Broken symmetries offer powerful insights in social science. When we treat differently two things that a theory says should be treated similarly, that is often a strong clue that theory is missing something important. In particular, when a normative theory says we should treat two things similarly, that we actually treat differently, that suggests we do not actually follow this normative theory.
There's an obvious, massive asymmetry. An employee takes orders from his employer. Yes, the employer has to "deal with" his employees, but there's a huge difference between giving orders and taking them. If non-discrimination applied to choice of employers, then the government is telling private parties to spend large chunks of their time obeying certain particular other private parties (namely, the employers whom they would choose apart from their discriminatory practices). Bad in itself, and a dangerous precedent.
Interesting post, as an economist and (mostly) libertarian it seems to me people should be able to discriminate in both hiring and job selection processes. In a perfect world both these choices would show long term problems and employees using this strategy would be rewarded less and companies with the strategy would be out-competed.
In the real world there are huge differences in the two situations. Forcing a company to choose the best candidate is somewhat different to forcing someone to work against their will - we call that slavery.
There is another real-world problem; it is infinitely harder to prove why a candidate rejected a job offer than to prove systematic racism (or any -ism) by an employer simply due to the number of jobs a company offers (and number of applicants) compared to the number of jobs an individual applies for and is offered. And also the willingness of the wronged party to follow it up.
So should an employer be given the right to sue a (non-)employee for discrimination? If the (non-)employee can sue the employer then yes.
Ah man, unfortunately after more thought (I think the post is so good that it's worth it), I realized that this critique 3 had just a funny wording for me. I took "obviously relevant in your theory T" to mean that it is obvious that it is relevant in your theory. For Haselton, it is obvious that roles are relevant, therefore critique 3 is not really devastating.
But what critique 3 is getting at I think is better shown by this re-wording:
“3. But it is not obvious why feature R is relevant in your theory T.”
After some thought, I think the problem with the fallacy, which reduces it from a fallacy to a pattern of commonly poor argumentation, is with critique 3:
"3. But your feature R is not obviously relevant in your theory T.”
should be changed to
“3. But your feature R is not obviously relevant in *my* theory T.”
Clearly the fact that roles are an important feature in equality is relevant in Haselton's theory but not Landsburg's. Both positions are underargued.
"most employers don’t have subjective experiences."
Because they're reptilian extraterrestrials. But even so, they're also trying to lower their own costs by giving their employees a better subjective experience, which allows them to offer their employees a lower salary. Because of this, their employees' subjective concerns are also their concerns, regardless of whether they are soulless space reptoids who only care about money.
Anyway, this looks like speculative cherry-picking of arguably relevant differences for the purpose of after-the-fact rationalization of a decision long since made, an example of confirmation bias. I could just as easily come up with the reverse. For example, employers care about the bottom line but employees care about subjective experience, and therefore employers are more liable to act in a rational way with respect to the bottom line. Racism is irrational, so employers are unlikely to be racist. Employees, however, care greatly about their subjective experience and so cannot be trusted to behave in a non-racist fashion, and so they must be regulated all the more strongly.
Yes, ben, you are missing something. You are missing this:
It does not seem to occur to Haselton to ask why the different role of employee vs. employer is relevant in our standard theories suggesting we ban ethnic discrimination. He feels he is done if he identifies any difference between the two cases.
In the case of using the cell phone, we indeed should ask why the different activity of driving or standing is relevant. We are not done if we identify just any difference. The difference needs to be relevant.
The problem with this example of is that the employer/employee relationship is supposed to be not obviously relevant, when of course the status quo is the opposite. As Landburg stated but didn't argue for, the fact that they are playing different roles is an irrelevant circumstance. Haselton counters that it's relevant, so in a way they aren't disagreeing fundamentally on the principle of equality they both stand by. They simply apply their standards of relevance differently.
Is this supposed to be an argument for the status quo? Or an explanation of it? If the latter, I guess that makes sense, but sort of goes against the standard arguments people make it cases like this: employers just aren't a large enough group to have any political power, so no-one stands up for their rights.
If the former, you're just shuffling the asymmetry round. You're saying that one employer being inconvenience 10 times is just as bad as 1 employee being inconvenienced once.
Please correct me if I'm missing something, but this doesn't make any sense to me- Haselton is clearly right, and Landsburg is clearly wrong. Consider, for instance, laws against cell phone use while driving. In either case, the political process has determined that it is in the public interest to proscribe a certain action (ethnic discrimination, talking on a cell phone) under a certain set of circumstances (when hiring people, when driving). If someone doesn't want their choice of actions restricted, they are perfectly free to avoid putting themselves in that particular circumstance. One can certainly debate whether these kinds of things really are in the public interest, but Landsburg's implication that any law that applies only in certain circumstances is fundamentally unfair because it doesn't apply to everyone equally is absurd,
The best reason that I can come up with is that the employer is representing the interests of an institution/organization that is somehow more public (since it manages the professional and commercial relationships of multiple people), while the potential employee is representing his or her personal interests only. America has always respected a person's individual beliefs, so it's OK when someone's personal decisions are influenced by things like racism.
Well, partly this depends on the overall state of the economy, with employers having more power in recessions and would-be employees gaining power as the economy does better and the unemployment rate drops.
However, on average, there is an asymmetry of power. While some would-be employees are employed, many are not, whereas the employer is definitely employed. While there are certain situations where the would-be employee makes more money or has more wealth than the employer (a general manager of a sports team trying to hire a star athlete), much more often than not it is the other way around, as indicated by the already stated point about who is more likely to be employed than whom.
Of course, Landsburg spends time supposedly demolishing arguments for redistribution, so these sorts of inequalities of income and wealth and economic position (employed versus unemployed) do not mean doodley-squat to him. But they do to most people on ethical grounds.
Accepting symmetry in the employment example does not necessarily require extending protection to the employer. One could as easily conclude there should be no equal opportunity standard for either.
There's an obvious, massive asymmetry. An employee takes orders from his employer. Yes, the employer has to "deal with" his employees, but there's a huge difference between giving orders and taking them. If non-discrimination applied to choice of employers, then the government is telling private parties to spend large chunks of their time obeying certain particular other private parties (namely, the employers whom they would choose apart from their discriminatory practices). Bad in itself, and a dangerous precedent.
Interesting post, as an economist and (mostly) libertarian it seems to me people should be able to discriminate in both hiring and job selection processes. In a perfect world both these choices would show long term problems and employees using this strategy would be rewarded less and companies with the strategy would be out-competed.
In the real world there are huge differences in the two situations. Forcing a company to choose the best candidate is somewhat different to forcing someone to work against their will - we call that slavery.
There is another real-world problem; it is infinitely harder to prove why a candidate rejected a job offer than to prove systematic racism (or any -ism) by an employer simply due to the number of jobs a company offers (and number of applicants) compared to the number of jobs an individual applies for and is offered. And also the willingness of the wronged party to follow it up.
So should an employer be given the right to sue a (non-)employee for discrimination? If the (non-)employee can sue the employer then yes.
Ah man, unfortunately after more thought (I think the post is so good that it's worth it), I realized that this critique 3 had just a funny wording for me. I took "obviously relevant in your theory T" to mean that it is obvious that it is relevant in your theory. For Haselton, it is obvious that roles are relevant, therefore critique 3 is not really devastating.
But what critique 3 is getting at I think is better shown by this re-wording:
“3. But it is not obvious why feature R is relevant in your theory T.”
After some thought, I think the problem with the fallacy, which reduces it from a fallacy to a pattern of commonly poor argumentation, is with critique 3:
"3. But your feature R is not obviously relevant in your theory T.”
should be changed to
“3. But your feature R is not obviously relevant in *my* theory T.”
Clearly the fact that roles are an important feature in equality is relevant in Haselton's theory but not Landsburg's. Both positions are underargued.
"most employers don’t have subjective experiences."
Because they're reptilian extraterrestrials. But even so, they're also trying to lower their own costs by giving their employees a better subjective experience, which allows them to offer their employees a lower salary. Because of this, their employees' subjective concerns are also their concerns, regardless of whether they are soulless space reptoids who only care about money.
Anyway, this looks like speculative cherry-picking of arguably relevant differences for the purpose of after-the-fact rationalization of a decision long since made, an example of confirmation bias. I could just as easily come up with the reverse. For example, employers care about the bottom line but employees care about subjective experience, and therefore employers are more liable to act in a rational way with respect to the bottom line. Racism is irrational, so employers are unlikely to be racist. Employees, however, care greatly about their subjective experience and so cannot be trusted to behave in a non-racist fashion, and so they must be regulated all the more strongly.
See how easy that is?
Yes, ben, you are missing something. You are missing this:
It does not seem to occur to Haselton to ask why the different role of employee vs. employer is relevant in our standard theories suggesting we ban ethnic discrimination. He feels he is done if he identifies any difference between the two cases.
In the case of using the cell phone, we indeed should ask why the different activity of driving or standing is relevant. We are not done if we identify just any difference. The difference needs to be relevant.
The problem with this example of is that the employer/employee relationship is supposed to be not obviously relevant, when of course the status quo is the opposite. As Landburg stated but didn't argue for, the fact that they are playing different roles is an irrelevant circumstance. Haselton counters that it's relevant, so in a way they aren't disagreeing fundamentally on the principle of equality they both stand by. They simply apply their standards of relevance differently.
Is this supposed to be an argument for the status quo? Or an explanation of it? If the latter, I guess that makes sense, but sort of goes against the standard arguments people make it cases like this: employers just aren't a large enough group to have any political power, so no-one stands up for their rights.
If the former, you're just shuffling the asymmetry round. You're saying that one employer being inconvenience 10 times is just as bad as 1 employee being inconvenienced once.
Please correct me if I'm missing something, but this doesn't make any sense to me- Haselton is clearly right, and Landsburg is clearly wrong. Consider, for instance, laws against cell phone use while driving. In either case, the political process has determined that it is in the public interest to proscribe a certain action (ethnic discrimination, talking on a cell phone) under a certain set of circumstances (when hiring people, when driving). If someone doesn't want their choice of actions restricted, they are perfectly free to avoid putting themselves in that particular circumstance. One can certainly debate whether these kinds of things really are in the public interest, but Landsburg's implication that any law that applies only in certain circumstances is fundamentally unfair because it doesn't apply to everyone equally is absurd,
The best reason that I can come up with is that the employer is representing the interests of an institution/organization that is somehow more public (since it manages the professional and commercial relationships of multiple people), while the potential employee is representing his or her personal interests only. America has always respected a person's individual beliefs, so it's OK when someone's personal decisions are influenced by things like racism.
"On negotiating power, both sides tend to have similar amounts..."
Well, it doesn't feel like that for most people. My perception might be wrong, but it is only perceptions that can create laws.
I've never heard anyone argue that employees (on average) have as much negotiating power as employers. It seem quite an important thing to understand.
It's part of a manager's subjective experience, but most employers don't have subjective experiences.
Isn't managing employees part of an employer's subjective experience?
Robin,
"Some exceptions"? Really?
Well, partly this depends on the overall state of the economy, with employers having more power in recessions and would-be employees gaining power as the economy does better and the unemployment rate drops.
However, on average, there is an asymmetry of power. While some would-be employees are employed, many are not, whereas the employer is definitely employed. While there are certain situations where the would-be employee makes more money or has more wealth than the employer (a general manager of a sports team trying to hire a star athlete), much more often than not it is the other way around, as indicated by the already stated point about who is more likely to be employed than whom.
Of course, Landsburg spends time supposedly demolishing arguments for redistribution, so these sorts of inequalities of income and wealth and economic position (employed versus unemployed) do not mean doodley-squat to him. But they do to most people on ethical grounds.
Accepting symmetry in the employment example does not necessarily require extending protection to the employer. One could as easily conclude there should be no equal opportunity standard for either.
When I read this post I was intrigued and decided to look at symmetry in nature and came upon this.
http://www.livescience.com/...