Is discrimination (in hiring) morally wrong?

[PetraG]

posted to wrong thread…

 

[blackforest]

Most likely, the feminist wouldn’t be pretty either.

You know, I’m not so shabby in my 40s . . .

Anyhow, you just proved my point by moaning too much. In fact, I could have predicted you’d react this way.

LOL! She didn’t moan. She rebutted a weak argument that you made.

You think that you are somehow going to stop employers from hiring whom they want. Well, it doesn’t work like that. You will never know the reason you weren’t hired or fired, for that matter.

I’d agree here, unfortunately. Most unjust discrimination occurs in a manner that is passive-aggressive or otherwise extremely difficult to prove.

 

[ascetic]

Discrimination: “the act of making or perceiving a difference.” - Merriam-Webster

Who could have a problem with that? Wouldn’t non-discriminatory hiring be analogous to simply throwing a dart at a board?

You are correct in saying that discrimination is not inherently or objectively wrong, at least that’s what I think you’re saying. For instance, the NBA isn’t going to be hiring me as a player , NASA as an astronaut, the UN as a translator, etc.

Unfortunately, that’s where it comes down to situations and to guiding principals or laws, morally and legally respectively speaking. Everyone likes to denigrate lawyers, but that’s what we have them for.

 

[JimG]

And you can choose not to hire somebody because you don’t like them. It’s that simple. People need to allow for differences in style and differences in preferences.

That’s quite true, There’s no point in hiring someone whose personality is going to clash with other members of the team they will be working with. Some companies do multilevel team interviews, where applicants are interviews by the people they will be working with, as wel as managers.

 

[JimG]

Of course discrimination is not immoral. It is a necessity. Only certain limited kinds of discriminants are prohibited legally.

If anyone has applied for a job for which there was more than one applicant, and you did not get the job, you were discriminated against.

If you ever interviewed people for a job opening, you had to discriminate in order to make a selection. I have interviewed people for which there was one opening and 15 or 20 applicants. Every single applicant believed himself to be well qualified for the job—and often they were very close to each other in qualifications. But you can only choose one.

It is also inevitable that some (or all) of those not picked will believe (wrongly) that they were unfairly discriminated against because of some unlawful reason—because they were women, or men, or of one race or another, or age, or another reason. Some of them will file complaints with the EEOC alleging discrimination, and settling those complaints will take a few more months of time after making a selection.

 

[Zaccheus]

Discrimination: “the act of making or perceiving a difference.” - Merriam-Webster

Who could have a problem with that? Wouldn’t non-discriminatory hiring be analogous to simply throwing a dart at a board?

This is not what most people mean when they talk about ‘discrimination’.

 

[Socrates92]

Ok, but why can’t Buffalo Wild Wings? How explicit should the particular goals of the company have to be, in order for the owner to take ownership in how he wants to steer his company (in this case through hiring)? Perhaps my hypothetical restaurant doesn’t explicitly state that having Thomistic debates is part of the waitresses’ (or waiters’) job description, but for whatever reason I still want to instill a Catholic environment in my store so that things like that are more likely to happen spontaneously. Should I have to make the minutest details of my preferences which go into hiring decisions official in order to take steps towards whatever my goal happens to be?

 

[Socrates92]

To be clear, I’m not asking about the legality. I’m aware of laws regarding such discrimination. I’m just questioning the logic behind the legality.

 

[Socrates92]

And you can choose not to hire somebody because you don’t like them. It’s that simple. People need to allow for differences in style and differences in preferences.

Right, and this is somehow acceptable in general, whereas certain reasons for dislike (race, etc…) are not considered allowable.

 

[JimG]

That’s right. You can’t reject someone solely on a prohibited factor. But you can consider personality characteristics if a person is going to have to work with others, as opposed to in a cubicle alone.

 

[DarkLight]

It’s a balance; like most things that are that way you’re not going to be able to set out a distinct set of rules that make everything 100% clear. Most of morality doesn’t end up working that way anyway.

Right, and this is somehow acceptable in general, whereas certain reasons for dislike (race, etc…) are not considered allowable.

I mean, that’s true in general. If we leave employment aside completely - it’s not ok for me to not like someone just because they’re black, or because they’re male, or something like that. I’m free to do it legally, but it’s still bad. But it’s ok for me to not like someone because they complain too much, or don’t take things seriously, or something.

This isn’t a neutral thing - it’s a declaration that there are reasons to dislike someone that are objectively bad reasons.

 

[BoomBoomMancini]

Well…yeah. Declining to hire someone because you think they’re an abrasive jerk who is going to disrupt the workplace is fine. Declining to hire someone because of their race is decidedly not fine.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

[Lara]

And it could happen that a black hair shop owner wants to hire only black hairdressers to keep up camaraderie and to empathize with the clients when it comes to curly hair.

 

[otrrl]

Socrates921d
Discrimination: “the act of making or perceiving a difference.” - Merriam-Webster

Who could have a problem with that? Wouldn’t non-discriminatory hiring be analogous to simply throwing a dart at a board?​

An employer has the option of choosing the best candidate for a job. Over- and under-qualiified persons need not apply, for example. The current U.S. law makes certain types of discrimination illegal – look who we have as president.

 

[DarkLight]

Part of this has always been balancing the individual and the society.

Social trends are made up of individuals. Lots of individuals doing the same thing can end up being really harmful, even if just one person doing that thing wouldn’t be a big deal.

You can see this in the history of racial discrimination. Black people just weren’t hired for certain jobs. Most people didn’t want to hire them, and many people didn’t want to patronize businesses who hired them (even if the business owner was willing). Combined with other forms of discrimination, this created an environment where black people were consistently poor and didn’t have a lot of opportunities to become wealthy.

Each individual made their own individual decision, and it had a social effect.

 

[exnihilo]

That’s not entirely true. When there was segregation you had a lot of businesses just for Blacks owned by Blacks. Those businesses did well. There were thriving Black commercial districts in some cities. That means some Blacks did well for themselves.

 

[DarkLight]

It was an oversimplification, yes. It also overlooked the role of state-permitted violence in many cases.

It worked better where there were large black communities in areas where they could get access to property.

 

[margaret42]

Employers have to consider all the factors-not discriminate for someone’s personhood- but their qualifications; age involves deciding on health benefits; whether having young kids will interfere with a mother’s schedule; all of this. But employers have their own sets of business decisions that must be respected.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I don’t do any hiring, but if I did, I wouldn’t hire feminists because I’d hear nothing but bellyaching and complaining. Anything on their resume that suggests they were in a women’s studies course would disqualify them.

That is a pretty morally bankrupt attitude. Let’s hope you are never in the position of hiring.

 

[Allegra]

Don’t forget people who use fire pits! They probably hum a lot while they work and that is so irritating!