Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly, across the political spectrum, from very left-leaning individuals and moderates to (...) very right-leaning individuals, participants reported experiencing ideological hostility in the field, occasionally even from those from their own side of the political spectrum. Finally, while about half of the subjects believed that discrimination against left- or right-leaning individuals in the field is not justified, a significant minority displayed an explicit willingness to discriminate against colleagues with the opposite ideology. Our findings are both surprising and important, because a commitment to tolerance and equality is widespread in philosophy, and there is reason to think that ideological similarity, hostility, and discrimination undermine reliable belief formation in many areas of the discipline. (shrink)

Discrimination, understood as differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their respective group memberships, is widely considered to be morally wrong. This moral judgment is backed in many jurisdictions with the passage of equality of opportunity legislation, which aims to ensure that racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, sexual-orientation, disability and other groups are not subjected to discrimination. This chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings of discrimination and equality of opportunity using the tools of analytical moral and political philosophy.

In this paper I show that a variety of Cartesian Conceptions of the mental are unworkable. In particular, I offer a much weaker conception of limited discrimination than the one advanced by Williamson (2000) and show that this weaker conception, together with some plausible background assumptions, is not only able to undermine the claim that our core mental states are luminous (roughly: if one is in such a state then one is in a position to know that one is) (...) but also the claim that introspection is infallible with respect to our core mental states (where a belief that C obtains is infallible just in case if one believes that C obtains then C obtains). The upshot is a broader and much more powerful case against the Cartesian conception of the mental than has been advanced hitherto. (shrink)

The UNESCO Statements on Race of the early 1950s are understood to have marked a consensus amongst natural scientists and social scientists that ‘race’ is a social construct. Human biological diversity was shown to be predominantly clinal, or gradual, not discreet, and clustered, as racial naturalism implied. From the seventies social constructionists added that the vast majority of human genetic diversity resides within any given racialised group. While social constructionism about race became the majority consensus view on the topic, social (...) constructionism has always had its critics. Sesardic (2010) has compiled these criticisms into one of the strongest defences of racial naturalism in recent times. In this paper I argue that Sesardic equivocates between two versions of racial naturalism: a weak version and a strong version. As I shall argue, the strong version is not supported by the relevant science. The weak version, on the other hand, does not contrast properly with what social constructionists think about ‘race’. By leaning on this weak view Sesardic’s racial naturalism intermittently gains an appearance of plausibility, but this view is too weak to revive racial naturalism. As Sesardic demonstrates, there are new arguments for racial naturalism post-Human Genome Diversity Project. The positive message behind my critique is how to be a social constructionist about race in the post-genomic era. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that it is a moral obligation for companies, firstly, to accept their moral responsibility with respect to non-discrimination, and secondly, to address the issue with a full-fledged programme, including but not limited to the countering of microsocial discrimination processes through specific policies. On the basis of a broad sketch of how some discrimination mechanisms are actually influencing decisions, that is, causing intended as well as unintended bias in Human Resources Management, I (...) will argue that the well known tools of legislation and ethical codes are necessary although insufficient to cope with the problem. However, based on empirical evidence, we know which set of measures is likely to diminish discrimination. Taking non-discrimination seriously implies complex and longitudinal policies which include assigning responsibility for a non-discrimination policy within the firm, making managers conscious of implicit stereotypes and helping them to cope with prejudices that no one can totally overcome. Insofar as corporate responsibility with respect to non-discrimination is accepted and strategies that are not prohibitively expensive are known, companies are bound to implement them. Not implementing the best set of measures may be considered at least as a moral shortcoming or, depending on the size of the company, mere lip service to the non-discrimination principle. Although the paper refers to empirical material of diverse backgrounds, its intent is clearly normative. It wishes to spell out what companies ought to do if they are committed to responsible behaviour. The discussion of effective remedies against discrimination is based on a case study of a French company. The retailer Auchan was recently surprised to learn that it was discriminating against ethnic minorities despite strong ethical standards, an ethics committee and ethical leadership. The company dropped its naïve beliefs and set up an ambitious policy cope with the issue. The case illustrates what recent empirical research has revealed about the effectiveness of diversity policies: establishing responsibility for diversity results, firm ethical commitment and support from top management make diversity programs effective. (shrink)

It is usually accepted that whether or not indirect discrimination is a form of immoral discrimination, it appears to be structurally different from direct discrimination. First, it seems that either one involves the agent focusing on different things while making a decision. Second, it seems that the victim’s group membership is relevant to the outcomes of either sort of action in different ways. In virtue of these two facts, it is usually concluded that indirect discrimination is (...) structurally different from direct discrimination. I argue against the notion that indirect discrimination and direct discrimination have significantly different structures. I first argue that both kinds of discrimination involve similar decision-making processes. Second, I analyze how being in a social group affects personal identity, and from there argue that indirect discrimination and direct discrimination are about group membership similarly. In virtue of these two arguments, I conclude that direct and indirect discrimination are structurally similar. (shrink)

According to the Ability Hypothesis, knowing what it is like to have experience E is just having the ability to imagine or recognize or remember having experience E. I examine various versions of the Ability Hypothesis and point out that they all face serious objections. Then I propose a new version that is not vulnerable to these objections: knowing what it is like to experience E is having the ability todiscriminate imagining or having experience E from imagining or having any (...) other experience. I argue that if we replace the ability to imagine or recognize with the ability to discriminate, the Ability Hypothesis can be salvaged. (shrink)

Discrimination might be considered unjust on account of the comparative disadvantage it imposes, the absolute disadvantage it imposes, the disrespect it shows, or the prejudice it shows. This article argues that each of these accounts overlooks some cases of unjust discrimination. In response to this state of affairs we might combine two or more of these accounts. A promising approach combines the comparative disadvantage and absolute disadvantage accounts.

Higher Education has been considered as a site of knowledge, and it is a place, where one can pursue it. But, the distribution of knowledge and acquiring knowledge is controlled by various factors. For example, caste, class, language, region, religion, gender, race, etc. The two principal factors, i.e. language and caste, determine one's access and then survival in higher educational institutions. The Hegemony of English language becomes a very problematic for non-English background students in the higher educational classroom in India. (...) The hegemony of one language itself achieves the status of dominant or prestigious. The caste, class and gender also determine who are going to use the English language as a medium of instruction. In the era of modernization and globalization, caste, class and gender dynamic work inherently in the higher education. In this context, this paper gives a broader insight of language and caste-based discrimination, and it's a mechanism in the higher education set-ups. (shrink)

Australia, Canada, and New Zealand currently apply health requirements to prospective immigrants, denying residency to those with health conditions that are likely to impose an “excessive demand” on their publicly funded health and social service programs. In this paper, I investigate the charge that such policies are wrongfully discriminatory against persons with disabilities. I first provide a freedom-based account of the wrongness of discrimination according to which discrimination is wrong when and because it involves disadvantaging people in the (...) exercise of their freedom on the basis of morally arbitrary features of their identity. Discrimination is permissible, I suggest, when it is necessary to advance a valuable exercise of the discriminating agent’s freedom. I then apply this account to the case of social cost health requirements. Against critics of these requirements, I argue that it is sometimes permissible for states to discriminate against prospective immigrants with disabilities. States may do so, I suggest, when such discriminatory treatment is necessary to prevent an increase in rates of mortality and/or morbidity amongst citizens. Alongside critics of social cost health requirements however, I argue that existing policies are likely a form of wrongful discrimination insofar as they are too broad to satisfy this standard. (shrink)

How, if at all, do the findings of social psychology impact upon philosophical analyses of discrimination? In this chapter, I outline key findings from three research programs from psychology – concerning in-group/out-group favoritism; implicit bias; and stereotype threat. I argue that each set of findings presents challenges to how philosophical analyses of group discrimination are formulated, and propose possible revisions to be explored in future work.

This discussion treats a set of familiar social derelictions as consequences of the perversion of a universalistic moral theory in the service of an ill-considered or insufficiently examined personal agenda.The set includes racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and class elitism, among other similar pathologies, under the general heading of discrimination. The perversion of moral theory from which these derelictions arise, I argue, involves restricting its scope of application to some preferred subgroup of the moral community of human beings. -/- The (...) following analysis of higher-order discrimination suggests that we often select the individuals who constitute such subgroups for reasons that we ourselves would reject on moral grounds were we to examine them carefully, but that we choose instead to put our rational resources in the service of avoiding any such examination at all costs. The implication is that arguments that truncate the scope of moral theory in fact justify bestowing the gift of moral treatment on a select few who deserve it no more than the many from whom we withhold it. Therefore, it would be precipitous to conclude that universalistic moral theory can be legitimately restricted in its practical scope of application in any way at all. (shrink)

This paper describes an initiative to promote social justice in two groups of primary aged children. The initiative was concerned with the extent to which first? and third?year juniors can apply principles of unfair discrimination to issues of gender,?race? and social class having been taught the principles in contexts unrelated to structural inequality. The study provides evidence consistent with the claim that children between the ages of seven and 11 can learn to recognise certain manifestations of unfair discrimination (...) against oppressed groups. The data further suggest that children in this age group can learn to recognise such discrimination on the basis of principles acquired in contexts that make no reference to oppressed groups. It is argued that the data are sufficiently encouraging to warrant a replication of the study on a larger scale. (shrink)

Can indistinguishable objects differ aesthetically? Manifestationism answers ‘no’ on the grounds that (i) aesthetically significant features of an object must show up in our experience of it; and (ii) a feature—aesthetic or not—figures in our experience only if we can discriminate its presence. Goodman’s response to Manifestationism has been much discussed, but little understood. I explain and reject it. I then explore an alternative. Doubles can differ aesthetically provided, first, it is possible to experience them differently; and, second, those experiences (...) reflect differences in the objects’ themselves. A range of objections to this position is considered, but all are found wanting. (shrink)

Mind &Language, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 90-114, February 2020.

In this article I critically examine a standard feature in conceptions of discrimination: the group-criterion, specifically the idea that there is a limited and definablegroup of traits that can form the basis of discrimination. I review two types of argument for the criterion. One focuses on inherently relevant groups and relies ultimately on luck-egalitarian principles; the other focuses on contextually relevant groups and relies ultimately on the badness of outcomes. I conclude that as neither type of argument is (...) convincing, the criterion is morally arbitrary, and as such untenable. Finally, I suggest both some of the conceptual and some of the practical implications of abandoning the criterion. (shrink)

The article analyses the concept of indirect discrimination, arguing first that existing conceptualisations are unsatisfactory and second that it is best understood as equal treatment that is disadvantageous to the discriminatees because of their group-membership. I explore four ways of further refining the definition, arguing that only an added condition of moral wrongness is at once plausible and helpful, but that it entails a number of new problems that may outweigh its benefits. Finally, I suggest that the moral wrongness (...) of indirect discrimination is best accounted for in terms of the harm it does to discriminatees, and sketch three ways in which it may do so. I conclude that the analysis provides both a clearer understanding of the concept of indirect discrimination as well as indirect support for a harm-based account of the wrongness of discrimination, while suggesting that our moral obligations qua non-discrimination may be more extensive than is frequently assumed. (shrink)

Most of us intuitively take discrimination based on gender or ethnicity to be impermissible because we have a right to be treated on the basis of merit and capacity rather than e.g. ethnicity or gender. I call this suggestion the Impermissibility Account. I argue that, despite how the Impermissibility Account seems intuitive to most of us with a humanist outlook, it is indefensible. I show that well-informed discrimination can sometimes be permissible, and even morally required, meaning we cannot (...) have a strict right not to be discriminated against. I then propose an alternative and more plausible account which I call the Fairness and Externalities Account, arguing that acts of discrimination are wrong partly because they are unfair and partly because they create harmful externalities which—analogously to pollution—there is a collective responsibility to minimize. Both of these factors are however defeasible, meaning that if the Fairness and Externalities Account is correct, then discrimination is sometimes permissible. These results are counterintuitive, and suggest that the ethics of discrimination requires further attention. (shrink)

The failure of psychiatry to validate its diagnostic constructs is often attributed to the prioritizing of reliability over validity in the structure and content of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here I argue that in fact what has retarded biomedical approaches to psychopathology is unwarranted optimism about diagnostic discrimination: the assumption that our diagnostic tests group patients together in ways that allow for relevant facts about mental disorder to be discovered. I consider the Research Domain Criteria (...) framework as a new paradigm for classifying objects of psychiatric research that solves some of the challenges brought on by this assumption. (shrink)

Philosophers have assumed that as long as discriminatory admission and exclusion policies are off the table, it is possible for one to adopt a restrictionist position on the issue of immigration without having to worry that this position might entail discriminatory outcomes. The problem with this assumption emerges, however,when two important points are taken into consideration. First, immigration controls are not simply discriminatory because they are based on racist or ethnocentric attitudes and beliefs, but can themselves also be the source (...) of social and civic ostracism. Second, by focusing so much on questions of admission and exclusion, philosophers have tended to overlook the discriminatory potential of immigration enforcement mechanisms. In this essay, I make the case that philosophers who deal with the issue of immigration cannot dispense with the potential for discrimination in a state's enforcement mechanism as easily as they have with the potential for discrimination in a state’s admission and exclusions criteria. In addition, I put forth the positive claim that the way to combat this potential for discrimination (e.g., xenophobia) must begin with a defense of, and advocacy for, immigrant rights. (shrink)

This article defines the relationship between two factors and its impact by examining the effect of Gender discrimination in the work place which influences the job performance and job satisfaction in individuals(i.e.; hiring, promotion, salary, control/ autonomy/ influence, challenge, performance measures, feed back, in strumentality, stability/security). The data is collected through quantitative method. The sample of thestudy consisted of 500 employees working in different bank in Islamabad and Wahcantt (Pakistan) through the questionnaire, of which 300 were returned and processed. (...) R was used to analysis the data, using independent T-Test, and excel, Correlation and Multi-regression analysis. There is a significant prove, gender discrimination has an influence on Job satisfaction and job performance and stability of individuals. From findings of the study, it is also depicted that male and female have significantly different level of job satisfaction. (shrink)

Social Justice is a concept familiar to most Indians but one whose meaning is not always understood as it signifies a variety of government strategies designed to enhance opportunities for underprivileged groups. By tracing the trajectory of social justice from the colonial period to the present, this book examines how it informs ideas, practices and debates on discrimination and disadvantage today. After outlining the historical context for reservations for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes that began under British colonial rule, (...) the book examines the legal and moral strands of demands raised by newer groups since 1990. In addition the book shows how the development of quota policies has been significantly influenced by the nature and operation of democracy in India. It describes the recent proliferation of quota demands for reservations in higher education, private sector and for women and religious minorities in legislative assemblies. The book goes on to argue that while proliferation of demands address unequal incidence of poverty, deprivation and inequalities across social groups and communities, care has to be taken to ensure that existing justifications for quotas for discriminated groups due to caste hierarchies are not undermined. Providing a rich historical background to the subject, the book is a useful contribution to the study on the evolution of multiple conceptions of social justice in contemporary India. (shrink)

This article argues that, as commonly understood, indirect discrimination is not necessarily unjust: 1) indirect discrimination involves the disadvantaging in relation to a particular benefit and such disadvantages are not unjust if the overall distribution of benefits and burdens is just; 2) indirect discrimination focuses on groups and group averages and ignores the distribution of harms and benefits within groups subjected to discrimination, but distributive justice is concerned with individuals; and 3) if indirect discrimination as (...) such is unjust, strict egalitarianism has to be the correct account of distributive justice, but such egalitarianism appears vulnerable to the leveling down objection (whether decisively or not), and many theorists explicitly reject strict egalitarianism anyway. The last point threatens the position of liberals who oppose indirect discrimination but think significant inequalities can be just. (shrink)

This paper explains how discrimination and COVID-19 related stigmas are intertwined. When people stigmatize COVID-19 victims, they act in ways for which the victims suffer status loss and discrimination. As a result, they do not enjoy participatory parity in various aspects of their life making COVID-19 related stigmatization a deplorable instance of discrimination. But a society already fraught with discrimination is a breeding ground of stigmatization often because of people’s fear and anxiety about their life once (...) they become a patient of a disease like COVID-19. (shrink)

One widely used method for allocating health care resources involves the use of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) to rank treatments in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained. CEA has been criticized for discriminating against people with disabilities by valuing their lives less than those of non-disabled people. Avoiding discrimination seems to lead to the ’QALY trap’: we cannot value saving lives equally and still value raising quality of life. This paper reviews existing responses to the QALY trap and argues that (...) all are problematic. Instead, we argue that adopting a moderate form of prioritarianism avoids the QALY trap and disability discrimination. (shrink)

Although the demographics on male versus female death-row prisoners suggest that males are the criminal justice system’s primary targets, the author argues that the system still discriminates against women. Utilizing postmodern scholarship, he argues that female prisoners are punished primarily for violating dominant norms of gender correctness.

By exercising their (imperfect) capacity to discriminate, people try to recognize and to understand some important differences between things that make them prefer some things to other. In this article I will use my ability to discriminate between people and societies according to a principle which plays the role of attractor, both at individual and societal levels, namely the principle of peaceable conduct. This principle allows us to discriminate at the civic level between the people who have a civilized conduct (...) and those who manifest an aggressive conduct. The category of civilized people includes individuals who (a) respect the life and bodily integrity of their fellows, (b) practice self-control, not control over others and (c) do not claim, through coercive means, the goods that their fellows have obtained by making free and peaceful use of their own faculties and capabilities. The category of aggressive people reunites (a) murderers (those who endanger the lives of their fellow), (b) tyrants (those who beslave their fellows by taking control of some of their faculties) and (c) thieves (those who claim the goods of their fellows without their consent). The civilized conduct requires high standards of action of the people who embrace it and, implicitly, considerable physical and psychical costs. The primary impulses originating in our lower Self blatantly contradict the respect for life, liberty and property of our fellows, so that it seems impossible for them to be controlled only by personal effort. Therefore, it is vital that the energy allotted to peaceable conduct by our higher Self be superior to the energy which it spontaneously mobilizes in support of the primary impulses of our lower Self. This can be achieved by feeding the people with the social energy of certain social emotions in the process of internalizing the norms of peaceable conduct. Among these emotions, contempt and shame, respectively anger and guilt stand out through the predominance of the moral dimension and force of shaping human conduct. They underlie two different moral systems – “shame morality”, and “guilt morality” respectively – that support our peaceable conduct and, ipso facto, our civilized life. (shrink)

There is a plethora of confirmation measures in the literature. Zalabardo considers four such measures: PD, PR, LD, and LR. He argues for LR and against each of PD, PR, and LD. First, he argues that PR is the better of the two probability measures. Next, he argues that LR is the better of the two likelihood measures. Finally, he argues that LR is superior to PR. I set aside LD and focus on the trio of PD, PR, and LR. (...) The question I address is whether Zalabardo succeeds in showing that LR is superior to each of PD and PR. I argue that the answer is negative. I also argue, though, that measures such as PD and PR, on one hand, and measures such as LR, on the other hand, are naturally understood as explications of distinct senses of confirmation. (shrink)

We conceptualize observation selection effects (OSEs) by considering how a shift from one process of observation to another affects discrimination-conduciveness, by which we mean the degree to which possible observations discriminate between hypotheses, given the observation process at work. OSEs in this sense come in degrees and are causal, where the cause is the shift in process, and the effect is a change in degree of discrimination-conduciveness. We contrast our understanding of OSEs with others that have appeared in (...) the literature. After describing conditions of adequacy that an acceptable measure of degree of discrimination-conduciveness must satisfy, we use those conditions of adequacy to evaluate several possible measures. We also discuss how the effect of shifting from one observation process to another might be measured. We apply our framework to several examples, including the ravens paradox and the phenomenon of publication bias. (shrink)

In "Individuals", Peter Strawson talks about identifying, discriminating and picking out particular objects, regarding discriminating and picking out as ways of identifying. I object that, strictly speaking, identification means to say of two things that they are the same. In contrast, discriminating an object from all others can be done by just ascribing some predicate to it that does not apply to the others. Picking out an object does not even seem to require to distinguish it from all others. The (...) object picked is distinct in that it is the picked one, but it is not clear - even in the context of sensorily picking out - that I have to be aware of this in order to do the picking. (shrink)

Discrimination is a central epistemic capacity but typically, theories of discrimination only use discrimination as a vehicle for analyzing knowledge. This paper aims at developing a self-contained theory of discrimination. Internalist theories of discrimination fail since there is no compelling correlation between discriminatory capacities and experiences. Moreover, statistical reliabilist theories are also flawed. Only a modal theory of discrimination is promising. Versions of sensitivity and adherence that take particular alternatives into account provide necessary and (...) sufficient conditions on discrimination. Safety in contrast is not sufficient for discrimination as there are cases of safety that are clearly instances of discrimination failure. The developed account of discrimination between objects will be extended to discrimination between kinds and between types. (shrink)

Mandik (2012)understands color-consciousness conceptualism to be the view that one deploys in a conscious qualitative state concepts for every color consciously discriminated by that state. Some argue that the experimental evidence that we can consciously discriminate barely distinct hues that are presented together but cannot do so when those hues are presented in short succession suggests that we can consciously discriminate colors that we do not conceptualize. Mandik maintains, however, that this evidence is consistent with our deploying a variety of (...) nondemonstrative concepts for those colors and so does not pose a threat to conceptualism. But even if Mandik has shown that we deploy such concepts in these experimental conditions, there are cases of conscious states that discriminate colors but do not involve concepts of those colors. Mandik’s arguments sustain only a theory in the vicinity of conceptualism: The view that we possess concepts for every color we can discriminate consciously, but need not deploy those concepts in every conscious act of color discrimination. (shrink)

The two kinds of discrimination I want to talk about are political discrimination and cognitive discrimination. By political discrimination, I mean what we ordinarily understand by the term "discrimination" in political contexts: A manifest attitude in which a particular property of a person which is irrelevant to judgments of that person's intrinsic value or competence, for example his race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or religious or ethnic affiliation, is seen as a source of disvalue or (...) incompetence; in general, as a source of inferiority.By cognitive discrimination, I mean what we ordinarily understand by the term "discrimination" in cognitive contexts: A manifest capacity to distinguish veridically between one property and another, and to respond appropriately to each. I want to explore the relation between these two kinds of discrimination, and to argue that the first type of discrimination depends upon a failure of the second. (shrink)

The essays study from different perspectives, the much discussed and crucial topic of social discrimination, and particularly Dalit exploitation. The work is highly interdisciplinary in nature-relevant for several subjects and disciplines such as political science, sociology, Dalit studies, minority studies, women's studies, anthropology, law, economics This work specifically sets out to explore contemporary manifestations of discrimination that persist in our society through institutions and through norms and practices that define the terms on which certain social groups continue to (...) be excluded. The contributors bring in different critical perspectives from their different disciplines. (shrink)

This paper aims to disclose an expression of age and workplace discrimination in the Lithuanian labor market. The paper is discussing theoretical aspects of age discrimination and presents the results of the sociological survey research results carried out in 2014. The purpose of this paper is to disclose age and workplace discrimination at the Lithuanian labor market. Analysis of scientific literature and quantitative research results allows to state that older adults are experiencing discrimination because of, among (...) others, their age, gender, and stereotypes. Research results revealed that age and workplace discrimination is increasing with the age of the respondents, e.g., the expression in older age groups is more intensive. For the age group of 40-50, age discrimination is lower than the full sample average. Age discrimination is exposing for the age group of 56-60 and is the most intensive for persons 60 years old and older. The research results revealed that older employees have obstacles for career and future perspectives; older people are more often facing discriminative behavior, lacking social justice, insufficient personal respect labor relations, and are more often experiencing pressure to leave the job or facing unreasonable dismissal. (shrink)

This is a review of Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law. Edited by Hugh Collins and Tarunabh Khaitan. [Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2018. x + 292 pp. Hardback £65.00. ISBN 978-15-09912-54-4.] Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law. Edited by Hugh Collins and Tarunabh Khaitan. [Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2018. x + 292 pp. Hardback £65.00. ISBN 978-15-09912-54-4.].

In summary, Hellman’s book is well worth reading. It is powerful, well-written, and interesting and explains much of the prominent case law on discrimination. Her theory, however, is false because her explanation of wrongful discrimination fails to track a wrong-making feature. Her theory does not focus on a right-infringement in or unfair treatment of the person whom is discriminated against. It also does not focus on an incorrect attitude in the person who discriminates. These intuitively seem to exhaust (...) the reasons that make an act wrong because it wrongs someone. Her account of wrongful discrimination fails to identify the correct wrong-making feature. (shrink)

.Can we treat people in a discriminatory way in virtue of how we think about them? In this essay, I argue that the answer is yes. According to the constitutive claim, stereotyping constitutes discrimination, either sometimes or always. This essay defends the constitutive claim and explores the deeper justifications for it. I also sketch the constitutive claim’s larger ethical significance. One upshot is that we can wrongfully discriminate against (or in favor of) others in thought, even if we keep (...) our views of others to ourselves. Second, if stereotyping is a form of discrimination, theories of wrongful discrimination bear on the ethical questions associated with stereotyping, including this one: under what conditions is it wrong to stereotype? In closing, I introduce an intriguing possibility, namely, that stereotyping is wrong if and when it constitutes wrongful discrimination. (shrink)

It is often thought that traditional recidivism prediction tools used in criminal sentencing, though biased in many ways, can straightforwardly avoid one particularly pernicious type of bias: direct racial discrimination. They can avoid this by excluding race from the list of variables employed to predict recidivism. A similar approach could be taken to the design of newer, machine learning-based (ML) tools for predicting recidivism: information about race could be withheld from the ML tool during its training phase, ensuring that (...) the resulting predictive model does not use race as an explicit predictor. However, if race is correlated with measured recidivism in the training data, the ML tool may ‘learn’ a perfect proxy for race. If such a proxy is found, the exclusion of race would do nothing to weaken the correlation between risk (mis)classifications and race. Is this a problem? We argue that, on some explanations of the wrongness of discrimination, it is. On these explanations, the use of an ML tool that perfectly proxies race would (likely) be more wrong than the use of a traditional tool that imperfectly proxies race. Indeed, on some views, use of a perfect proxy for race is plausibly as wrong as explicit racial profiling. We end by drawing out four implications of our arguments. (shrink)

The use of machine learning algorithms has become ubiquitous in hiring decisions. Recent studies have shown that many of these algorithms generate unlawful discriminatory effects in every step of the process. The training phase of the machine learning models used in these decisions has been identified as the main source of bias. For a long time, discrimination cases have been analyzed under the banner of disparate treatment and disparate impact, but these concepts have been shown to be ineffective in (...) the context of AI. This paper examines the possibility of studying algorithmic discrimination from the perspective of negligence law. Negligent selection and validation of datasets and classifiers is a salient cause of improper training in machine learning. It is a breach of an employer’s duty to protect others, a failure of its exercise of due care in the manner of choosing employees. Adopting negligence to algorithmic discrimination requires a reformulation of what is foreseeable and reasonable within the context of black box algorithms, and a shift in the burden of proof to the employer, who must present evidence of its efforts to avoid bias. (shrink)

Carter and Pritchard (2016) and Pritchard (2010, 2012, 2016) have tried to reconcile the intuition that perceptual knowledge requires only limited discriminatory abilities with the closure principle. To this end, they have introduced two theoretical innovations: a contrast between two ways of introducing error-possibilities and a distinction between discriminating and favoring evidence. I argue that their solution faces the “sufficiency problem”: it is unclear whether the evidence that is normally available to adult humans is sufficient to retain knowledge of the (...) entailing proposition and come to know the entailed proposition. I submit that, on either infallibilist or fallibilist views of evidence, Carter and Pritchard have set the bar for deductive knowledge too low. At the end, I offer an alternative solution. I suggest that the knowledge-retention condition of the closure principle is not satisfied in zebra-like scenarios. (shrink)

This paper deals with what a government funded development agency should do when a developing country imposes restrictions on the development process which discriminate on the basis of gender against some members of the development agency’s staff. The conclusion is that there are circumstances in which development agencies should continue their work in the face of gender discrimination but they should not instigate development projects if doing so would involve them in gender discrimination. A set of procedures for (...) a development agency to follow in these difficult circumstances is outlined. It is argued that an agency is entitled to violate a moral principle when so doing will reduce violations of that same principle. (shrink)

The use of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) in healthcare allocation has been criticized as discriminatory against people with disabilities. This article considers a response to this criticism from Nick Beckstead and Toby Ord. They say that even if QALYs are discriminatory, attempting to avoid discrimination – when coupled with other central principles that an allocation system should favour – sometimes leads to irrationality in the form of cyclic preferences. I suggest that while Beckstead and Ord have identified a problem, (...) it is a misdiagnosis to lay it at the feet of an anti-discrimination principle. The problem in fact comes from a basic tension between respecting reasonable patient preferences and other ways of ranking treatment options. As such, adopting a QALY system does not solve the problem they identify. (shrink)

This article focuses on the religious information inside Ghanaian and Nigerian video movies regarding Akan and Yoruba women. More specifically, it focuses on the indigenous religious, Christian, and Islamic messages inside these movies in relation to women. The article demonstrates that Akan and Yoruba filmmakers, who dominate the Ghanaian and Nigerian video movie industries, are part of networks of religious institutions, predominantly Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian and modest Islamic ones. These organizations sponsor filmmakers to spread religious messages that promote hierarchical gender relations (...) and the suppression of equal rights for women, e.g., economic independence. By providing an overview of Akan and Yoruba belief systems, in respect of indigenous, Christian, and Islamic gender-related positional concepts and ideological communication on what is appropriate behavior for women, the author will show and support the hypothesis that these movies contribute to women’s demonization and (economic) discrimination. (shrink)

A common response to claims of bias, harassment, or discrimination is to say that these claims are made in bad faith. Claimants are supposedly not motivated by a credible or even sincere belief that unfair or unequal treatment has occurred, but simply seek to illicitly gain public sympathy or private reward. Characterizing discrimination claims as systematically made in bad faith enables them to be screened and dismissed prior to engaging with them on their merits. This retort preserves the (...) dominant group’s self-image as unprejudiced and innocent without having to risk critical analysis of the claim’s substance. (shrink)

What is discrimination and what makes wrongful discrimination wrong? Even after an ever-rising tide of research over the course of the past twenty-five or so years these questions still remain hard to answer. Exercising candid and self-critical hindsight, Larry Alexander, who contributed his fair share to this tide, thus remarked: “All cases of discrimination, if wrongful, are wrongful either because of their quite contingent consequences or perhaps because they are breaches of promises or fiduciary duties.” If this (...) is true it raises serious doubts as to how wrongful discrimination can be a moral wrong in itself. Also, the question comes up as to who it is who breaches a promise or a fiduciary duty. This paper defends the view that the substance of these remarks is better understood by couching them in a political approach towards discrimination. Against this background, they give rise to real and pressing concerns. Once we conceptualise the realm political along Hobbesian lines as the battleground comprising both the private sphere of the individual and the public sphere of the commonwealth it emerges that discrimination has different significance with regard to these respective spheres. In order to illustrate this, I adopt Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s descriptive account of discrimination as „differential treatment on the basis of membership of a socially salient group“ and the common view that wrongful discrimination is wrong because it is harmful, disrespectful, or both. In the private sphere the case can be made for morally permissible cases of discrimination. Sexual discrimination due to sexual self-determination with consequently freely choosing your sexual or romantic partner is the central case in point. Where somebody feels unfairly rejected and consequently hurt neither the charge of harm inflicted nor that of disrespect endured need be justified. No “breach of promises or fiduciary duties” is involved. The case is different, however, when it comes to the fiduciary of power. In discriminating, he who exercises the power of the commonwealth necessarily breaches a promise and a fiduciary duty. Discrimination thus appears to be more of a problem of political philosophy than one of applied ethics. [in German] **************************************************************************************************** ******************** Was ist Diskriminierung und warum ist Diskriminierung verwerflich, wenn sie es denn ist? Dies bleibt ungeachtet der seit fünfundzwanzig Jahren anschwellenden Forschungsliteratur unverändert eine harte Nuss. Larry Alexander, der selbst maßgeblich zu dieser Forschungsliteratur beigetragen hat, merkt daher selbstkritisch an: „All cases of discrimination, if wrongful, are wrongful either because of their quite contingent consequences or perhaps because they are breaches of promises or fiduciary duties.“ Wenn dies der Fall ist, stellt sich die Frage, wie moralisch verwerfliche Diskriminierung dann noch an sich verwerflich sein kann. Es stellt sich dann auch die Frage, wer hier ein Versprechen bricht und seine Treuepflichten verletzt. Die leitende Annahme dieses Aufsatzes ist es, dass man dem sachlichen Kern dieser Bedenken Rechnung tragen kann, indem man eine politische Perspektive auf das Phänomen der Diskriminierung einnimmt. Die Bedenken erweisen sich dann als substanziell und zutreffend. Konzeptualisieren wir den Bereich des Politischen mit Thomas Hobbes als das Spannungsfeld, das die private Sphäre des Individuums und die öffentliche Sphäre des Gemeinwesens gegeneinander abgrenzt, wird sichtbar, dass Diskriminierung in diesen Sphären jeweils unterschiedlich zu bewerten ist. Um dies zu verdeutlichen, lege ich Kasper Lippert-Rasmussens deskriptives Verständnis von Diskriminierung als „differential treatment on the basis of membership of a socially salient group“ zugrunde und mache von der in der Diskussion verbreiteten Ansicht Gebrauch, dass das Zufügen von Schaden oder die Verweigerung von Respekt Diskriminierung verwerflich macht. In der privaten Sphäre kann es nun Fälle moralisch zulässiger Diskriminierung geben. Zentral ist die sexuelle Diskriminierung aufgrund der Ausübung einer freien Wahl des eigenen Sexual- oder Liebespartners. Auch wenn sich der Abgewiesene womöglich geschädigt sieht, wird unbilliger Schaden nicht zugefügt und geschul- deter Respekt nicht verweigert. Den Grund finden wir in Alexanders Formel: Ein „breach of promises“ oder eine Verletzung „fiduciary duties“ liegt nicht vor. Anders im Fall staatlicher Diskriminierung: Ein „breach of promises“ oder eine Verletzung „fiduciary duties“ liegt hier stets vor, da Fälle staatlicher Diskriminierung regelmäßig Machtmissbrauch darstellen: Der Inhaber staatlicher Gewalt verletzt die Treuepflicht, das Mandat unparteilich auszuüben, das getreulich auszuführen er gelobt hat. Diskriminierung erscheint also weniger als ein Problem der angewandten Ethik denn als eines der politischen Philosophie. (shrink)

I am deeply indebted to Alex Byrne, Jonathan Cohen and Matthew McGrath for their careful, constructive, and penetrating comments on The Unity of Perception and I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify my view further.

Increasing empirical research on productivity supports the use of statistical or ‘rational’ discrimination in hiring. The practice is legal for features of job applicants not covered by human rights discrimination laws, such as being a smoker, residing in a particular neighbourhood or being a particular height. The practice appears largely morally innocuous under existing philosophical accounts of wrongful discrimination. This paper argues that lawful statistical discrimination treats job applicants in a way that may be considered degrading, (...) and is likely to constrain people’s freedoms in relation to employment, thus giving us reason for moral concern. (shrink)