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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8323267" data-attributes="member: 42582">To me there seems to be a lot going on in what you've posted. Probably too much for me to fully respond to all of it.I personally find the notions of bias and bigotry useful in some contexts and not others. For instance, there are studies (at least in Australia; I imagine also in the US, Canada and the UK) which indicate that resumes that are otherwise identical attract different degrees of interest from prospective employers depending on the race/ethnicity that is suggested by the job applicant's name. That seems like a phenomenon where notions of bias (be that deliberate or "implicit") might have work to do.When I'm looking at a literary work, I'm not normally forming a view about the author. I'm interested in the ideas that are conveyed by the work. These might include elements that reflect or were shaped by bigotry - eg a certain conception of how certain racial/ethnic markers correlate with threats to human life and civilisation. Whether or not the author is/was a bigot would be a different question.I think that there are two issues, at least, that one might want to keep in mind when drawing on real cultures - particularly "minority" cultures (ie cultures that tend to be on the receiving rather than dealing end in contemporary political structures) - in the fantasy context. One: don't replicate correlations/interpretations that are grounded in, or express, bigoted ideas. Two, and on the assumption that you are not a participant in the culture in question: be cautious that your work isn't crowding out the work of those who are participants in the culture in question bringing their conception of their culture to life.I don't see that either of those issues dictates a particular answer in any given case. But there are probably some approaches to authoring fantasy worlds that they do rule out.To me this seems to raise a pretty different issue! One reason I prefer to work in political than moral philosophy is that I incline towards particularism in morality; and look to social and political institutions to resolve matters of interpersonal justice.</blockquote>

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