On Leslie on generics and prejudice - Book Report/Review Example

Leslie, the Original Sin of Cognition: Fear, Prejudice and Generalization Psychology of prejudice is one sided where the in-group of an individual is better and can commit no wrong while the out-group is considered less than perfect and hence all errors and evils attributed to it. The same one strand of this psychology of prejudice indicates that an individual does not commit any harm and especially when it comes to generalization or even the issue of attributing mistakes to others while keeping the blame away from them.

The original sin of cognition is generalization. This is because it is through generalization that people provide less than truthful or even reliable accounts regarding an individual or group. This generalization may be brought about by fear or even prejudice against a certain group of people such as the Muslims or a particular ethnic or racial group such as the blacks. The role of generic sentences is simply to spread prejudice and increase psychological essentializing which leads to wrongful and untruthful presentation of certain groups of people.

These generic sentences lack any scientific knowledge or proof and hence the reason they lead to the dispositions of members of certain groups. The sentences are purely based on only a few attributed cases after which generalizations are made about the same group leading to the formation and spread of the generic sentences (Leslie 15). Psychological essentialization is the basic step to prejudice of certain groups especially the out-groups. It lacks any scientific or biological basis and is simply based on nature of some members of the out-group (Leslie 16).

It is the psychological essentialization that leads to the attribution errors that are present in the psychology of prejudice and which further fuel the wrongful generalizations made about certain groups of people or individuals of an out-group. Generic claims about the natural world have more grounding in the nature which never lies whereas those generic claims about the social world have grounding in social attributes that are full of errors. Nature does not change as frequently as the social grounding and hence the reason the generic claims of the social world are attributed as more untruthful and full of attribution errors than the generic claims about a natural world.

Attribution errors are meant to explain the wrong individuals commit when they make false attributions about other individuals or groups of people that do not belong to their ethnic, racial, religious or other close group which is commonly referred to as the in-group (Leslie 26). In becoming aware of the attribution errors people make about others and justifying them as being from their personality, people start changing their view of the errors they make and which others make as well. Leslie’s account of prejudice is too focused on psychological essentialization and the generic sentences but provides almost no information about how to avoid the prejudice.

People need to have their mistakes pointed out but they deserve to be told how to avoid them in the future. Attribution errors, psychological essentialism and generalizations have been present for long in society and people should be guided on how to avoid them. Work CitedLeslie, Sarah. The Original Sin of Cognition: Fear, Prejudice and Generalization. The Journal of Philosophy, in press.