The Wrongness of Discrimination

Discrimination

• Iris Marion Young defines discrimination as: the explicit exclusion/preference of people in distribution of benefits/treatment they receive, or the positions they occupy, on account of their social group membership

Arneson: Intention

• We can locate wrongness in acts, or acts + intentions.
• Acts can be permissible, imperrmissible, or required
• Intentions can be at fault/culpable, or not at fault/culpable 
• Discrimination that's intrinsically morally wrong - occurs when an agent treats a person of a certain group differently because of unwanted animus/prejudice
  
• Culpable methods of belief formation
• As a corollary, innocent discrimination is discrimination not motivated by culpable intentions/beliefs

Opposing View

• Maybe it really is the act which is what makes discrimination wrong or impermissible
• A problem…