ABSTRACT
A recent post on the Chinese Microblog by a computer engineer provoked heated discussion on looks-based discrimination. This computer engineer received a reduced annual employee bonus because he was considered 'too ugly' by his new supervisor. Lookism, differential attitude or treatment based solely on a person's physical appearance, has been receiving increasing attention, especially in socioeconomic and legal circles. This chapter examines lookist practice at three levels, and the potentially morally relevant issues related to each. It then considers the moral problems bound up with various kinds of lookist practice because of these issues. The most basic form of lookism concerns physical attractiveness. It is sometimes believed that discrimination based on appearance is justified because appearance is relevant to one's capability to function in a certain way. Ungrounded lookism takes the discriminatee as having a certain sort of inferiority, when there is no ground or no reasonable ground for doing so.
