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Notes -
Distinguish two questions.
First, is statistical discrimination instrumentally useful? That is, can I use statistical discrimination to accomplish some goal? Does statistical information about demographic groups let me make predictions at a rate greater than chance? It seems to me, as you note, the answer is clearly yes. If I have some information that P(A|B) > P(A|C) I can use the distinction between B and C as a discriminator to predict A. How powerful or accurate those predictions will be, how much better than chance I can do, depends on the relative difference between P(A|B) and P(A|C).
Second, is statistical discrimination just? When I make judgements about an individual on the basis of demographic groups they belong to, am I doing something morally impermissible? I think statistical discrimination is hard to justify from the perspective of an individualist system of ethics. After all, it almost definitionally involves judging how individuals ought to be treated by actions that other members of their demographic groups have done, rather than anything they have done.
I suspect part of what motivates a rejection of the instrumental utility of statistical discrimination is a belief that instrumental utility would imply moral permissibility. I expect the reasoning (not necessarily consciously) proceeds something like:
1. If some piece of information has instrumental utility, then it is morally permissible to act on it.
2. It would be morally impermissible to act on certain kinds of statistical information.
3. Therefore that information must not have instrumental utility.
I think the better answer is to deny (1), that all information which is instrumentally useful is therefore morally permissible to act on.
Yes, this is the stance that I take. I think it's very uncomfortable for many people, though, because it implies that there is a cost to non-discrimination. You (the general you) will be making poorer choices because you can't take advantage of all the available information.
This is related to Robin Hanson's recent ideas about the sacred, specifically that sacred things cannot be traded off against non-sacred things. Non-discrimination is sacred. Admitting that there is a cost to it is profane and suggests there would be circumstances in which it was permissible to immorally discriminate when the cost of non-discrimination is too high.
An example I was fond of, about 15 years ago, which I have rarely ventured to trot out in the last decade: taxi cabs. They drive like assholes, in a rush, making last minute ill advised lane changes and turns with minimal signaling.
You’re a soccer mom driving a minivan full of kids down a 50 mph boulevard, from the suburbs going to the grocery store. You see a yellow car at a cross road, inching forward, obviously desperate to turn in front of you. Do you treat it like a taxi cab and take extra caution? Of course you don’t, bigot! You shouldn’t cross the street at 3am to avoid a thuggish man either!
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