From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Date: 10 Jan 93 16:55:22 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo


                                    Sunday, the 10th of January, 1993

Steve Pope writes:
  Morris indeed believes that it should be "allowed" that
  employees be firable for Jewishness, since Morris believes that
  employees should be firable for *any* reason.  Thus, allowing the
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^          
  firing of Jews moves us a little bit closer to his ideal.

I know what you mean by this, Steve, but just to underline what I do
believe: I do not believe that employees should be firable for
*any* reason. I simply believe that the law should not punish employers
for choosing grounds to fire which may be in themselves immoral.
I believe rather that the relationship between employer and employee
ought to governed by a contract, which contract will lay out
the only acceptable grounds for firing. I believe there is no
reason why, in the vast majority of cases, employers would not
*want* to sign a standard contractual clause, saying something like ``the
employee shall not be terminated for any reason other than one
relating to job performance''. I believe such a clause in other
words *would* become standard in this society if there were no
non-discrimination law. I also believe that the ``reasons relating
to job performance'' may not be so easy to define (except of course
by legal fiat) as my interlocutors seem to think.

Steve writes:
  What bugs me is that while Morris is not in favor of discrimination,
  he very readily *accepts* it if it shaves things in favor of his
  philosophy.  Morris will permit massive discrimnation if it
  allows just a little more conformance with a purely theoretical
  advantage.  

I told you, Steve, that I would be willing to accept discrimination
in my direction as well for the same reason. I have also retreated
on my support for CO2, for the reason that, though it moves in the
direction of attacking the non-discrimination laws I don't approve of,
I now agree that it does so in an unprincipled and unfair way.

  The problem, Morris, is that discrimination is *real*, whereas
  the advantages of having total employer discretion in firing
  (which CO2 doesn't come close to giving them, anyway) are
  somewhere between "unclear" and "nonexistent".

No, Steve, I think the reality is quite different. The non-discrimination
laws in reality *immediately and directly* limit an employer's Right
to associate with whomever he wishes (i.e. Right to make up his
own reasons for hiring B rather than A). The *reality* also is that
these laws add a whole big bunch of mickey-mouse policing over
employers, so that it is now near impossible to fire anyone for
any reason for fear of the lawyers. And the *reality* is that the law,
as the law currently stands, puts a big neon sign over the head of any
minority person, warning the employer that if he hires this person,
he had better dot his legal i's and cross his legal t's extra carefully,
i.e. making it rather less attractive for the employer to hire this
person than it otherwise would be. Plus there's the *reality* that
any employer who's willing to argue before a court of law that
he fired someone *because* he found this person is heterosexual (what
I think would be implied by the objection that if ``heterosexual
orientation'' were added, then an employer could fire anyone) typically
has no problem coming up with some excuse other than bigotry for firing
a minority person. The reality is, these laws cast a net of suspicion
over many innocent people (i.e. drive political reaction), and they drive
the real problem of discrimination underground.

                        Mike Morris
               (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books