Is it wrong to take into consideration creed when making hiring decisions?

[Boojatta]

Note that I'm not asking whether or not it is in most cases illegal under American law. I'm asking whether or not it's wrong. If the law forbids things that are not wrong, then it might be a good idea to reform the law. Similarly, if it is wrong, then it might be a good idea to work towards reforming the law in places where it isn't illegal.

Special request: if you have an answer to the question, but you don't intend to explain the basis for your answer, then please don't post in this thread. This is not a poll.

[Occam Bandage]

1. Obviously, so long as that creed does not unreasonably interfere with

that person's job duties. Frankly, I cannot find the slightest scrap of justification for saying otherwise.

[Boojatta]

16. Suppose the founder of a new creed establishes a business

that doesn't provide any religion-oriented products or services, but that is managed in accordance with rules specified in the official scriptures of the creed. Giving preference to adherents of the creed means that the founder can say, "I don't wish to hire people who will grudgingly accept the rules. I will not live forever and I don't wish to hire people who might in future try to change the rules. I wish to hire people who whole-heartedly accept the rules."

If the business is very successful and creates good jobs, then people might want to work for it. Imagine that a job applicant says, "Either the founder happens to have talent for business or the founder is just lucky. There's no particular value in the rules." Why should the company have to ignore such a statement?

[Occam Bandage]

28. If it is true that people who do not adhere to the creed

are less able or willing to follow the rules of the business, and if it is therefore true that their presence interferes unreasonably with the business, then it is reasonable to decline hiring such persons, assuming (of course) that there are no previously-unmentioned factors that may influence the case.

[Boojatta]

30. Why must there be an observable lack of ability or willingness to justify consideration of creed?

What if, through internal promotions, people hired for a routine job may eventually have managerial responsibilities and the power to change the character of the business? Lack of any observable resistance to something doesn't mean that there is a positive attitude towards it. Why should a company be compelled to hire people who may take the position that the company is necessarily lucky and that its rules have no value? If the company is just lucky, then why can't they find another company that is also lucky and that has different rules?

[Occam Bandage]

31. Because otherwise the justification is non-existent. The only moral justification for failure

to hire an applicant is if the applicant is in any way unable or unwilling to perform their job duties. If their creed makes them unable or unwilling, then they are not fit for the job, and should not be hired. If the hiring officer believes with justification that the applicant's creed makes them unable or unwilling, then he is justified in turning them down. If the hiring officer believes without justification that the applicant's creed makes them unable or unwilling, then he is unjustified in turning them down. An applicant who arrives at an interview, who argues with the interviewer over corporate philosophy, and who explicitly disparages the rules of the business is clearly unwilling and is thus unfit for employment.

[Boojatta]

32. "explicitly disparages"

That's impressive language, but what do you mean?

For example:

Suppose I assert that a particular kind of pill is a placebo. I presume that the following is consistent with that assertion: taking one such pill per day neither has medicinal value nor has any medicinal disvalue. If I also assert that taking the pill might have benefits through psycho-somatic processes, then can I claim that I am not explicitly disparaging that kind of pill?

Note: simply answering that question "yes, you can claim that" or "no, you cannot claim that" will not be helpful unless you can support your answer by connecting it to the meaning of the word combination "explicitly disparages."

[Occam Bandage]

33. Simple. You've said the person claims the rules of the business are worthless, and that

its success is more a matter of luck than a reflection of the value of the business practices. The person was therefore explicitly disparaging his hypothetical job duties. If a business is guided by a set of rules, and if a job applicant makes clear that they hold those rules in no esteem, then it is reasonable to conclude that the applicant would not be willing to fulfill his job duties.

At this point we leave the discussion at hand aside, and we wander off into the thicket.

As for your pill hypothetical, well, it entirely depends on what type of pill it is. If the pill in question is a sugar pill and is presented as such, you have accurately described it. If the pill in question is presented as being capable of (through its intrinsic medicinal value) curing, treating, preventing, or mitigating disease or illness, then by calling it a placebo you have indeed explicitly disparaged it.

Now, the definition of explicit should not be in question here. In both cases, the value of a certain thing has been denied clearly and without question regarding the denier's intent. The definition of "disparage," I assume, is what is being questioned. I assume we can agree on the American Heritage Dictionary's definition, i.e., "To reduce in esteem or rank."

In this case, you have explicitly denied the medicinal value of a pill. Assuming it was seen as having medicinal value before your utterance, you have in speaking attempted to reduce the perceived value of the pill. That is to say, you have explicitly disparaged it. While the parallels to our employment discussion are obvious, I hope you will enlighten me with the purpose of this tangent.

[Boojatta]

36. Is there a right to refuse to hire you to...

dispense homeopathic remedies purely on the grounds that you honestly and openly reveal being persuaded by neither a theory of the alleged value of homeopathic remedies nor by experimental data allegedly demonstrating that homeopathic remedies are effective compared to pills that are universally agreed to be placeboes?

Assuming it was seen as having medicinal value before your utterance, you have in speaking attempted to reduce the perceived value of the pill.

[Occam Bandage]

37. If you hold that belief to the extent that it would interfere with your ability to dispense, yes.

Otherwise, no.

[Boojatta]

39. Why shouldn't an employer be permitted to hire with future promotions in mind?

Why should consideration be restricted to the ability to perform the first job that the applicant may be hired to do? Why should consideration be restricted to ability to dispense the pills?

Earlier you wrote this:

An applicant who arrives at an interview, who argues with the interviewer over corporate philosophy, and who explicitly disparages the rules of the business is clearly unwilling and is thus unfit for employment.

If the pill in question is presented as being capable of (through its intrinsic medicinal value) curing, treating, preventing, or mitigating disease or illness, then by calling it a placebo you have indeed explicitly disparaged it.

The only thing that I see in the above preventing you from contradicting yourself is the part about arguing with the interviewer over corporate philosophy.

An argument about corporate philosophy might have the outcome of persuading the job applicant that the corporate philosophy is good. A job applicant who doesn't argue about corporate philosophy might consider the corporate philosophy to be worth nothing but lip service. A job applicant who doesn't argue about corporate philosophy might have decided that the odds of getting hired will be increased by not arguing about it until much later.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Yes

because creed really is a label, and says nothing about character. In my lifetime, I've known ministers who were con men and unemployed folks with no money who were upstanding and honest. And, of course, the other way round as well. The point is that your actions speak your faith, not a label. I've known many Jews who have followed the example of Jesus far better than some Christians. Any person who touts their label is one that rouses suspicions in my mind, as the teachings of most faiths emphasize not drawing attention to oneself, especially in regards to religion.

[Boojatta]

9. "unemployed folks with no money who were upstanding and honest."

If there's a special creed shared by all people who are unemployed and have no money, then it's news to me.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Ok, too late to edit

but I'll say church members who are unemployed with no money.

[deadmessengers]

3. Not universally, no.

Let's put it this way. If you had a job applicant that you knew was a member of a "Christian Identity" hate group (a group that makes a religious case for racism), and you knew that you had a diverse workplace that included people of many different faiths and ethnic backgrounds, it probably wouldn't be ethically wrong to take that into consideration. It would almost certainly be illegal under US law as written, but not unethical in my opinion.

Another case: would the Bnai Brith Anti-Defamation league be ethically wrong in being reluctant to hire a Wahabbi Muslim?

[jobycom]

11. That's not illegal, anyway.

A person has to be qualified and able to perform the job. Civil Rights legislation only bans discrimination based on identity issues. A person whose religion caused them to hate certain groups would not be qualified to work with those groups, any more than a blind employee would be eligible to work a job requiring sight (although if the employer could find a work-around for the sight issue, he could not use the disability to discriminate).

Ultimately, all anti-discrimination laws say is that a person's disability, race, gender, creed, national origin, or family status cannot be used to discriminate against them. A one-legged black Muslim woman from Jamaica with no husband and two children can be turned down for a job if she is not qualified, or if someone else is more qualified, or if an employer prefers another equally qualified applicant, or even because one of her qualifications would prevent her from doing the job even with all reasonable adjustments, but she can't be turned down simply because she's disabled, black, Muslim, a woman, from Jamaica, or an unmarried mother.

[DAGDA56]

4. For me, it falls into what works best for my business...I don't care

about a person's private beliefs or orientation. I do have a right to protect my business and its image, however. If an employee alienates my customers, I would address it immediately. This could include anything from quoting scripture to using the "N" word. Certain religious accessories or traditional clothing are more difficult to deal with, and require more sensitivity. This afternoon, I saw an employee of a chain sandwich shop wearing the company's uniform shirt over traditional Arabic head covering. I guess it comes down to local community standards, rather than personal prejudice. Why go to all the trouble to market goodwill, only to put it at risk with an some religious aspect? A smart businessman is there to make money, not to evangelize (unless that's the business he's in).

[sandnsea]

6. Excuse me?

You can't not hire someone because of their religious or cultural dress either.

[DAGDA56]

10. I know that...I did not say I would not hire them. I may have

not expressed myself clearly enough.

[sandnsea]

5. How would you know someone's religion?

Religion has no place in the workplace. How could that question even come up in a constitutional job interview. Shut up about your damn religion people.

[Boojatta]

8. I heard that the French government said that...

religious symbols on personal attire don't belong in public schools in France. Presuming that public schools in France haven't been completely automated, I conclude that a public school in France is a workplace. Thus, I see a possibility that there might be some connection between policy in France and your statement "religion has no place in the workplace."

What do you think?

[sandnsea]

12. I disagree with the French policy on attire

Which is completely different than hiring practices based on religion. Somebody comes in with a crucifix and I should use that as a basis for hiring them? I don't think so.

[Boojatta]

15. Some people, upon receiving a phone call from

someone who does political opinion polling work, announce that they have a policy of not accepting telephone calls from strangers. I suppose the person who made the call could respond by asking for a job interview. After all, if they hadn't been strangers to each other, then the person who received the call might have known the religion of the person who made the call.

(Note: I recognize that not every person who refuses calls from strangers is in a position to give a job interview, but it makes more sense to ask and risk getting no interview than to not ask and guarantee no interview.)

[jobycom]

7. Anything which tells people they are ineligible for something because they fall into a category

is wrong, IMHO, with the qualification of legal and common sense issues. A child molester shouldn't work at a day care, for instance--though that's more an argument of what a person has done than who they are. In general, a person should be hired or not based on them as an individual, and their indivdual attributes, not on assumptions about them as members of a larger group.

I could buy an argument that a Catholic church shouldn't hire a qualified secretary who is an avowed Satanist, I suppose. But otherwise, a person's religious beliefs should not be used to reject a hire.

Then there are gray areas, sort of. Like, when a person's religion would forbid them from dispensing abortion drugs. In that case, the employer could argue that they were not qualified to do the job, since they couldn't dispense all medications, whereas the applicant could argue that the employer could use a work-around, and let others fill the few prescriptions that they are morally opposed to filling. I generally side against discrimination for those issues.

The whole issue is hard to legislate. Most employers are smart enough to not say "I'm not hiring you because you are Muslim," but rather, "You were one of the finalists but we went with someone with more qualifications." That's how discrimination generally works, anyway.

[cosmik debris]

14. Wrong for whom?

Hiring a racist to work in a store with all an minority customer base would be wrong to the owners and customers of the store.

Who are we trying to please?

[Sanctified]

18. What about hiring a minority to work at a store,

with an all racist customer base? If the person is qualified you have to hire them.

[cosmik debris]

19. The question was not about legality

It was about right and wrong.

Since right and wrong are subjective ideas, I had to ask "right or wrong for whom?"

Right for one person may be wrong for another.

(And there is no law in the US requiring you to hire a person just because they are qualified.)

[Boojatta]

21. "right and wrong are subjective ideas"

That sounds like a claim. If it is a claim, can you support it?

[cosmik debris]

22. I already did.

In my first post I gave an example that was both right and wrong depending on your perspective--right for the employee, wrong for the employer and customers.

Now it is your turn. Can you support the claim that wrong and right are absolute?

In the absence of a rebuttal, I will assume that you agree with me.

[Boojatta]

23. Before I continue this subthread with you,

I would like to post something that you wrote in the past:

I had forgotten how tedious, fruitless, and frustrating it is

To try to have a conversation with you. But I remember now. Thanks for the polite reminder.

Now, that's obviously not a rebuttal. However, it should help to explain why I ask the following question:

Are you sure that you want to have this discussion?

[cosmik debris]

24. I had hoped that you had learned not to be so tedious.

If that lesson has escaped you, then there is not much point in continuing.

I'll let you decide.

[Boojatta]

25. I think we would need a list of rules on tediousness and...

an unbiased umpire to interpret the rules and decide how they apply to our posts.

[cosmik debris]

26. Obviously that lesson escaped you.

Thanks again for the polite reminder.

[Unvanguard]

34. If I may interject with such a "rebuttal"

You've presented a case of moral disagreement: the employer thinks it's right to discriminate against the employee, the employee thinks it's wrong for her to be discriminated against.

But disagreement does not in itself imply subjectivity--take disagreement about, say, creation or evolution. One of the two is objective fact, and the other is false: the mere fact of disagreement does not change that.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but from the context of the example I think you might be getting at something like this: moral judgments are necessarily dependent upon perspective within society, such that the employer (whose interest is in discrimination) comes to think that discrimination is morally legitimate, and the employee (whose interest is in not being discriminated against) comes to think the opposite. If that is the case, it certainly follows that morality is fundamentally subjective.

But I think this is a false picture, at least insofar as I have imputed to my hypothetical formulation the word "necessarily": certainly, as a matter of material fact, people's views on morality are affected by their interests and their position within society, but I am not convinced that this is an exclusive source. Reason itself seems to reject it as a foundation for morality: logically, from "It is in my interest to discriminate" it does not follow that "It is right to discriminate." It might be in my interest but still wrong; it may suit my social role but still be unacceptable. So while it may be the case that people derive moral principles from their interests and social roles, rationally, people should not--and this in itself is an objective principle of "right."

Can we do better? Can we construct a moral framework that does not depend on our interests and social roles? I think it is possible. The merely formal principle I have already given, that requires making moral judgments independently of such elements, itself provides us with some of the groundwork, by suggesting that we should not make decisions about "right" that we can only accept from our private, selfish perspectives... but rather should look for principles that we can accept universally (which is just the same as saying that they are not dependent on any such perspective.)

I'm not sure how clear that was.

[cosmik debris]

35. Not really

I was using the cui bono standard for right and wrong. What is right (beneficial) for one person is wrong (detrimental) for the other.

It is not an issue of morality, but an matter of business.

[Dorian Gray]

17. For the most part it would be wrong

though there are obvious exceptions. A Baptist Minister, for instance, should be a member of the Baptist faith. (Same with any other religious faith.) I also don't have a problem with a private institution of learning hiring people from that particular religion. (Though my husband's Catholic school employs many non-Catholic teachers, including those of Jewish, Islamic, Protestant and other backgrounds. The teachers of theology at the school, however, are Catholic.)

[Boojatta]

20. "a private institution of learning"

If the institution demands that instructors not just understand but believe, and if the institution gets an exemption from law governing discrimination in hiring on the basis of that allegedly legitimate demand, then I think that the institution should be required by law to include the word "indoctrination" in its proposed name. Also, there's an important detail. If the name insinuates that the organization doesn't practice indoctrination, then the government should refuse to approve the proposed name.

[Dorian Gray]

27. I have no problem with that...

I wouldn't send my children to an institute where all the teachers were one religion. But, they do exist. There are Yeshivas where all the instructors are, indeed, Jewish. There are Muslim schools here in NYC where I would find it unusual to have a non-muslim teacher.

I would not send my children to any of those places because I am not Jewish or Muslim. But, I don't have a problem with them hiring only people of their religion. I also think it's relatively clear that they are institutions that instruct/indoctrinate in a particular religion.

I would send my kids to a Catholic school, and other than the Cathedral Prep in the city, most of them employ people outside of the Catholic faith. (And the Cathedral Prep Seminaries might, as well. I am uncertain. Though their staffs have a higher concentration of priests and nuns than regular old Catholic Schools do, as they are preparatory seminaries for high school boys.)


Outside of that realm, however... at corporations and public jobs and retail stores... I would have a huge problem with any of them hiring people of a particular religion.

[Meshuga]

38. I have seen different

Not many non-Jews are interested in Jewish education degrees so it might be rare to see a non-Jew teaching any kind of Jewish studies at a Yeshiva. I have never seen one myself. But I have seen non-Jewish teachers for other subjects (English, Math, Economics, etc.).

But I see what you mean. Jewish studies is part of the curriculum in a Yeshiva so why would a Catholic send their kids to a Jewish school? Jewish schools are meant to be immersion of Judaism so it would be tricky for a non-Jew to participate.

[silverweb]

29. It might be necessary.

Can a fundamentalist pro-lifer be a pharmacist in a store that sells contraceptives and Plan B?

Can an orthodox Jew or a strict Muslim be a butcher in a store that handles pork?

I think there are some times that creed has a very direct effect on a person's ability to handle a particular job.

[Boojatta]

40. Kick to elicit more comments.

[edhopper]

41. The answer is

Yes