You Are Not Worth the Risk: Lawful Discrimination in Hiring

Abstract

Increasing empirical research on productivity supports the use of statistical or `rational' discrimination in hiring. The practice is legal for features of job applicants not covered by human rights discrimination laws, such as being a smoker, residing in a particular neighbourhood or being a particular height. The practice appears largely morally innocuous under existing philosophical accounts of wrongful discrimination. This paper argues that lawful statistical discrimination treats job applicants in a way that may be considered degrading, and is likely to constrain people's freedoms in relation to employment, thus giving us reason for moral concern.