Discrimination and Rights
(John Speaking)

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If you've read Alan Goldman on this issue, you know that he agrees that we must establish a right that has been violated by racial discrimination in hiring. He uses the approach taken by John Rawls.

Rawls believes that the basic rules of a just society are those that would be freely chosen by a group of rational people who do not know their place in society, their class, their natural abilities, and so on. Goldman accepts this definition and argues that such people would adopt a rule requiring that most jobs be awarded on the basis of competence. Hence we have a right to be chosen for most jobs on the basis of competence, and racial discrimination by public or private employers is unjust because it violates that right.

Reference: Goldman argues for a right to be hired on the basis of competence in chapter two of Justice and Reverse Discrimination. Rawls uses the notion of the "original position" in his THEORY OF JUSTICE, section three.

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