Stain Removal: Ethics and Race

Martin Luther King, Jr. famously expressed his dream that his children would "one day not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." In his vision, a person's ethical qualities would be understood in spite of his or her body rather than through it. In general, we think that a person's actions should not be judged according to their physical features, such as race. In fact, we see evaluations based on a subject's race or other bodily traits as illegitimate....