The theory is that an explicit adjustment for these biases will result in treatment more like what there would have been if employers were unbiased.
This is a deontological stance, namely immoral act X was performed so we must bring the world as close as possible to the state it would have been in had X not happened.
I’m a consequentialist with regards to fairness
I have no idea what this means. That is, I have no idea how to incorporate ‘fairness’ into a utility function that won’t produce absurd things (like saying life extension research is immoral because it’s not fair to those who will die before it gets implemented).
The theory is that an explicit adjustment for these biases will result in treatment more like what there would have been if employers were unbiased.
This is a deontological stance, namely immoral act X was performed so we must bring the world as close as possible to the state it would have been in had X not happened.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that an immoral act was performed in these cases; often people just make mistakes. And trying to stop an ongoing harm is entirely compatible with consequentialism.
I’m a consequentialist with regards to fairness
I have no idea what this means. That is, I have no idea how to incorporate ‘fairness’ into a utility function that won’t produce absurd things (like saying life extension research is immoral because it’s not fair to those who will dies before it gets implemented).
First, unfair situations make people unhappy in and of themselves. That is, in some sense, absolutely absurd, but no more so than boredom is absurd. Nonetheless, it is the way humans seem to be (research on apes also shows this effect as well). Gwern’s post on the psychology of power discusses some of the less obvious effects of this on e.g. cortisol.
Second, when talking about money, utilities are non-linear in dollars. If A has $1 million, and B has $100, and utility is the square root of money, then, ceteris parabus, redistributing money from A to B would be the utilitarian thing to do. Of course, this ignores the incentive and precedent effects of this (why should B bother to work if they can just get A’s money?), as well as A’s unhappiness at losing the money, so of course in the real world the computation is considerably more complex.
Third, if everyone benefits from having the better person doing any given job, then correcting for biases that prevent this will make society better off.
[Edit] Fourth, when a group of people is treated as abnormal or subordinate, their desires are not given full weight (and thus, they are less likely to be happy). An example of this in the US is that only one non-Christian group has ever won a Free Exercise Clause case.
This is a deontological stance, namely immoral act X was performed so we must bring the world as close as possible to the state it would have been in had X not happened.
I have no idea what this means. That is, I have no idea how to incorporate ‘fairness’ into a utility function that won’t produce absurd things (like saying life extension research is immoral because it’s not fair to those who will die before it gets implemented).
I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that an immoral act was performed in these cases; often people just make mistakes. And trying to stop an ongoing harm is entirely compatible with consequentialism.
First, unfair situations make people unhappy in and of themselves. That is, in some sense, absolutely absurd, but no more so than boredom is absurd. Nonetheless, it is the way humans seem to be (research on apes also shows this effect as well). Gwern’s post on the psychology of power discusses some of the less obvious effects of this on e.g. cortisol.
Second, when talking about money, utilities are non-linear in dollars. If A has $1 million, and B has $100, and utility is the square root of money, then, ceteris parabus, redistributing money from A to B would be the utilitarian thing to do. Of course, this ignores the incentive and precedent effects of this (why should B bother to work if they can just get A’s money?), as well as A’s unhappiness at losing the money, so of course in the real world the computation is considerably more complex.
Third, if everyone benefits from having the better person doing any given job, then correcting for biases that prevent this will make society better off.
[Edit] Fourth, when a group of people is treated as abnormal or subordinate, their desires are not given full weight (and thus, they are less likely to be happy). An example of this in the US is that only one non-Christian group has ever won a Free Exercise Clause case.