. The 5th amendment has been casually set aside in the so called 'War on Terror'... Americans routinely ignore, abolish and recreate the constitution as they see fit, so it's rules are nothing but a reflection of the society they arise from. Should a community arise that is so opposed to, say, unionisation, that it wishes to suppress the free-speech of union leaders, then I really don't see something as routinely ignored as the constitution preventing them from doing so.

Secondly, invoking the idea of a 'slippery slope' is problematic in itself as we are forced by circumstance to be somewhere on that slope, we cannot be off it, so the mere fact that it is slippery and can, if unrestrained, lead to bad consequences does not really stack up. Any position we take on that slope is going to need to be protected against being taken to a harmful extreme. I don't see any reason why that can't be done, nor any reason why we have to stand further up that slope than we'd otherwise like, just as a preventative measure.

If known racists, by a simple definition, are prevented from speaking by a particular community, that's fine, no harm done. If another community uses that as justification for suppressing the free-speech of a union leader complaining about working conditions, then we can use whatever force we'd apply in the first place to simply prevent that in the second, and we'd be entirely justified in doing so because racism is wrong, whereas asking for better working conditions is not.

The issue is never racism, which is always prevalent in some form in any culture. The issue is the economic conditions that provide racism a platform to grow. Nazism and other similar forms of ideology were a result of economic conditions. Amazingly, the university I go to some times for classes refuses to go near this subject not will they touch the financing of racism pretending instead that it is sort of genetic aberration in some people.

Amazingly, the university I go to some times for classes refuses to go near this subject not will they touch the financing of racism pretending instead that it is sort of genetic aberration in some people. — Rich

Then I would go to another university, the one you've chosen is clearly rubbish. I can't think of a single professor within the entire humanities or philosophy departments at my university, nor even colleagues at any other that I know, who would consider that poverty does not play a part in the adoption of racist views. But then I take it you're American, and they consider Stephen Pinker an academic over there so maybe I'm not that surprised afterall.

But then I take it you're American, and they consider Stephen Pinker an academic over there so maybe I'm not that surprised afterall. — Pseudonym

:D

The reverse psychology line of argument is, to me, a minor part of the overall set of objections.

Who exactly is this rational 'we' that get to de-platform the less enlightened 'them'? How would we maintain the network of rational narrative filterers and ensure we don't end up in a big echo chamber of the dominant ideology?

Who exactly is this rational 'we' that get to de-platform the less enlightened 'them'? — Roke

I would have thought the same rational 'we' responsible for absolutely every single other restriction on autonomy or balancing of competing interests - the democratically elected representatives of whatever community is involved.

The less enlightened 'them' would be people who preach the different treatment of others on the basis of skin colour, gender or any other accident of birth. Any policy in fact which demonstrably increases the suffering of sentient creatures. To suggest such opinions have a place in policy discussions is akin to suggesting that astrologers have something useful to say at a physics conference.

Oh, good, you mean politicians. That's reassuring because I can't imagine them silencing oppositional political views by disingenuously painting them as racist.

Let me ask you an honest, non-rhetorical, question. Is affirmative action racist?

Oh, good, you mean politicians. That's reassuring because I can't imagine them silencing oppositional political views by disingenuously painting them as racist. — Roke

Are politicians a different species then? We leave all these decisions in the hands of ordinary individuals and they somehow miraculously work out fine, but ask someone who should have been chosen by those same individuals to represent them and the objectives become underhand?

I think politics is far from perfect (for a start I'd require politicians to at least be qualified in their area of expertise) but it's the best system we've got for ensuring that might doesn't always make right.

Let me ask you an honest, non-rhetorical, question. Is affirmative action racist? — Roke

It depends on the nature of the action. If one has good reason to believe that the distribution of those wishing to join an institution is different from the population that actually make it to membership by some discriminating factor, then affirmative action is taken to rectify an error. If all one has is evidence that the distribution of some discriminating factor in an institution is different to that of the population as a whole, I don't see that would be anything short of social engineering. In the latter case, a charge of racism would depend entirely on the objective of the engineering in question.

Ok. But what can or cannot be done under the law is a consideration which should be addressed by those who own or control any forum here in the U.S.A, at least. When the First Amendment has application to a university, for example, the administrators of that university, if they're prudent, will consider whether and to what extent their desire or that of students or faculty or others that no word or thought considered evil be spoken on campus, or that no person considered evil be tolerated there, should be sated. That's because depending on the circumstances, barring such speech or people from those hallowed halls could violate the First Amendment and someone may try to enforce it and do so successfully, which would mean the loss of something even more hallowed. Money.

We've never trusted politicians with the censorship of speech and I think for good reason.

Affirmative action always entails treating people differently based on their birth parents, which is the definition of racism you proposed.

If the latter, then rationally debating with the racist is pointless and the only issue is how best to limit the effect their views have on the irrational. Here I think legitimising them by including them in the discourse is as likely an outcome as bolstering them with the kudos of being banned. — Pseudonym

In other words, "racists" do not treat certain people with dignity and respect, that is wrong, and the solution is to not treat "racists" with dignity and respect. Two wrongs make a right!

In other words, "racists" treat certain people as less than human, that is wrong, and the solution is to treat "racists" as less than human. Two wrongs make a right!

In other words, let's marginalize a particular group of people, "racists", and let's do it in the name of inclusiveness!

Let's flex our rational muscles! What could better serve the cause of rationality than to use coercion and the brute force of the state to marginalize the "irrational" and keep words from reaching their brains?

Yes, let's trust the same government that does things like force children to attend schools and be taught self-glorifying, self congratulatory myths about its character and history to even further regulate the intellectual lives of people. Yes, let's trust the same government that denies and covers up its acts of genocide and other crimes to even further regulate the intellectual lives of people. What could better serve the causes of rationality, free inquiry, etc.?

And let's base all of this championing of rationality on an ambiguous label: "racists". What could be better for the cause of freedom and liberty than to instantly dismiss a large, vaguely-defined, homogeneous group called "racists"? After all, efficiency is the greatest good in the economic thinking of the free world!

What I did say is that deplatforming makes it shameful and isolating to hold certain points of view, and that this can be desirable. — StreetlightX

In other words, people will think / not think things and say / not say things based on emotions such as shame, not as the result of rational consideration/reflection. And we will all be free! Mind control / manipulation will be defeated! The triumph of reason!

In other words, people will think / not think things and say / not say things based on emotions such as shame, not as the result of rational consideration/reflection. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Obviously. But then, it would be rational to be ashamed in some circumstances.

without implicit racism or other nefarious character flaws being involved. — Erik

But is racism a "character flaw"? David Smail seemed to unequivocally assert that the idea of racism, sexism, etc. being features of a person's character, personality, psyche, etc. is patently absurd and that it distracts us from the true sources of our strife:

"There is of course no disputing that in modern Western society whites often oppress blacks and men often oppress women. This is bound to be the case in a social context in which people are forced to compete for scarce resources and to differentiate themselves from each other in any way which will accord them greater power, however illusory that power may be (nothing, after all, could be more pathetic
than the belief that 'whiteness' confers personal superiority or that men are in some way to be valued more highly than women).

However, it is a conceptual mistake of the first magnitude to attribute the causes of such oppression to internal characteristics or traits of those involved. So long as sexism and racism are seen as personal attitudes which the individual sinner must, so to speak, identify in and root out of his or her soul, we are distracted from locating the causes of interpersonal strife in the material operation of power at more distal levels5. Furthermore, solidarity against oppressive distal power is effectively prevented from developing within the oppressed groups, who, successfully divided, are left by their rulers to squabble amongst themselves, exactly as Fanon detailed in the case of Algerians impoverished and embittered by their French colonial masters.

It is not that racist or sexist attitudes do not exist - they may indeed be features of the commentary of those who exercise or seek to exercise oppressive, possibly brutal proximal power. But that commentary is not the cause of the process that results in such proximal oppression and it is as futile to tackle the problem at that level as it is to try to cure 'neurosis' by tinkering with so-called 'cognitions' or 'unconscious motivation'.

This, I think, explains the otherwise puzzling success of 'political correctness' at a time when corporate power extended its influence over global society on an unprecedented scale. For this success was in fact no triumph of liberal thought or ethics, but rather the 'interiorizing', the turning outside-in of forms of domination which are real enough. The best-intentioned among us become absorbed in a kind of interior witch-hunt in which we try to track down non-existent demons within our 'inner worlds', while in the world outside the exploitation of the poor by the rich (correlating, of course, very much
with black and white respectively) and the morale-sapping strife between men and women rage unabated.

Once again, we are stuck with the immaterial processes of 'psychology', unable to think beyond those aspects of commentary we take to indicate, for example, 'attitudes' or 'intentions'. The history of the twentieth century should have taught us that anyone will be racist in the appropriate set of circumstances. What is important for our understanding is an analysis of those circumstances, not an orgy of righteous accusation and agonised soul-searching." -- David Smail: Power, Responsibility and Freedom

The David Smail quote in my previous post addresses almost everything that this thread is about in just a few paragraphs. The only things I don't see in it are the issues of free speech and the First Amendment.

However, if racism, the power of words, the social psychology and politics of how people respond to words, etc. are your concern, Smail sums up a lot of reality in just a few paragraphs.

Pay particular attention to this statement:

"However, it is a conceptual mistake of the first magnitude to attribute the causes of such oppression to internal characteristics or traits of those involved."

Obviously. But then, it would be rational to be ashamed in some circumstances. — StreetlightX

Cloaking one's true beliefs out of fear of being shamed is not rational.

A society in which people walk around harboring repressed thoughts and are silenced and/or say only "politically correct" things out of fear of being shamed--or worse--is not rational. It is not a free society either. It is oppressive.

And if we are going to suppress speech that has negative consequences we may as well ban all speech. Any words can be used to do bad/evil.

I'm okay with opressing racists, and I'm okay with depriving them of their freedom to express their racism. In fact I encourage everyone to opress a racist every now and then, it's a nice, healthy activity for the soul.

I'm okay with opressing racists. — StreetlightX

I don't doubt that you are.

That does not make it any less irrational, self-defeating, and morally wrong.

Fighting evil with evil has not been the strategy of any sane, rational person who has ever been brought to my attention, let alone any person thought of / remembered as doing / having done good.

So, whites oppress blacks and men oppress women because resources are scarce, eh? Well, resources are just going to get more scarce. Unfortunate blacks! Unfortunate women!

It's not evil though. It's quite excellent, in fact.

We've never trusted politicians with the censorship of speech and I think for good reason. — Roke

Of course we trust government with the censorship of free-speech. Who is it do you think prevents hate-speech, incitement to violence, defamation, bad language in from of children, threats, verbal harassment ..?

We prevent a person's free-speech for the well-being of wider society all the time, and it's government which gets to decide what might be against the well-being of society because someone has to, and there is no better authority to do the job.

Are you opposed to government protecting society from the harms caused by the list of restrictions on free-speech above? If not then you need to put forward an argument for why your line-in-the-sand is where it is, rather than just bemoan the fact that we have to draw one at all.

Affirmative action always entails treating people differently based on their birth parents, which is the definition of racism you proposed. — Roke

Then my definition of racism is wrong. This isn't a game where we try to catch each other out with grammar, we're talking about ethics which affect people's lives.

But with regards to affirmative action itself, if for 200 years, some sub-section of the population have been forced to live in a hole and we decide that everyone should live at the same height, in order to rectify that we must lift up those people currently in holes, it's pointless saying "that's discrimination, we should lift everyone up", not everyone is in a hole.

You've raised a few separate issues;

1. De-platforming racists would be marginalising them in the same way as they wish to marginalise and so we should not do it.

2. We cannot trust our government so we should not allow them to restrict freedom of speech for any reason.

3. People are racists/sexists because of resource scarcity and if we prevent them form speaking on these grounds we're somehow ignoring the resource scarcity issue.

So

1. If a person imprisons someone should we spare them prison because we should not do back to them what they did, should we show them that imprisoning people is wrong by letting them go free? If a person takes someone's possessions, should we let them keep those possessions because we wouldn't want to just take them back, we want to show them that we do not just take stuff?
Of course not. You've completely missed the main driving force of interventionist ethics which is Justice. We imprison the imprisoner because we are justified in doing so and he was not. We take possessions from the thief because we are justified in doing so and he was not. We marginalise the person trying to marginalise people because we are justified in doing so and he is not. Rhetoric which may lead to or encourage the oppression of a particular section of society who themselves are causing no harm is something which we have good reason to believe will cause an increase in suffering. We are therefore right to try and prevent that increase, unless we have equally good reason to think that doing so will cause more suffering somewhere else.

2. I am not speaking to government, I'm speaking to people, who are in a democratic country (mostly). When we say "government should...", we obviously do not mean that government should do this without the mandate of it's population. What we mean is that "people (the people to whom we are speaking) should ask their government to...". This idea that we can't trust the government is trotted out repeatedly in arguments about enforcing what is morally right, but it's a non-sequitur. We cannot trust the government because we have voted in a government which is patently untrustworthy. To say we cannot trust the government is synonymous with saying we cannot trust the population, a sentiment with which I would entirely agree. So where do we go from there? Does that automatically lead to the fact that we should not give these powers to government? Well we've just concluded that we can't trust individuals with them to any greater extent. If individuals could be persuaded by rational argument then they would have voted in a more trustworthy government wouldn't they? Government, no matter what scale, is simply a reflection of the will of the people There should be no problem with government power acting to prevent societal harm if the people who put them there voted rationally/morally. The reason why there is a huge problem with the exercise of government power is that the people who put them there did not vote rationally/morally. I don't see how removing power from government does anything to impact on that problem. People are no more free to do as they think best because they are still restricted from doing so by the same irrational population that voted in the government we can't trust with the job.
When I say that these matters 'should' be decided by government, I mean we (the individuals) 'should' vote in a government whom we trust to make these decisions on our behalf and then that government 'should' make them.

3. I don't understand what the root cause of racism/sexism has to do with preventing potentially harmful rhetoric. I expect resource scarcity has quite a lot to do with gun crime too, but we don't allow the crime to take place so that we can better focus on the poverty at the heart of the problem. We ban gun crime to protect people and then with any spare resources we focus on the poverty at the root (or at least that's what we 'should' do). I see no difference here. Rhetoric encouraging oppression will cause harm, we act to prevent that harm and then with any spare resources we focus on the root cause.

Then my definition of racism is wrong. This isn't a game where we try to catch each other out with grammar, we're talking about ethics which affect people's lives. — Pseudonym

OK, so have another try at defining it. It's not so easy. There's no consensus about this. You want to deplatform racists and my concern is that we're not capable of identifying them consistently and fairly. It's not about grammar.

I entirely agree that it is difficult to define, but that doesn't mean we get to throw our hands up and say "let's not bother then". That something is difficult to get right doesn't have any unique bearing on the morality of doing it, it's still about balancing harms.

So far as a definition is concerned we might simply add that the treatment either harms the community concerned, or raises them favourably above others. Such an addition would enable certain kinds of positive discrimination, where the action raised the community concerned favourably, but only up to, not above, the level of others.

To you have concerns still about this slightly refined definition?