18 Jan Anytime we see something

PHI115 ETHICS

Week 8 Discussion

The Racial Contract

I hope you enjoyed this week’s reading. It is a contemporary classic, if you will, and a valuable lens through which to look at our society. Consider the following question: suppose I had a policy at a company I ran that said the following: we will not hire women. You’d think that was discriminatory, right? Obviously. But, what if I had a policy in place that did exactly that (more or less), but which didn’t mention women by name? I could do the following: “Any absence of work for any reason for more than five business days will result in automatic termination.” How does this policy do the same thing? Surely men, too, might have an accidenct or need leave? Some will, no doubt. But this policy impacts women particularly because they are the most likely to need leave, specifically, parental leave. I might as well say “no maternity leave here!”

Okay, what lesson can we draw from this? First, a policy can be discriminatory in all of the following cases:

(1) without mentioning a vulnerable group by name or description.

(2) accidentally or unintentionally

(3) by mentioning a vulnerable group by name or description

(4) deliberately or intentionally

Intentions have little to do with it, in fact, at the policy level or the level of law. A policy or law can be discriminatory and just as immoral if it achieves the same thing as a law that discriminates by name or description.

Okay, then, how does this relate to Mills? In a sense, he’s asking a question: what if we can design a racist contract that gives us the exact same results we might see out in the world? If we can, doesn’t that mean the world is flawed?

Consider an example: suppose I’m of pure heart and have only good intentions. Suppose also that I get a diversity of applicants for job after job at my company. Suppose, lastly, that my company hires men, predominantly. I don’t have a policy that says hire only men. I don’t try only to hire men. It’s just the way it worked out. However, if I had a policy that said “Hire only men,” I’d get the same results, more or less, then that should give us a reason to think somethings going on. It doesn’t mean I’m a sexist. It doesn’t mean other employees are sexist. But it might mean that somehow we have a system in place that is sexist, despite the best intentions of the people who are a part of that system.

Anytime we see something like that, anytime we see something that COULD be achieved by purely immoral means, we ought to want to dig deeper and try to see what’s going on. In a sense, that’s what Mills is up to. Since we can get almost the exact same results as we see in our very own world by use of a racist contract, doesn’t that mean that somehow in our world exists racism at a structural or systemic level? At the very least, shouldn’t it mean we ought to look deeper?

Here are further things to think about, as you’re reading the Mills:

Evidence of exploitation? Evidence of Mills’ claim that the Racial Contract has a political dimension, an epistemological dimension or a moral dimension? What does he mean by those terms? Other interesting tidbits?

Please provide a page number with each post so that we can know what part of the reading you’re commenting on, elaborating on, challenging, connecting to, etc. Each post should connect to the reading, whether it is an original post or a comment on a classmate’s post.