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It's important to emphasize that this unfairness is only temporary, and it temporarily disadvantages mostly only people who have an advantage by sheer coinciden

It's important to emphasize that this unfairness is only temporary, and it temporarily disadvantages mostly only people who have an advantage by sheer coincidence and not because of their abilities or achievements. There is a similar issue in the theory of just resource distribution, where it can be shown that a more egalitarian resource distribution can sometimes only be achieved by temporarily allowing transfers that are not Pareto optimal. In other words, to make a society juster in terms of overall resource distribution you might sometimes have to make everyone worse off for some time. (If you don't allow such transfers, you'll be forced to call a society with a Gini index close to 1 "just", which would be absurd.) On a side note, since that was mentioned by others, there is no such thing as "personal justice". Justice always concerns society as a whole, since it concerns the effects that the actions of members of society have on each other.

WatchDog 6y ago
In what way is this push for group identity based discrimination temporary? If anything it seems to be growing in scope and prevalence. Take for example, the New York times calling to end blind orchestra auditions, and take race into account for making hiring decisions: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...
LunaSea 6y ago
> It's important to emphasize that this unfairness is only temporary, and it temporarily disadvantages mostly only people who have an advantage by sheer coincidence and not because of their abilities or achievements. [Citation needed]
blub 6y ago
First of all, I don't believe it's temporary. At least in the EU we have at least a decade of positive discrimination and no plan to get rid of these policies. In fact more of them are under discussion. Secondly, it (not-)temporarily disadvantages everyone of a specific gender or race, no matter if they were advantaged in the first place.
haihaibye 6y ago
It was supposed to be temporary in the 60s. Care to predict when it will end? Do you really see diversity and inclusion departments, speakers and writers declaring success and dissolving their departments and jobs? Do you have any proof that unfairness against a group mostly harms those with advantage? For instance if white men are over represented as professors, it may seem fair to discriminate until the numbers are equal. But if you broke the group of white men up into young and old, you'd find it's the young who are being punished for the success of the old. Suddenly by redrawing the groups it's gone from being fair to unfair. Who divides up the groups? Is it even possible to be fair to groups without being unfair to individuals?
- jonathanstrange 6y ago
  > It was supposed to be temporary in the 60s. Care to predict when it will end? When fair participation has been reached among equally skilled and trained participants. A lot of progress has been made. Women and black people are allowed to vote now, for example. People in wheelchairs can to some extent travel on their own and even enter their workplace. That used to be impossible in the 60s. More members of disadvantaged groups are in better positions in society than in the past. There was even one black president in the US among 45. It still seems impossible for a woman to become president, though. By "temporary" I meant 50-100 years or so. It also depends on the willingness of people like you. > Do you really see diversity and inclusion departments, speakers and writers declaring success and dissolving their departments and jobs? Let's just say they will have almost nothing to do any more, similar to the fact there is no longer a need for meetings of the suffragette movement nowadays. > For instance if white men are over represented as professors, it may seem fair to discriminate until the numbers are equal. Yes. That seems fair. > But if you broke the group of white men up into young and old, you'd find it's the young who are being punished for the success of the old. Nobody is punished for anything. The goal is to help people who are at a systematic disadvantage due to sheer bad luck when they otherwise have the same skills and qualifications. I'm not saying that relative quotas are the solution to all problems of society, but I do argue they sometimes make sense - within reasonable limits, of course, which are always contestable. > Suddenly by redrawing the groups it's gone from being fair to unfair. Yes, there can be cases of trading a local optimum for a better global optimum, and these can create temporary local unfairness. That was the point of my analogy to the role of Pareto optimality in theories of resource distribution. None of these problems are unsolvable. There are only finitely many disadvantaged groups anyway, and the goal is not to create perfect justice, but to improve society a little bit step by step. > Is it even possible to be fair to groups without being unfair to individuals? Fairness primarily concerns the state of society. I believe that what is going on in reality is that the people who attempt to find arguments against fairer treatment of under-represented groups do that very often based on selfish motives. For example, some privileged white male might think he's treated unfairly if an equally qualified woman is hired instead of him because there are not enough female professors in the department. As a white male academic, I understand the personal feeling. I just don't think it's justified upon sincere reflection. If a group is privileged and at a systematic advantage, members of the group will tend to consciously or subconsciously resist giving up that advantage. But reaching a fairer state of society is not unfair, even if it may feel like that for individuals.

WatchDog 6y ago

In what way is this push for group identity based discrimination temporary? If anything it seems to be growing in scope and prevalence. Take for example, the New York times calling to end blind orchestra auditions, and take race into account for making hiring decisions: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...

LunaSea 6y ago

> It's important to emphasize that this unfairness is only temporary, and it temporarily disadvantages mostly only people who have an advantage by sheer coincidence and not because of their abilities or achievements. [Citation needed]

blub 6y ago

First of all, I don't believe it's temporary. At least in the EU we have at least a decade of positive discrimination and no plan to get rid of these policies. In fact more of them are under discussion. Secondly, it (not-)temporarily disadvantages everyone of a specific gender or race, no matter if they were advantaged in the first place.

haihaibye 6y ago

It was supposed to be temporary in the 60s. Care to predict when it will end? Do you really see diversity and inclusion departments, speakers and writers declaring success and dissolving their departments and jobs? Do you have any proof that unfairness against a group mostly harms those with advantage? For instance if white men are over represented as professors, it may seem fair to discriminate until the numbers are equal. But if you broke the group of white men up into young and old, you'd find it's the young who are being punished for the success of the old. Suddenly by redrawing the groups it's gone from being fair to unfair. Who divides up the groups? Is it even possible to be fair to groups without being unfair to individuals?

jonathanstrange 6y ago
> It was supposed to be temporary in the 60s. Care to predict when it will end? When fair participation has been reached among equally skilled and trained participants. A lot of progress has been made. Women and black people are allowed to vote now, for example. People in wheelchairs can to some extent travel on their own and even enter their workplace. That used to be impossible in the 60s. More members of disadvantaged groups are in better positions in society than in the past. There was even one black president in the US among 45. It still seems impossible for a woman to become president, though. By "temporary" I meant 50-100 years or so. It also depends on the willingness of people like you. > Do you really see diversity and inclusion departments, speakers and writers declaring success and dissolving their departments and jobs? Let's just say they will have almost nothing to do any more, similar to the fact there is no longer a need for meetings of the suffragette movement nowadays. > For instance if white men are over represented as professors, it may seem fair to discriminate until the numbers are equal. Yes. That seems fair. > But if you broke the group of white men up into young and old, you'd find it's the young who are being punished for the success of the old. Nobody is punished for anything. The goal is to help people who are at a systematic disadvantage due to sheer bad luck when they otherwise have the same skills and qualifications. I'm not saying that relative quotas are the solution to all problems of society, but I do argue they sometimes make sense - within reasonable limits, of course, which are always contestable. > Suddenly by redrawing the groups it's gone from being fair to unfair. Yes, there can be cases of trading a local optimum for a better global optimum, and these can create temporary local unfairness. That was the point of my analogy to the role of Pareto optimality in theories of resource distribution. None of these problems are unsolvable. There are only finitely many disadvantaged groups anyway, and the goal is not to create perfect justice, but to improve society a little bit step by step. > Is it even possible to be fair to groups without being unfair to individuals? Fairness primarily concerns the state of society. I believe that what is going on in reality is that the people who attempt to find arguments against fairer treatment of under-represented groups do that very often based on selfish motives. For example, some privileged white male might think he's treated unfairly if an equally qualified woman is hired instead of him because there are not enough female professors in the department. As a white male academic, I understand the personal feeling. I just don't think it's justified upon sincere reflection. If a group is privileged and at a systematic advantage, members of the group will tend to consciously or subconsciously resist giving up that advantage. But reaching a fairer state of society is not unfair, even if it may feel like that for individuals.