Equality and discrimination practice questions.

An employer requires every applicant to be at least 180 cm tall for work in which height is irrelevant. The rule is applied to all applicants but excludes far more women than men. In the standard classification this is

• direct discrimination, since the rule refers expressly to a protected characteristic
• indirect discrimination, since a neutral rule falls unequally on a protected group
• affirmative action, since the rule changes the composition of the workforce
• statistical discrimination, since a group average is being used as a proxy for ability

Answer: indirect discrimination, since a neutral rule falls unequally on a protected group

The classification turns on the form of the rule rather than on the employer's motive: a criterion that mentions no protected characteristic can still produce a disparate effect, and it is then challenged by asking whether it is genuinely necessary for the job.

An objection runs: if equality is valuable in itself, then a change that leaves the worse off exactly as they are while pulling the better off down must be an improvement in one respect. This objection is known as

• the levelling-down objection, pressed against equality valued for its own sake
• the priority view, on which benefits matter more the worse off their recipient is
• the doctrine of sufficiency, on which what matters is that everyone has enough
• the separateness of persons objection, pressed against aggregative theories

Answer: the levelling-down objection, pressed against equality valued for its own sake

The objection targets telic egalitarianism, the view that equality is good in itself; prioritarianism and sufficientarianism are ways of keeping a concern for the worse off while escaping that verdict, not names for the objection itself.

A court rejects a discrimination claim brought by Black women on the ground that the firm hires women into clerical posts and Black men into factory posts, so it discriminates neither by race nor by sex. Which concept names the flaw in that reasoning?

• Cultural imperialism, one of the faces of oppression
• Intersectionality, against single-axis analysis of harm
• Androcentrism, taking the male case as the human norm
• The recognition-redistribution dilemma in claims of justice

Answer: Intersectionality, against single-axis analysis of harm

Crenshaw's point is that a harm suffered at the intersection of two categories disappears when each axis is tested separately; the other three concepts describe real phenomena but none of them explains why the compound claim vanishes in the court's procedure.

An insurer sets a higher premium for every member of a group because the group's average claim rate is higher, although the applicant's own record is excellent. The philosophical objection to such statistical discrimination is that

• the statistics on which the practice relies are usually inaccurate, so the practice rests on a mistake about the facts
• the applicant is treated on the basis of a group she did not choose rather than on her own conduct
• the practice is unprofitable for the firm that adopts it
• no generalisation about a group of people can ever be true

Answer: the applicant is treated on the basis of a group she did not choose rather than on her own conduct

The objection has to be stated carefully, since the generalisation may be perfectly accurate: what is complained of is that a person is assessed by a feature of others rather than by what is true of her, and that the practice entrenches the disadvantage it measures.

Anderson argues that the point of equality is not to compensate people for undeserved bad luck but to end oppressive relations between people and to secure everyone's standing as an equal in civil society. On this relational view, the test of an egalitarian society is

• whether the distribution of resources matches what each person deserves
• whether nobody's holdings can be traced to circumstances beyond their control
• whether citizens can meet one another without deference, domination or humiliation
• whether income differences between the richest and poorest fall below a fixed ratio

Answer: whether citizens can meet one another without deference, domination or humiliation

The contrast with luck egalitarianism is deliberate: the relational view asks what people owe each other as members of a shared political order, which is why it objects to means-testing that requires applicants to display their misfortune.

One account holds that what makes discrimination wrong is not primarily the material setback it causes but the message it conveys: that the person belongs to a group of lesser standing. An advantage claimed for this expressive account is that it explains why

• discrimination is wrong even where the victim suffers no measurable loss and may be unaware of it
• discrimination is always more harmful than other kinds of unfair treatment
• only conduct backed by the law can count as discrimination at all
• the intentions of the discriminator are irrelevant to the assessment of the act, since only the effect matters

Answer: discrimination is wrong even where the victim suffers no measurable loss and may be unaware of it

A candidate rejected for a post she would not have taken, or barred from a facility she never uses, is still wronged on this account. The objection is that messages depend on social context, so the same act may demean in one setting and not in another — which the account must treat as a feature rather than a defect.