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It seems like the word "judge" is the one that needs to be defined most here. Else we will struggle between mottes over a bailey neither can claim.
On the one hand if you define the action of judging someone as "deciding that due to this grievous character flaw, this person has no moral worth as a human being and no instrumental value to you or to society in any context;" then obviously it is wrong to judge others on their body type. The counterexamples of people with various suboptimal bodies who are nonetheless valuable and admirable in other ways abound.
On the other hand, if we define judging someone for their body type as "ceteris paribus, the person who allows their body to sink into a state of severe ugliness and uselessness is significantly more likely to exhibit one or more character flaws relative to a person who keeps fit;" then obviously this is a useful parameter for making judgments. If only in the sense that things like income, education, aspirational class, basic grooming, intelligence, all correlate with some degree of fitness.
If you had no other information than BMI, and you were asked to form a team for more or less any task, you'd be better off picking the BMIs in the normal range versus the obese range. ((I say this as someone whose BMI is firmly in "overweight;" the proportion of people who get into the overweight range through lifting weights is a rounding error in the population)) The judgment reflects an accurate and useful fact about the world.
One can still contend that an accurate judgment should be ignored for moral reasons, that everyone deserves a chance. Nepotism is often opposed on moral grounds even if, ceteris paribus, nepotism picks outperform those chosen at random on some parameters.
To me the question, functionally, is whether society is exerting the correct level of judgment. That's where you find out whether you gain an edge. If society is judging too harshly, then you can gain an edge by giving people a real chance. If society isn't judging harshly enough, if they're ignoring relevant information, then applying discrimination can help you choose good candidates.
This is generally one of the flaws in anti-discrimination law, it leaves money on the table for those who break the law.
Yes, I agree that judgment contains a moral dimension, and it's not without basis to apply the concept here - clearly, the consensus that is being built here is that fat people are bad people. But is that judgment actually useful or valuable? That is to say, that if Linda, 52, obese, white, divorcée, six years of experience, applies for an admin position, should her fat ass go to the back of the line? Should you factor in his fatness when deciding if Uncle John is invited to the barbeque? On a population level, have obesity rates skyrocketed over the last hundred years because we've become less moral, and not because it's harder to exercise that discipline in the Oreo Age?
(Of course, I wrote that comment for entirely orthogonal reasons - I often worry compulsively that other people judge me based on being small or weak. And the question stands - would we consider judging an anorexic*, or a weak man?)
(*Anorexia is of course, interesting to me, because I can see the appeal. In many ways it's the inverse of morbid obesity in that it's the fetishization of discipline and adhittana. It's admirable really in a kind of Prince Pamiya kind of way.)
Yes that's the question we're considering. And what I'm asking you is, do you think it has marginal value or no indicative value at all?
So rephrase your questions, back at ya, choose between applicants for an admin position: Linda, 52, six years of experience; Louise, 52, hobby triathlon runner, six years of experience, applies for an admin position. Which do you pick, no other information?
Your Uncle John is 600lbs, eating himself into an early grave. Your Uncle Jack still rows in Masters division meets. Ceteris paribus, which is the one you'd want your child to look up to?
If I can't get more information?
Heads, I hire Linda; tails, I hire Louise.
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Sure, the skinny/fit one. Outside of the context of perfectly spherical cows, BMI is really just one variable among many - race, age, gender, all of which could justify discrimination. Men, for example, are much more likely to be criminals than women are, while old people are much more likely to die.
Sure. And if we iterate a thousand reps with the time and a few thousand bored college students we could assign weights to each. We could run Fat Linda with a degree from a Penn State branch in the Poconos against Fit Louise with an associates, and scrawny John the deacon at my local church against Crossfit Jack who got divorced until we settle on a weight for body weight, where being out of shape is worth about a year of college or $10k/yr in income or such and such level of ability in raising a kid. I can even come up with reverse arguments: a girl who is in too obsessively good of shape may be vain, a slightly pudgy guy might be more relaxed and fun! Maybe that plays in!
And then eventually we would have cohesive metrics to determine just how much to judge someone. But in reality, we'll never exactly get that, so it'll just be informal. If you're arguing that most people assign too much weight to weight, argue that, but that's different from "don't judge people by their bodies!" It's "don't judge people too harshly!"
Fat advocacy is constantly assaulted by the problem of people judging too harshly on one hand, slightly overweight people thrown in with the 600lb life folks and judged as obese wastes of space; and on the other hand 400lb people trying to argue that they're the same as the chubby moms, and don't deserve any critique at all. And there are points where we say don't judge by because it has bad social impacts. Argue that! But we all should agree it's a basis for judgment.
Also it's obvious to judge men to be more dangerous than women! I used to have to get assistant rock climbing coaches to fill out SafeSport background check forms, and consistently it was the teenage girls who got super upset because "I can't remember the address we lived at when I was eight and my mom won't pick up the phone!" And I had to explain to them, it doesn't matter, teenage girls aren't who they are looking out for, it's just civil rights law that they have to make you fill out the form too. Refusing to exercise judgment there creates vastly more paperwork.
I did not originally suggest that it's wrong to judge people for their bodies. I just asked if that same judgment applies to people who have otherwise unappealing or unhealthy bodies. Is it immoral to be very skinny or to be weak? Do we consider people with severe eating disorders to be immoral - so long as they keep themselves in that sweet BMI spot? What about anorexics - certainly, one cannot fault their discipline.
Yes. Clearly, to an unhealthily skinny person.
Absent damaging health problems or mental distress, I actually don't quite know what an eating disorder is. When we were teenagers it was skipping meals, but now most of the informed fit people I know utilize fasting at least some of the time for health reasons, and they function well. At the same time, eating disorders have expanded to include "Orthorexia" which is eating very healthy foods.
Right, but the whole argument against fats is that being fat is immoral because it indicates a lack of discipline. Being anorexic is not a lack of discipline. Indeed, deliberately starving yourself and going on extended fasts used to be seen as a praiseworthy spiritual practice.
No, the primary argument against the obese is that obesity is indicative of a character flaw. Lack of discipline is typically the specific one.
Anorexia is indicative of other character flaws.
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