Is Discrimination Harmful?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Is Discrimination Harmful?

AU - Bengtson, Andreas

PY - 2024/7/1

Y1 - 2024/7/1

N2 - According to a prominent view, discrimination is wrong, when it is, because it makes people worse off. In this paper, I argue that this harm-based account runs into trouble because it cannot point to a harm, without making controversial metaphysical commitments, in cases of discrimination in which the discriminatory act kills the discriminatee. That is, the harm-based account suffers from a problem of death. I then show that the two main alternative accounts of the wrongness of discrimination—the mental-state-based account and the objective-meaning account—do not run into this problem.

AB - According to a prominent view, discrimination is wrong, when it is, because it makes people worse off. In this paper, I argue that this harm-based account runs into trouble because it cannot point to a harm, without making controversial metaphysical commitments, in cases of discrimination in which the discriminatory act kills the discriminatee. That is, the harm-based account suffers from a problem of death. I then show that the two main alternative accounts of the wrongness of discrimination—the mental-state-based account and the objective-meaning account—do not run into this problem.

KW - discrimination

KW - discriminatory killing

KW - harm-based account

KW - wrongness of discrimination

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85196078145&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5406/21521123.61.3.08

DO - 10.5406/21521123.61.3.08

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85196078145

SN - 0003-0481

VL - 61

SP - 293

EP - 300

JO - American Philosophical Quarterly

JF - American Philosophical Quarterly

IS - 3

ER -