1 Wrongful private discrimination and the egalitarian ethos Carina Fourie, University of Washington Author’s note: This is a draft chapter. The final version will appear in The Routledge Handbook of the Ethics of Discrimination, edited by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (in press). Abstract In this chapter, I examine how Deborah Hellman’s objective-egalitarian account of discrimination can be used to indicate why private differential treatment, such as acting on racialized dating preferences, can be wrongful. I argue that the notion of efficacy employed in this account – i.e. the power to demean – needs to be revised however. This revised account of discrimination can be useful for stipulating the demands of an egalitarian ethos. Such an ethos is a means of describing the norms that should guide individuals’ interactions in a community or society of equals. While a principle of non-discrimination for the private may be necessary for an egalitarian ethos, it is unlikely to be sufficient. In the final part of this chapter, I indicate that ‘attempts to demean’ should, among other inegalitarian behaviors, be ruled out by an egalitarian ethos, even though they are not ruled out by a principle of non-discrimination. Introduction A gay white man does not date black men because they are black (cf. chapters 23, 30-31). Is this wrongful discrimination? What would a common-sense answer to this question be? One might be tempted to say ‘yes’ – this seems so much like typical cases of wrongful racial discrimination, such as a refusal to hire black people for employment, that it is difficult to see why it should not