The Logic of Xenophobia

In this article I discuss the subjective rationality of xenophobic and racist beliefs. Although such beliefs are mostly non-rational from an objective perspective, because of their incongruence with reality, under certain conditions they may appear rational from people’s subjective point of view – in particular in situations of uncertainty. The reason for this is mainly cognitive limitations and biased background information. I argue that xenophobic beliefs are often underpinned by categorization and inference biases. More specifically, xenophobic beliefs may arise out of invalid inductive inferences and by stereotyped categorization processes. Both these types of erroneous inferences result from thought processes that have the same form as cognitive mechanisms people use successfully in their daily lives, which give them good reason for relying on them without much reflection.