Sex Discrimination, Normativity, and Begging the Causal Question
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Most leading philosophical accounts of discrimination theorize discrimination as a causal notion: roughly, an action discriminates on the basis of X (e.g., race, sex) if X causes (in the right way) the adverse outcome. This article explores the prospects for this causal account. Focusing my attention on the case of sex discrimination, I argue that struggles to settle the causal question regress to question-begging. This argument calls into question not just whether the causal account can handle sophisticated cases, which have recently been conceived of (by some) as discriminatory on the basis of sex, but even classic cases of sex discrimination. The negative argument in turn brings to light an alternative normative-causal approach to discrimination, which I sketch and suggest is promising indeed.
Source: Political Philosophy
DOI: 10.16995/pp.19782
Author: Lily Hu
Institution: Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408463553