Dialogue: Discrimination

Leftist: You libertarians are too extreme by far. You don’t even want there to be anti-discrimination laws! Bigotry is fine by you!

Brian: Do you think that all discrimination is wrong?

Leftist: Absolutely.

Brian: So I should just marry the next single person I meet? Employers should just pick their employees at random off the street?

Leftist: What? I didn’t say that.

Brian: But to do otherwise would be to select people with whom to associate, for various purposes, on the basis of their personal characteristics or professional qualifications. This would be discrimination and hence, according to you, wrong.

Leftist: No, no. I meant that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of irrational factors such as gender, race, sexual orientation, age, or physical disability.

Brian: So, even though I’m straight, the fact that someone is a 70 year old gay man shouldn’t deter me in the slightest from marrying them? Wouldn’t want to discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, or age now, would we?

Leftist: Now you’re just coming up with absurd examples to irritate me.

Brian: I merely want a clear definition of when discrimination is wrong and should be illegal, one that doesn’t lead to such absurd examples.

Leftist: Ok, fine. It is wrong to discriminate, when it comes to hiring employees or providing service to customers, on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, or physical disability. No more silly marriage examples!

Brian: So when hiring servers, it would be wrong for the ‘Hooters’ restaurant managers to look more favorably on young, attractive women than they do on old, ugly men in wheelchairs? Hooters should be forced to become an ‘equal opportunity workplace’?

Leftist: No, that would also be absurd. Ok, let me try again: It is wrong to discriminate based on personal characteristics that have nothing to do with the purposes of the proposed association in question.

Brian: I can think of no absurd examples for this formulation.

Leftist: Well thank god for that! Then you agree that we should make this kind of discrimination illegal?

Brian: Doesn’t really matter if it’s made illegal or not. No one will ever be guilty of this offense.

Leftist: What? Sure they will! All of the irrational bigots will be guilty of it. If a white restaurant owner absolutely refused to serve black people in his restaurant, he would be guilty of the offense.

Brian: Would he? In this case, what is the purpose of the proposed association in question?

Leftist: For the customer to get food and for the restaurant owner to get money in exchange.

Brian: Only that? I think that for most restaurants, the customers also want to experience a certain atmosphere, while the restaurant owner also takes personal gratification from serving his customers well.

Leftist: Sure, I guess those could also be purposes of the association. What’s your point?

Brian: Well, if the restaurant owner is a bigot, and most of his customers are also bigots, than it’s likely that the bigoted customers value a dining atmosphere where they don’t have to see non-White people, and that the bigoted restaurant owner only takes personal gratification from serving White customers. Hence, in this case, the discrimination based on the personal characteristic of race/skin color has something to do with the purposes of the proposed association in question. Thus, the discrimination, according to your definition, is not wrong and should not be illegal. And if it is thus for such an extreme and clear-cut example, it will not be otherwise for any other case of discrimination.

Leftist: Let me modify my definition somewhat then: It is wrong to discriminate based on personal characteristics that have nothing to do with the rational purposes of the proposed association in question. That should exclude the bigoted purposes that you mentioned.

Brian: Who is to be the judge of whether a given purpose is ‘rational’ or not?

Leftist: Courtroom judges and juries.

Brian: What criteria should they apply?

Leftist: Common sense will do just fine. Denying service to customers based on their race is obviously irrational; while taking gender into account when deciding who to marry is obviously rational.

Brian: Perhaps it is obvious to you, because you’re a cosmopolitan and a monosexual. But if you were bigoted and a bisexual, than the rationality/irrationality of the two forms of discrimination would flip.

Leftist: Only because you’re talking about a subjective conception of rationality. I’m talking about an objective conception of rationality.

Brian: What’s so objectively rational about discriminating based on gender when deciding who to marry?

Leftist: Well, people are naturally biologically attracted to members of a given gender, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, and hence marrying a person from the gender that you are biologically attracted to is objectively rational.

Brian: But bisexuals are biologically attracted to both genders, so for them there is nothing objectively rational about gender discrimination when it comes to choosing marriage partners.

Leftists: Granted, but it is still objectively rational to do so for monosexual people.

Brian: Then it is no longer objectively rational. It is only rational, given the existence of a certain personal characteristic, in this case monosexuality. Analogously, it is only rational to refuse to serve black people at your restaurant, given the existence of a certain personal characteristic, in this case a bigoted attitude towards race/skin color.

Leftist: Alright, fine. Well, if marriage is conceived of as a means of reproducing, than gender discrimination when it comes to marriage is objectively rational.

Brian: So homosexuals that get married are acting irrationally, and should instead marry the opposite sex in order to be ‘objectively rational’? You’re starting to sound like a conservative now!

Leftist: Erm, no, well, I didn’t mean that… Arbitrary racial discrimination is just irrational! Stop being so difficult!

Brian: I’m sorry, but unless we can figure out a clear way to distinguish ‘rational’ from ‘irrational’ discrimination, than I am not comfortable with having any anti-discrimination laws on the books. Without a clear distinction, the laws will just give judges and juries license, in the name of their versions of ‘rationality’, to trample all over people’s freedom of association. This is the present situation in most western democracies, and it has led to some results that I think are absurd and harmful. I would prefer to tolerate the existence of a few unsavoury, bigoted restaurant owners than to give this awesome power to rudderless judges and juries.

Leftist: But without the laws we will return to the bad old days of arbitrary, out-of-control discrimination!

Brian: I doubt it. Firstly, in the ‘bad old days’, there were often laws that were reinforcing discrimination or even making it compulsory, as the infamous ‘Jim Crow laws’ did in the southern US. I obviously would vehemently oppose any such laws. Secondly, I get the distinct sense that in general, ordinary people today are a lot less bigoted than they were in the ‘bad old days’, which can be explained by a number of factors. Thirdly, even if some bigotry survives, the free-market monetarily rewards people who don’t consult their personal bigotries when making decisions in a professional capacity. These people are able to make decisions that are objectively better in a purely business-sense than people who bring their bigotry into their professional life. For all of these reasons, I think that your worries are largely unfounded.

Leftist: Well, you’ve convinced me that not all libertarians are bigots themselves, though I don’t fully agree with your point of view on the subject.

Brian: That is good enough for me to call this conversation a success!