Family Association

There might not be a specific lone word (that I have heard) for discriminating against someone because they were born into a given family, as there is for sexism, racism, and ageism, but this form of discrimination, like the others, is aimed at something a person cannot change about themselves.  A person cannot change their family on a whim, even if they do not associate with their family through conversation or activities.  They cannot will away their family ties, for even the death of a family member would not change the fact that they were family whether it was wanted or not.  Being associated biologically to someone a person did not choose to be related to (short of some unprovable pre-conception consciousness) does not reveal their own worldview, personality, talents, or desires.

Like some forms of sexism or racism, discrimination based upon family association reduces down either to assuming something about one person based on the real or imagined worldview, behaviors, or personality of another person or to thinking someone should be regarded like their family even if they have little in common.  Aside from the issue of whether morality exists and what is just, it is inherently irrational to make assumptions, and this kind of discrimination is either based on assumptions (when the discrimination is expressed in action) or is an assumption (when the discrimination is on the level of belief).  It is thinking of or treating someone a certain way for reasons other than understanding their actual nature as a person.  Like other such forms of discrimination, it is contrary to reason and amounts to nothing but selfishness and stupidity.

Family deserves neither default special care nor scorn from a person, and yet whether a one or all family members of a given person deserve one or the other, what they as an individual deserve is dictated by their beliefs and actions.  Metaphysically, someone's philosophical stances, individuality, and personal choices are their own.  Epistemologically, no one could ever know what a person is like based on who their family members are because the latter is totally irrelevant.  Morally, if people deserve anything at all, it is not because of association with someone else with their own moral standing.  Individualistic appraisal of people in the context of rationalism is the only way to truly understand what perceptions of other people we have.  There are just longstanding tendencies to judge people without knowing them, and without even grasping what does or does not logically follow from various circumstances, that span societies comprised of individual non-rationalists.

Biases for and against someone because of their family ties are no less irrational and unjust than the bias of some people to defend or highly regard their own family members just because they are family.  All biases are rooted in petty assumptions, preferences, and superficiality, and those involving family--one's own or another one--are no different than all the other forms of irrational discrimination in this regard.  A refusal to refrain from pretending to know someone's beliefs, personality traits, and competencies because of their family associations that might not even be wanted is at the heart of this kind of bias.  Family, like one's gender, race, and age, are not choosable traits that a person can exchange at will.  It is sheer folly to think more or less of someone because of this happenstance association or even to make assumptions about them that are neither positive nor negative.