Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Discrimination Vs Freedom
One of the very interesting questions is the moral ground between discrimination and protecting your legitimite business interests. I will give two examples here. One involving the employment relationship and the second a customer relationship ?
A couple of examples :
1. If one is an equal opportunity employer, can a subjective assessment
like a beautiful face/age be a criteria - whereas in no way it impacts the ability to perform one's job. Take the landmark example of the air-hostesses. One one hand it can be said that the look of the air hostess should not be a criteria of selection as the functional aspects of the job (serving, soothing and helping passengers). However, it can be argued that air-hostesses have traditionally been young and pretty and hence the general population has come to expect that in the typical air-hostess. Are companies then justified to hire young and pretty faces only to further these stereotype and discriminate on the basis of looks/age ?
2. Lets take another example : When does a service provider have the right to refuse service when the refusal is in it's business interests ? Should a service provider have the right to refuse service for a specific group of ppl even if they are willing to pay the cost of the service ? Lets take the example of an exclusive hotel/lounge. Lets say the diffrentiation criteria of a lounge is the kind of clientele it attracts ? That the clientele in turn attracts their friends and business booms ? (say a sports bar). However, suppose a different demographic starts frequenting that place. Say the sports bar is invaded by a group of gays who want the matches to be turned off. Or say an 'exclusive' hotel is suddenly frequented by the noveau riche and the 'atmosphere' of the place is compromised. Does then business have a right to refuse service to the new demographic ? If the service is refused, then isnt it tantamount to discrimination - the use of subjective criteria to decide who to provide service to...(say 50 years back the same logic was used by a brahmin shopkeeper not to service dalits)
Frankly these are not eary matters to judge upon - my take here would be to take a very very hard look at the 'real' reason for refusal. Is the employment/service denied because of a mere predjudice of the service provider or it really in some ways affects his business ? Does the service provider not be progressive and in some way try to change the established prejudices of society ?
If i am a judge and forced to take a view, then my view is this : the service provider in a capitalist set up is fundamentally not a primary agent of reformer. A business can choose to be progressive and build that as a diffrentition platform but it is not CONTINGENT on business to be the social reformer. Business merely mirrors society and the business is not responsible for existing prejudices - and hence should not be primarily responsible to undo it. It is a choice but not a primary responsibility.
So in both the cases, i would say that business should be allowed to take decision in their best interests and let social change take it's course. That they should be allowed to hire young-pretty airhostesses and should be able to refuse serice to the gays who disrupt the sports bar. If the time has come and it is socially mandated by law not to discriminate on specific criteria, then there's no choice - but till then business should be allowed to do what they want. Mind you, i say this with a lot of trepidition and uneasiness. And i will think a 100 times before taking a view in a particular scenario.
A couple of examples :
1. If one is an equal opportunity employer, can a subjective assessment
like a beautiful face/age be a criteria - whereas in no way it impacts the ability to perform one's job. Take the landmark example of the air-hostesses. One one hand it can be said that the look of the air hostess should not be a criteria of selection as the functional aspects of the job (serving, soothing and helping passengers). However, it can be argued that air-hostesses have traditionally been young and pretty and hence the general population has come to expect that in the typical air-hostess. Are companies then justified to hire young and pretty faces only to further these stereotype and discriminate on the basis of looks/age ?
2. Lets take another example : When does a service provider have the right to refuse service when the refusal is in it's business interests ? Should a service provider have the right to refuse service for a specific group of ppl even if they are willing to pay the cost of the service ? Lets take the example of an exclusive hotel/lounge. Lets say the diffrentiation criteria of a lounge is the kind of clientele it attracts ? That the clientele in turn attracts their friends and business booms ? (say a sports bar). However, suppose a different demographic starts frequenting that place. Say the sports bar is invaded by a group of gays who want the matches to be turned off. Or say an 'exclusive' hotel is suddenly frequented by the noveau riche and the 'atmosphere' of the place is compromised. Does then business have a right to refuse service to the new demographic ? If the service is refused, then isnt it tantamount to discrimination - the use of subjective criteria to decide who to provide service to...(say 50 years back the same logic was used by a brahmin shopkeeper not to service dalits)
Frankly these are not eary matters to judge upon - my take here would be to take a very very hard look at the 'real' reason for refusal. Is the employment/service denied because of a mere predjudice of the service provider or it really in some ways affects his business ? Does the service provider not be progressive and in some way try to change the established prejudices of society ?
If i am a judge and forced to take a view, then my view is this : the service provider in a capitalist set up is fundamentally not a primary agent of reformer. A business can choose to be progressive and build that as a diffrentition platform but it is not CONTINGENT on business to be the social reformer. Business merely mirrors society and the business is not responsible for existing prejudices - and hence should not be primarily responsible to undo it. It is a choice but not a primary responsibility.
So in both the cases, i would say that business should be allowed to take decision in their best interests and let social change take it's course. That they should be allowed to hire young-pretty airhostesses and should be able to refuse serice to the gays who disrupt the sports bar. If the time has come and it is socially mandated by law not to discriminate on specific criteria, then there's no choice - but till then business should be allowed to do what they want. Mind you, i say this with a lot of trepidition and uneasiness. And i will think a 100 times before taking a view in a particular scenario.
