Rational but not Fair

What is the best way to deal with our instincts about people we do not know?

Imagine that you’re at a sporting event or concert in a large venue. Sitting next to you is a well-groomed young man with a dark complexion that places his ancestry (to your eyes, anyway) geographically somewhere between Bangladesh and Morocco. Before the event begins, he turns to you and asks you, politely, to save his seat while he walks away for a minute. He doesn’t say why he’s leaving. Without thinking, you say, Sure. When he leaves, though, you notice the black bag he’s left on his seat. It’s not that big, but…well, it’s big enough. You can’t help but thinking that the bag might have a bomb in it.

Is it rational or fair to be suspicious of the young man in this situation? Well, we would argue that it is rational, but it’s not fair. It’s rational because being blown up by a bomb left in a public place by a young man of Middle Eastern, North African, or South Asian descent is something that can definitely happen to you in this day and age.

But it’s not fair. Not fair at all. Why? Well, because the guy might turn out to be a Brazilian electrician.

Our rational but unfair fears have some use, true. Your instincts about the young man sitting next to you may be correct, but it’s much more likely, statistically speaking, that they aren’t. Most people, after all, just aren’t terrorists, no matter what they look like.

But couldn’t it better to be safe, and treat all dark-but-not-African-American-dark-skinned people with suspicion? It will cause a lot of hurt feelings, but isn’t that better than being blown up?

Well, think about it this way. If you call security on this guy, there is an infinitesimal probability that he’s carrying a bomb. In that case, he’ll be arrested, and you’ll be a minor hero.

But the much, much larger probability is that he’s just got magazines in his bag, and if you call security, he’ll get embarrassed. Or, he might get angry, because this is the fifteenth time this has happened to him and all he was doing was trying to call home.

When it gets to the fifteenth such incident, what happens to a person’s mind? Does he keep shrugging it off? Maybe he’s a rational guy, too, and he understands the situation. He doesn’t think it’s fair that he, a person just trying to live his life, should be singled out, but, you know, whatever. Life isn’t fair.

But what about the fiftieth time this happens to him? Can he keep shrugging it off even then? What about the hundredth time? Is he still a rational guy after the hundredth time he’s mistreated just because of the way he looks?

Or does he gradually start to hate the way a terrorist hates, because he’s sick of the unfairness of it all?

It’s rational to be suspicious. But we must make sure that our suspicions are always tempered by fairness. And it might be rational to profile someone because of the way they look, but it does a disservice to the inherent uniqueness of human motivation, and it’s just not fair.