When Do People View Discrimination as Morally Acceptable?

Abstract Racial and ethnic discrimination is a strongly politicized issue. Across ideological divides, people discuss whether and why contemporary discriminatory practices are ethically and politically problematic. Whereas much empirical research has investigated the practical, social, and institutional boundaries and causes of discrimination, little research explores when and why people accept it. It may be that some discriminatory practices prevail because people find them morally acceptable. I therefore conduct two preregistered survey experiments to investigate which properties of discrimination influence people’s assessments. The results show that respondents are more willing to accept discrimination if they are informed that it reflects accurate statistical group differences. Respondents care little about the intention of the discriminator and pass harsh moral judgments on discriminators who rely on inaccurate understandings of group differences. These results suggest that rationalizing discrimination by appealing to accurate statistics can be misused to foster the acceptance of discriminatory practices.