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What kind of moral / logical principle do you base the conclusion “discrimination is not always bad”, on? Genuinely asking. My morality follows from basically

by tomp 7y ago

What kind of moral / logical principle do you base the conclusion “discrimination is not always bad”, on? Genuinely asking. My morality follows from basically “discrimination based on immutable personal characteristics is always bad” (with the possible exception for family, bwcause that’s just cruel), from which I cannot conclude for example that discrimination is bad if it’s agains blacks but good if it’s against whites. I fear that by dropping this principle, while allowing for “positive discrimination” (e.g. preferential hiring / admissions of blacks/women), you also allow e.g. White Nationalists to argue that it’s OK to discriminate for whites. How would you convince a White Nationalist that such discrimination is bad while leading by example that other kinds of discrimination are just fine?

joshuamorton 7y ago
I'll get to the meat of your question, but two sidebars first: > My morality follows from basically “discrimination based on immutable personal characteristics is always bad” As a bit of an aside, are you saying that this is your base moral precept from which all other decisions about what is or is not ethical follow? This would be a very strange ethical framework (for example, it follows that murder is ethical). Usually moral and ethical frameworks follow from very high level principles "optimize happiness/utility" (utilitarianism), "do good things" (deontology), etc. It seems like you might be coming from a rights based ethical framework, but it's not clear. > How would you convince a White Nationalist that such discrimination is bad while leading by example that other kinds of discrimination are just fine? I don't generally waste my time arguing with people who are engaging in bad faith[1]. In this day and age, I don't generally believe that a white nationalist is going to be convinced by facts and logic, or really anything else. I'm more concerned about appealing to the majority of people who aren't white nationalists, because ultimately I believe that discriminating against white nationalists is okay[2]. Ok, now back to your actual question: in what cases is it okay to discriminate? I'm approximately utilitarian, so the simple answer is "when the expected value across society is positive." For me, I don't think optimizing for strict utility is the right goal, instead I personally think that we should maximize agency (possibly median, possibly total, unclear exactly), which is something like each individual's ability to make meaningful decisions. This sidesteps issues of de jure rights. It leads to conclusions that we should do things like lift up the least fortunate and provide social safety nets, since a destitute person has less agency than a person capable of getting by. Similarly, it addresses questions of when regulations on personal liberty are ok. If allowing some action has a reasonable possibility of reducing agency of some other group, we should give it less protection than another action which does not. So for example, when you have two groups, racists and some racial minority, it makes sense to provide the racial minority more protection than the racists, since the racists want to reduce the racial minority's rights more than the racial minority wants to reduce the racists rights. That is, the minority would prefer it if the racists weren't allowed to be racist. The racists would prefer it if the racial minority weren't allowed to live in the same area, or use the same water fountains, or what ever. That's an extreme, but illustrative example. So back to the less extreme position: Discrimination is okay when it's done explicitly to counteract a gap between what the law (or more broadly society) intends and where society actually sits. Society intends for hiring to not discriminate based on race. But it did for a really long time. The put (and continues to put) the subjects of discrimination at a disadvantage. If you're deontological, then "nondiscrimination" is the rule and that's that, but if your goal is justice or utility, then discrimination to bridge the gap between intent and reality is ethical. It should be done carefully of course, but it's alright. If you want to see a fun set of examples of this, voting district and gerrymandering law in the US is full of weird examples of trade offs between the need (under the Voting Rights Act) to allow racial minorities to elect representatives of their interests, with the current opinion of the USSC that any districts can't be drawn based on racial lines (except in very specific circumstances)[3]. In other words, States must draw districts to preserve the interests and representation of minority groups, but can't draw districts based on where those minorities live. It's weird. [1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre#Anti-Semite_and_Jew_(1945) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre#Anti-Semite_a... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance [3]: https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/redistricting-and-the-supreme-court-the-most-significant-cases.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/redistricting-an...
- tomp 7y ago
  Interesting, thanks for an extensive answer. > If you're deontological, then "nondiscrimination" is the rule and that's that, but if your goal is justice or utility, then discrimination to bridge the gap between intent and reality is ethical. I'm definitely pro-justice, it's just that I see it principles based (e.g. free speech even for (especially for) speech I don't like), not "utility" based. The flaw of your philosophy, in my view, is that you're just sweeping the tricky parts under the carpet by introducing concepts of "utility" and "right goal" and "society intends". You're even conflicted about that yourself, introducing another concept of "maximizing agency" (sounds like pro-freedom); a good moral system would somehow maximize (or balance) both in some way. I don't think that's a good view, because those are fundamentally non-reconcilable goals. Should a billionaire be able to spend $1m for the health of his/her child (maximize agency / freedom), or should the society put that money to "maximum utility" and spending it to help several (poorer) children (with illnesses that are less expensive to treat but still life threatening).
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    > The flaw of your philosophy, in my view, is that you're just sweeping the tricky parts under the carpet by introducing concepts of "utility" and "right goal" and "society intends". Sure, picking the "right" utility function is one of the hardest parts of utilitarianism. FWIW, I don't think maximizing agency is a different concept so much as a specific utility function that avoids some of the common pitfalls of strict utilitarianism (utility sinks: the person who gets enormous happiness from cannibalism). In other words you could imagine Agency as the "reasonable person" standard applied to the value of a choice. This still has flaws, but, IMO fewer than many other framings. Some people might also find this to be similar to optimizing for the most "positive rights" across society, but I dislike that framing because the idea of positive vs. negative rights is silly, any right can be framed as positive or negative. > Should a billionaire be able to spend $1m for the health of his/her child (maximize agency / freedom), or should the society put that money to "maximum utility" and spending it to help several (poorer) children (with illnesses that are less expensive to treat but still life threatening). Note that giving a poor person money such that they can choose to treat their child's disease also increases agency! If you want to dive deep into this, I think that the marginal value of a dollar is probably logarithmic, or at least inverse quadratic or something, so a tax scheme modeled to tax top brackets in such a way that then improves the situation of those less off (pick your method: national healthcare, UBI, etc.) increases overall agency.

by tomp 7y ago

joshuamorton 7y ago

I'll get to the meat of your question, but two sidebars first: > My morality follows from basically “discrimination based on immutable personal characteristics is always bad” As a bit of an aside, are you saying that this is your base moral precept from which all other decisions about what is or is not ethical follow? This would be a very strange ethical framework (for example, it follows that murder is ethical). Usually moral and ethical frameworks follow from very high level principles "optimize happiness/utility" (utilitarianism), "do good things" (deontology), etc. It seems like you might be coming from a rights based ethical framework, but it's not clear. > How would you convince a White Nationalist that such discrimination is bad while leading by example that other kinds of discrimination are just fine? I don't generally waste my time arguing with people who are engaging in bad faith[1]. In this day and age, I don't generally believe that a white nationalist is going to be convinced by facts and logic, or really anything else. I'm more concerned about appealing to the majority of people who aren't white nationalists, because ultimately I believe that discriminating against white nationalists is okay[2]. Ok, now back to your actual question: in what cases is it okay to discriminate? I'm approximately utilitarian, so the simple answer is "when the expected value across society is positive." For me, I don't think optimizing for strict utility is the right goal, instead I personally think that we should maximize agency (possibly median, possibly total, unclear exactly), which is something like each individual's ability to make meaningful decisions. This sidesteps issues of de jure rights. It leads to conclusions that we should do things like lift up the least fortunate and provide social safety nets, since a destitute person has less agency than a person capable of getting by. Similarly, it addresses questions of when regulations on personal liberty are ok. If allowing some action has a reasonable possibility of reducing agency of some other group, we should give it less protection than another action which does not. So for example, when you have two groups, racists and some racial minority, it makes sense to provide the racial minority more protection than the racists, since the racists want to reduce the racial minority's rights more than the racial minority wants to reduce the racists rights. That is, the minority would prefer it if the racists weren't allowed to be racist. The racists would prefer it if the racial minority weren't allowed to live in the same area, or use the same water fountains, or what ever. That's an extreme, but illustrative example. So back to the less extreme position: Discrimination is okay when it's done explicitly to counteract a gap between what the law (or more broadly society) intends and where society actually sits. Society intends for hiring to not discriminate based on race. But it did for a really long time. The put (and continues to put) the subjects of discrimination at a disadvantage. If you're deontological, then "nondiscrimination" is the rule and that's that, but if your goal is justice or utility, then discrimination to bridge the gap between intent and reality is ethical. It should be done carefully of course, but it's alright. If you want to see a fun set of examples of this, voting district and gerrymandering law in the US is full of weird examples of trade offs between the need (under the Voting Rights Act) to allow racial minorities to elect representatives of their interests, with the current opinion of the USSC that any districts can't be drawn based on racial lines (except in very specific circumstances)[3]. In other words, States must draw districts to preserve the interests and representation of minority groups, but can't draw districts based on where those minorities live. It's weird. [1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre#Anti-Semite_and_Jew_(1945) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre#Anti-Semite_a... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance [3]: https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/redistricting-and-the-supreme-court-the-most-significant-cases.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/redistricting-an...

tomp 7y ago
Interesting, thanks for an extensive answer. > If you're deontological, then "nondiscrimination" is the rule and that's that, but if your goal is justice or utility, then discrimination to bridge the gap between intent and reality is ethical. I'm definitely pro-justice, it's just that I see it principles based (e.g. free speech even for (especially for) speech I don't like), not "utility" based. The flaw of your philosophy, in my view, is that you're just sweeping the tricky parts under the carpet by introducing concepts of "utility" and "right goal" and "society intends". You're even conflicted about that yourself, introducing another concept of "maximizing agency" (sounds like pro-freedom); a good moral system would somehow maximize (or balance) both in some way. I don't think that's a good view, because those are fundamentally non-reconcilable goals. Should a billionaire be able to spend $1m for the health of his/her child (maximize agency / freedom), or should the society put that money to "maximum utility" and spending it to help several (poorer) children (with illnesses that are less expensive to treat but still life threatening).
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > The flaw of your philosophy, in my view, is that you're just sweeping the tricky parts under the carpet by introducing concepts of "utility" and "right goal" and "society intends". Sure, picking the "right" utility function is one of the hardest parts of utilitarianism. FWIW, I don't think maximizing agency is a different concept so much as a specific utility function that avoids some of the common pitfalls of strict utilitarianism (utility sinks: the person who gets enormous happiness from cannibalism). In other words you could imagine Agency as the "reasonable person" standard applied to the value of a choice. This still has flaws, but, IMO fewer than many other framings. Some people might also find this to be similar to optimizing for the most "positive rights" across society, but I dislike that framing because the idea of positive vs. negative rights is silly, any right can be framed as positive or negative. > Should a billionaire be able to spend $1m for the health of his/her child (maximize agency / freedom), or should the society put that money to "maximum utility" and spending it to help several (poorer) children (with illnesses that are less expensive to treat but still life threatening). Note that giving a poor person money such that they can choose to treat their child's disease also increases agency! If you want to dive deep into this, I think that the marginal value of a dollar is probably logarithmic, or at least inverse quadratic or something, so a tax scheme modeled to tax top brackets in such a way that then improves the situation of those less off (pick your method: national healthcare, UBI, etc.) increases overall agency.