I have been thinking about the ethics of racial profiling. Say that racial profiling, roughly, involves law enforcers paying extra attention to members of a certain race, because it is known that members of that race are more likely to commit certain crimes. My familiarity with the philosophical work on the topic is entirely due to two very good articles, one by Arthur Applbaum:
“Racial Generalizations, Police Disretion and Bayesian Contractualism.” In J. Kleinig (ed) `Handled with Discretion: Ethical Issues in Police Decision Making.’ New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.
and one by Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser (linked to here):
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~mrisse/papers_Misc.htm
Both articles argue that under the right conditions - and conditions not too different from those obtaining in many countries at present - racial profiling is justified.
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