section_path: Definitions
section_name: Definitions
paragraph_text: Definitions
  
  Moral philosophers have defined discrimination using a moralized definition. Under this approach, discrimination is defined as acts, practices, or policies that wrongfully impose a relative disadvantage or deprivation on persons based on their membership in a salient social group. This is a comparative definition. An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. He or she just needs to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason. If someone decides to donate to help orphan children, but decides to donate less, say, to children of a particular race out of a racist attitude, he or she will be acting in a discriminatory way even if he or she actually benefits the people he discriminates against by donating some money to them. Discrimination also develops into a source of oppression, the action of recognizing someone as 'different' so much that they are treated inhumanly and degraded.
  
  This moralized definition of discrimination is distinct from a non-moralized definition - in the former, discrimination is wrong by definition, whereas in the latter, this is not the case.
  
  The United Nations stance on discrimination includes the statement: "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection." The United Nations Human Rights Council and other international bodies work towards helping ending discrimination around the world.