What Makes Discrimination Morally Wrong? A Harm‐Based View Reconsidered

Abstract

AbstractWhat is the morally significant feature of discrimination? All of the following seem plausible – (i) discrimination is a kind of wrongdoing and it wrongs discriminatees, which is a matter ofintrapersonalmorality; (ii) in view of cases of indirect discrimination, significant normative features of discrimination are best captured in a discriminatee‐focused, orharm‐based, way; and (iii) discrimination, as an act‐type, necessarily involvesinterpersonalcomparison. The first task of this article is to address which of intra‐ or interpersonal comparison is relevant to philosophical questions concerning discrimination. I submit that each of them has a place in the theory of discrimination; while interpersonal comparison is relevant in determining whether a differentiating act counts as discrimination, intrapersonal comparison is relevant in assessing whether it is morally wrong. The second task is to develop further a harm‐based answer to the latter question. My final proposal is as follows: discrimination ispro tantomorally wrong to the extent that it makes the discriminatees worse off than they would be were it not for the discrimination at issue, where one's well‐being is understood in terms of what one endorses in one's optimum form.