Reader AD sends us this:
When Norway introduced tough new laws back at the beginning of 2004 aimed at increasing the number of women on company boards, the naysayers said it would lead to disaster. Companies would be forced to appoint less-qualified people as board members just because of their gender, and there would be widespread resentment among male colleagues and business owners…When politicians proposed the measure in Norway, it sparked a massive public debate — with opponents saying that such positive discrimination would be unfair to men and that private companies should be given the freedom to appoint whichever candidates they preferred to their boards. Another common argument held that more competent men would be replaced with less skilled or qualified women.
Yet since the law was introduced there have been no complaints from employers associations, nor have CEOs stated that they have had problems finding suitable candidates for the board. “It is surprising because when the quota was introduced it created a lot of debate, especially from people in the business sector, who were critical of the reform,” Storvik says. “But after the reform went into force almost nobody seemed to object, hardly anybody is writing about it in the newspapers any more or telling us about negative experiences.”
The fact that a broad spectrum of political parties, including the conservatives, supported the measure helped lay the groundwork for broad public acceptance. But it also helped that Norwegians are already used to the idea of quotas in areas like politics.
So has the quota legislation had a trickle-down effect that goes beyond the board rooms and into the wider economy? “There is an increase in women in other management positions both in the firms which were targeted by the reform, but also in other firms that were not,” says Storvik. “But it is impossible to say if this has been caused by the reform.” The law only affects the major companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and is not extended to private small- and medium-sized firms…The authors also argue that, left to their own devices, companies will do little diiversify the gender composition of their boards. When the law in Norway was first implemented it stated that the sanctions would not come into effect if companies raised the number of female board members to the demanded level. This did not happen. By 2006, the percentage had only increased to 18 percent.
After a grace period, tough sanctions went into force for non-compliance — the most drastic of which was the dissolution of the company. Businesses got the message and soon began appointing women as board members. By 2009, the 40 percent target had been achieved.
The fact that the increases in companies were only modest when they were given the chance to do so voluntarily, says Storvik, would imply “that it was very important that the law was made mandatory.
AD wonders if philosophy should take this as its model. That idea makes me uncomfortable, but others will feel differently. (And yes, I realise that “makes me uncomfortable” isn’t an argument.)
Feminist Philosophers 
How would this work in philosophy? What sort of sanctions would be imposed on, say, philosophy departments with fewer than 40% of tenure-track faculty female? The APA doesn’t exactly have the legal authority to dissolve a department!
Perhaps a `black mark’ could be put on departments listing in Jobs for Philosophers [JfPh] that fail to meet the quota, similar to the mark put on departments that don’t accept the non-discrimination statement? (For non-professional philosophers, here’s the relevant background, especially the second block quotation.) More severely, let’s see, could be higher rates for advertising in JfPh, or even a blacklist.
It is an interesting question whether philosophers should discriminate in favour of women, non-whites, and other minorities in making philosophy appointments and promotions. I know a lot of individuals and departments who do favour women over men and non-whites over whites. But the question is, is it morally right to do so?
Clearly if you think that one should treat every person as an end, then you will not engage in discrimination in favour of women, non-whites, and other minorities. To engage in such discrimination is to precisely subordinate one person to another on the basis of sex, race or certain other features. Personally I think one should always treat every person as an end, so one should never engage in sex or race or other such discrimination.
Can a justification be found elsewhere?
Well virtue ethics is not much help. Would a virtuous person engage in discrimination in favour of women and non-whites? Who can say? There is no clear way of finding out. It seems to be just a matter of opinion.
So that leaves consequentialism. If you reject consequentialism then you will reject discrimination in favour of women, non-whites and other minorities. If you embrace consequentialism, then the precise form of your consequentialism will determine whether you engage in sex or race discrimination – and what form of such discrimination you engage in. For some forms of consequentialism it might be found that discrimination in favour of white males has better consequences. According to such accounts, one should discriminate in favour of white males. This illustrates why consequentialism is such dodgy ground for Feminists. Still let’s persist a little more.
A bog standard classical Utilitarian would have to explore whether engaging in sex discrimination in favour of women, non-whites and other minorities would maximise utility (or happiness, or desire satisfaction etc) summed over all time. Well, if you think (as I do) that philosophy is an important subject in the world, and that it does over time have a massive beneficial effect on our society, and that it is therefore important that the best possible philosophy be written and disseminated, then you will appoint and promote philosophers purely on merit. Thus you will not engage in sex, race or other discrimination.
A similar argument could be applied to other forms of consequentialism, I would have thought.
This is rather brief, but so far I cannot see any firmly grounded argument for thinking that it is morally right to discriminate in favour of women, non-whites and other minorities, when deciding philosophy appointments and promotions.
More generally, I think that a simple clear strategy of proclaiming all discrimination wrong is likely to be more effective in the long term than claiming that some discrimination is good and some is bad, and then arguing in favour of certain sorts of discrimination.
I’d welcome comments and other ideas.
Tina,
I’m not quite sure where to start, but your comment displays some very questionable assumptions about how one should go about “applying” ethical theories as well as some highly controversial ideas about what individual ethical theories would say about this matter.
I think no one would disagree that discrimination is wrong, but the problem is that men are constantly given preferential treatment in the discipline. Introducing a 40% rule for invited talks at the APA would not mean discriminating against men; it would mean attempting to counter the persistent discrimination against women in our field. To try to decide what justice requires in this case without taking the history of the discipline into account is arguing about a case so idealized as to bear only superficial resemblance to the real case at hand.
Many argue that discrimination is a case of the past. After all, no laws prevent women from obtaining degrees or applying for positions (except the one in Saudi-Arabia advertised in the JFP last year: while there was an outcry against ads from schools that bar “practicing” homosexuals from being hired, this ad passed without causing any commotion at all among professional philosophers). But if all we mean by discrimination is legal obstacles to participation we will fail to take into account how the way the discipline is dominated by men and historically shaped by men continues to present an obstacle to women. This blog is full of such examples – I encourage you to read the relevant literature about unconscious schemas and how they function in hiring, decisions about who to invite to give talks or contribute to anthologies, etc.
When I did undergraduate admissions interviews for a highly prestigious school recently, one of the male interviewers turned to me at the end of the day and sighed “Too bad none of the pretty girls were any good”. In other words, this highly respected scholar had no inhibitions about letting me know that he had been assessing women’s looks while he was interviewing them (potentially paying less attention to what they said). He made no similar remarks about the male applicants. This is just one quite telling example of the pernicious effects of having a discipline so completely dominated by men. It also showed what kinds of attitudes the supposedly not-so-attractive women who were admitted would have to contend with.
I’m constantly being reminded by my students and by my peers that I don’t fit the schema for a philosopher (endless comments about my choice of clothes and shoes, I’m too well dressed to be a philosopher, too young, etc etc). When I go to conferences, I usually find myself in a minority. I have to constantly monitor my behavior to preempt certain stereotypes from overshadowing what I say (sometimes I do this by exaggerating the feature that triggers the stereotype, so as to make it explicit, at other times (as when I’m pregnant), this appears impossible). I have had few female role models, at best I have been “one of the boys”. This means that I spend a lot of energy dealing with issues arising from my being a woman and not a stereotypical philosopher, energy that I would like to be free to spend actually doing some philosophy.
I’m sure that proposing a rule that no gender should have more than 40% of the invited speaker at the APA will trigger lots of responses like yours – that’s presumably why many people feel “uncomfortable” with the suggestion. But I don’t think that we should let contextless reasoning stand in the way of a proper appreciation of the situation and what it calls for.
I wonder if there should be a table at APAs and Joint Sessions which has dunce hats on it for people whose departments have under 25% women. Perhaps we could also suppose larges “Ds” to be sewn on jackets. All to be taken on voluntarily, and so they’d be there just as a humorous reminder.
Tina, since there is unfortunately a lot of discrimination going on in universities, I wonder if the terms of the moral problem shouldn’t be changed. We’re looking at a society of often immoral people and trying to think how to lessen the damage their practices cause, as a means to changing those practices.
However, rather than take up that topic, I think we should look a bit at the idea of picking the best. As you say,
Supposing there is some genuine best, finding it when may be much harder if it’s a women when the field has systematic discrimination, since the standards will be affected by the discrimination. And other discriminatory factors can play a role. For example, a large consideration in hiring a junior person is whether the person can get tenure, and so we start with a requirement based on what was reasonable in a man’s life decades ago. So far men get closer to that paradigm than women, speaking generally.
In addition, it is a cliche that the best work is often chosen against even by leading scientific journals. Academics, like everyone else, like what is comprehensible, familiar, etc. Too challenging and you are out of the journal or off the department’s list. And heaven forbid that the best manages to convey that they know they are the best; that’s a real killer on the job market. In fact, I do know of one not very good place which has had the chance to hire future stars (and I do mean fairly star-ish people), because all the other places above it have turned them down. I think they knew they were the best; they certainly looked like they did. Of course, the not very good place, though dedicated itself to “hiring the best,” may not have the wit to hire them.
Other factors? The influential deciders in a department may well be influenced by their friends, and given the history of philosophy and the discrimination, their friends may be men pushing young men. More generally, mentoring is extremely important at the early stages of one’s career, and another cliche is that men get a lot more of it than women do.
The latest installment of Robert Wolff’s memoirs is quite relevant:
Since we live in a society that gives lip service to fairness, justice, and equality, those who end up in the favored positions quite naturally tell themselves – and also tell those who fail to make it – that success is a reward for extraordinary accomplishment. Those at the top, they tell themselves in self-congratulatory fashion, are the truly gifted and exquisitely trained. But as we observed above, this is surely not true. No society, not even ours, can survive if it must rely on finding an endless supply of outstanding lawyers, doctors, or CEOs to fill its positions. The simple truth is that despite the ferocity of the competition, those in the favored roles are, by and large, only averagely competent at them .
Hi Karen, JJ and Dan,
Thanks very much for your interesting and thoughtful replies.
I heartily agree, JJ, when you say ‘Academics, like everyone else, like what is comprehensible, familiar, etc. Too challenging and you are out of the journal or off the department’s list.’ This is perhaps connected with what Robert Wolff says in Dan’s quote ‘those at the top, they tell themselves in self-congratulatory fashion, are the truly gifted and exquisitely trained.’
Karen, I am aware of the discussions on unconscious bias etc.. Clearly everyone should work on eliminating this. And as you all point out, there is so much to be done to improve the situation in departments.
However, what I am not yet clear about is exactly how the existence of such problematic phenomena might play a role in a moral argument in favour of *intentional*, and perhaps institutionalised, discrimination in favour of women, non-whites and other minorities.
Clearly the fact that women etc have suffered great discrimination in the past in decisions on making appointments and promotions, and still do in some places, does not make it right for you or I to fail to treat some people as an end (e.g. white male job applicants). If one thinks that one should always treat every person as an end, then one thinks that to fail to treat a person as an end is wrong, immoral. Thus one thinks that discrimination on the basis of sex, race etc is wrong, immoral (whether such discrimination is intentional or unintentional). There is never any excuse for failing to treat a person as an end.
Thus it remains the case that it is only possible to offer a justification for intentional (and perhaps institutionalised) discrimination in favour of women, non-whites, minorities etc. if you reject always treating every person as an end, and instead embrace consequentialism (which is not something I see any justification for doing). But even if you embrace consequentialism how would the argument run exactly?
Someone might say, i) ‘There should* be the same total number of women given jobs and promotions as would have been given jobs had there been zero discrimination’. From this they might infer ii) ‘There should** be some intentional discrimination in favour of women, non-whites, minorities etc in order that, in consequence, the same total number of women will be given jobs and promotions as would have been given jobs had there been zero discrimination.’ Let us examine statement i. Statement i raises the questions
a. Where does that should* come from, what gives it its force?
b. What are its implications for action?
It seems that there are two possible approaches:
1) One possibility is that the should* is deontological – in the sense that no one should* fail to treat others as an end. So were everyone to succeed in treating every applicant as an end then the correct number of women would be given jobs because there would be zero discrimination. In this case the statement is not problematic in any way. However we have seen that if one takes a deontological approach then one should always treat every person as an end, so not engage in intentional discrimination on the basis of sex, race etc. Thus taking the should* in this way does not lead one to engage in intentional discrimination on the basis of sex, race, etc.. Thus in this case statement i does not lead to statement ii.
2) The alternative is to interpret the should* as getting its force from consequentialism. It is from consequentialism then that the should** of statement ii gets its force. However if consequentialism is to be the ethical approach which governs all your decision making then you need a general approach, such as Utilitarianism. But there are lots of philosophical problems with Utilitarianism, lots of reasons to reject it. Furthermore, even if you adopt Utilitarianism, it seems that if on a particular occasion you are in the position of deciding which of two persons to hire, it will have better consequences if you hire the best person for the job.
So it is still unclear to me how we get a comprehensive well grounded moral argument to the conclusion that in deciding job hires and promotions one should engage in discrimination on the grounds of sex, race etc. I’d be extremely grateful if you could point out something I have missed, or point out a correct argument. I do not claim to be right, I just cannot see how to argue to any other conclusion.
Thanks
Tina,
Thanks for your the clarification of your position and your rationale for adopting it.
You persist in presuming that the policies that have been proposed in fact amount to discrimination against men and that they would entail treating them not as ends (whatever that amounts to in this context – if you mean “end” in Kant’s sense then you are on thin ice, I suspect, but maybe you can explain exactly what *you* mean by treating a person as an end and why the policy fails on this count). I would think, however, that the question is whether such policies are in fact discriminatory.
Since you agree that women have in fact been disadvantaged in the field historically, and that this legacy is still with us, that it still influences the opportunities women have to succeed in the discipline, that women philosophers battle unconscious biases, that they don’t have access to the same networks as male philosophers, that they have a harder time finding a mentor, and so forth, it seems that women, through no fault of their own, face some pretty daunting obstacles that men don’t face insofar as they men. This means that equally talented men and women in the profession (or entering the profession) will not have the same opportunities professionally. This situation is, I think you would agree, not fair. It entails that women have to work much harder to earn equal professional recognition even if their work is just as good or interesting as that of male philosophers. Many if not most opportunities to give talks, contribute papers to anthologies, edit journals, etc arise through invitations extended by individual philosophers who draw heavily on their networks. Women are underrepresented both in the pool of those doing the inviting and in the networks of those who have this kind of power. Equally talented women therefore have fewer opportunities than men. I don’t think anyone would dispute these claims. Given that men get a head start professionally simply in virtue of being men, how can it be unfair to attempt to level the playing field? The effect of such policies – carefully crafted – would not be that talented men have their work excluded in order to give way to less talented women. Rather, instituting such policies is a way to ensure that unmerited privilege does not end up determining who thrives professionally.
In your argument explaining why it “still seems unclear to you how we can get a comprehensive, well-grounded moral argument to the conclusion that in deciding job hires and promotions, one should engage in discrimination on the grounds of sex, race etc” you first of all beg the question by assuming that this is discriminatory, and secondly you presume (falsely) that discrimination (in the pejorative sense of not giving men the same opportunities as women) is what has been proposed. I’m not in favor of discrimination. That’s precisely why we need policies that counter the tendency of privileged groups to monopolize opportunities that should be available to all qualified individuals. My point as well as yours is that we should treat like cases alike and unlike cases unlike, but insofar as we agree that the challenges facing women and men in the field of philosophy are not of equal magnitude, I fail to see how policies that acknowledge this fact are unjust or unfair to the privileged group.
In making a hire, for instance, we should ask ourselves what hurdles the female candidates have had to jump to get to the point where they are today, and what that says about their talents and tenacity. We should read letters of recommendation with this in mind, so that we don’t automatically infer that the candidate who is described as “a wonder with the photocopier” and “the light of the department” should be judged by us in the way she is judged by her male letter-writer. It’s difficult to underestimate the extent to which unconscious biases play a role in assessing merits in such cases – but anyone who has been on a hiring committee and who has tried to pay attention probably knows what I mean.
Finally, you appear to think that there are two and only two ethical theories out there – consequentialism and deontology. First, even if there were only two theories – and believe me, that’s at best an unfortunate impression left by the way intro to ethics courses are usually taught – there are so many versions of both c and d, yielding contradictory answers for the same case, that I’m afraid you will remain in the dark as long as you persist trying to decide the matter in the way you have attempted.
As an antidote to this outlook, I recommend that you read David Ross’s The Right and the Good or maybe even Jonathan Dancy’s Morality without Principles – not because I necessarily agree with either account, but because they stimulate the imagination. I certainly cannot do what you ask me to do – in fact, I cannot give any argument for any normative position based on the false dilemma that you have set up, since I’m neither a consequentialist nor a deontologist and fail to share your view that moral questions are settled with reference to some grand, overarching principle of action that decides the matter for us. Last time I checked, the jury was still out on the question of which grand, overarching principle we should adopt, if any. But that’s a matter for a larger meta-ethical disquisition.
hi tina –
First, the less important point: There are more ways to construct an argument in practical reasoning than just Kant’s and Mill’s. One might reason in terms of the institutional goals of academia or professional philosophy [cf. MacIntyre], in terms of the capabilities of each individual philosopher [Nussbaum], in terms of what sort of social institutions would best promote fair equality of opportunity [Rawls], or in terms of balancing all of these considerations and any others that might be put forward [Dewey]. To put it mildly, the first premise of your argument assumes a false dichotomy.
Second, you haven’t explained your version of the `not using humanity as an end’ test, and it’s not clear to me that any of the proposals made in this thread would qualify as using humanity as an end. How can you expect us to argue that any of our proposals would pass your test when we don’t know what, exactly, the test is?
More generally, I don’t think it’s so clear that a deontological test implies that *any* sort of discrimination *at all* is wrong or immoral. First, Kant himself, as a rather nasty racist and sexist, thought that certain forms of discrimination among human beings based on race and sex was at least consistent with his test. At the very least, that means you’d need to either rehabilitate or replace Kant’s version, do some textual work to show that his consistency claim was wrong, or something similar. Second, if the test did imply that any sort of discrimination at all is wrong or immoral, it would lead to some problematic or counterintuitive results. For example, does it imply that it’s immoral to discriminate between those who violate the moral law and those who do not, and hence that the punishment of criminals is immoral? Does it imply that it’s immoral to discriminate among non-human animals (and different species at that), children, the mentally impaired, and adults with ordinary cognitive capacities with respect to attributing moral responsibility? Does it imply that it’s immoral to discriminate among growing children (at various ages), pregnant and lactating women, and adult men and women who are neither pregnant nor lactating when considering how food ought to be distributed?
Third and finally, you seem to grant that there is a history of discrimination, such that the actions of some individuals have violated your test (whatever its details). Now, I suggest that, generally and for the most part, relatively minor violations of the test are acceptable if necessary for rectifying relatively major past violations of the test. In rights-talk we might say that minor violations of, for example, property rights are acceptable (not immoral) if necessary for rectifying a relatively major past violation of someone’s property rights — a police in hot pursuit can chase a carjacker onto and through the property of an individual who’s otherwise uninvolved in the incident.
If you accept all that, we can put together a sketch for a positive deontological argument that these proposals — for the sake of argument, I’ll grant your language for describing them — are not immoral:
(1) The underrepresentation of women and African Americans in philosophy was caused by numerous immoral acts, together constituting a major violation M of the humanity of many individual female and African American philosophers.
(2) The only way to rectify M is to institute a policy P of discrimination in favor of female and African American philosophers.
(3) P would be a minor violation of the humanity of Caucasian American male philosophers relative to M.
(4) (The principle from the last paragraph)
(5) Hence, P is not immoral. (2, 3, 4)
Hi Karen and Dan,
Thanks very much for your thought provoking posts.
Karen, I certainly agree when you say that we should strive to ‘ensure that unmerited privilege does not end up determining who thrives professionally.’
You say ‘You persist in presuming that the policies that have been proposed in fact amount to discrimination against men’. What policies are you referring to here? Perhaps I was not clear. I was simply talking about explicit sex, race etc discrimination. I made no judgement about what policies constitute sex, race etc discrimination (though I take quotas – which are the subject of the original article – to clearly involve sex, race etc discrimination). I take it that to engage in sex, race etc discriminate against someone in a job hire is to not give her/him a job simply because of her/his sex, race etc. Where if she/he had been of the favoured sex/race etc she/he would have been given the job.
Thus, if the hirer rejects sex, race etc discrimination then she/he certainly should (as you suggest) look below the initial surface appearance in order to get the best person for the job – the most talented and tenacious philosopher and teacher. To do this will (as you say) involve: looking with special care at letters of recommendation for unconscious schemas & bias etc; discounting non-blind review publications and conference presentations, etc. which are likely to be the result of good networking (lets face it, some men and women do well at networking and some men and women do not – its just that men have a higher success rate), and so on. Thus a hirer taking such an approach to reviewing job applications does not count as engaging in sex discrimination.
Would you agree with that?
Returning to the argument about whether one should go beyond striving to eliminate bias in appointments, and actively engage in sex, race etc discrimination, I would have thought that the default position is that one should not engage in sex, race, etc discrimination (you say ‘I’m not in favor of discrimination’ – so perhaps we are in agreement?). Thus it is those who would engage in such sex, race etc discrimination who have to provide an argument which justifies that behaviour. I do not ‘think that there are two and only two ethical theories out there – consequentialism and deontology.’ And I did not ask for an argument ‘based on the false dilemma that you [I] have set up.’ I just asked for an argument. I gave examples of some arguments that fail, but did not claim that this precludes there being arguments which succeed. I just wondered whether anyone knew one.
Thus, for instance, I have read the two books you mention. However they suggest that one must rely upon intuition in the making of moral judgements. Anyone who realises how much their intuition is affected by contingencies of upbringing, environment, etc and who rejects having a contingent basis to their decision making must seek an alternative. Furthermore, I don’t relish bearing the brunt of decisions made people whose decision making is conditioned by contingencies in their upbringing, environment etc. – so I hope they seek an alternative too…
I also mentioned virtue ethics – but again this generally seems to rely upon intuitions (concerning what the ‘virtuous person’ would do). I certainly don’t know how to get an argument out of virtue ethics to the conclusion that I and others should engage in sex, race etc discrimination.
It seems Rawls would not favour sex, race etc discrimination:
First Principle: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all;
Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:
a. They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity;
b. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).
And so on…
But maybe we are not disagreeing anyway?
Dan, thanks for your sketch of an argument in favour of sex, race etc discrimination. I am a bit doubtful as to whether it works. Take premise 2. If P1 violates P2’s rights and then subsequently P3 violates P4’s rights then P3 in no way ‘rectifies’ P1’s violation of P2’s rights. It is just another rights violation. It is a further wrong, and we should always avoid wronging people.
Also, I am doubtful about 3. Engaging in sex, race etc discrimination towards someone (whatever their race, sex etc) is not a ‘minor violation’, not a minor wrong – you are talking about potentially ruining someone’s life. With so few jobs around if someone does not get that good job with a 2/2 teaching load and ends up with 4/4 or having to get a job outside philosophy teaching, then as a result she/he may not get the publications she/he would otherwise have got, and so may not get tenure, not get a good teaching job, and/or may drop out of philosophy teaching. She/he would thus not produce the excellent philosophy she/he might otherwise have produced. It may also leave her/him embittered. Thus a person who engages in sex, race etc discrimination may be both ruining someone’s life and reducing progress in philosophy. That’s why sex, race and other discrimination is such a great wrong. Trivialising it won’t do women, non-whites etc any favours.
What do you think?
Thanks again for your posts, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Best wishes
As long as women only request quotas in board rooms and parliaments, but not in coal mines or in rubbish collection (http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/quotas-for-women-why-only-in-boardrooms/), it is obvious that this is not about equality, but about a shortcut to success.
I don’t see too many men clamouring for work as call centre operators and secretaries either. We have PLENTY of shit paying degrading jobs available to us AM. Why would we fight for a chance to further degrade ourselves?
Men have ALWAYS taken the “shortcuts to success” that their little boys’ networks have given them. Now you accuse women, as if wanting success is suddenly a bad thing. Sounds like a double standard to me.
I don’t see a coalminer’s helmet on YOUR head.
I really enjoyed Dan’s link to Dr. Wolff’s article. Let’s just say I can relate.
I spent the day arguing with some staunch American fiscal conservatives today, with Wolff’s thoughts on education pyramids dancing in my head, and practically tripped over numerous instances of the “Going John Galt” threat *LOL*.
Threaten me with a good time!
Now THAT would be the solution!! If all the self serving elitists of the world took their delusions of grandeur to a cave somewhere in Siberia so we overeducated underemployed starving feminists could have their jobs!!! Stop me before I start spewing words like Utopia!
I think what Norway did in this case is just wrong. Do I think affirmative action is a good idea in politics? Absolutely. In college admissions? Possibly. But this… no way. I think the Norwegian government overstepped its bounds appallingly, and I don’t think it would be a good idea for the philosophy profession to try to emulate it.