Indirect Discrimination

Chapter Six, “Indirect Discrimination,” makes explicit the implications that the author’s pluralist theory of wrongful discrimination has for our understanding of indirect discrimination. The author argues that the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination is not always morally significant. Indirect discrimination, like direct discrimination, can subordinate people; it can infringe their right to deliberative freedom; and it can deny them access to a basic good. The author also considers questions of responsibility and culpability. The author distinguishes between “responsibility for cost” and “responsibility as culpability.” Agents of indirect discrimination are, in many cases, both responsible for the costs of rectifying discrimination and also responsible in the sense of “culpable.” The author explains how we can see both indirect and direct discrimination as involving negligence on the part of the discriminator.