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I want to add something that I think is important here. There's a distinction that may help us. Let's distinguish two different claims about involuntary characteristics.

• A person should not be held morally blameworthy because of a natural characteristic like sex or race that he or she does not choose. I think I read this somewhere in John Rawls, the philosopher we'll be discussing next week.
  
• A person should not be discriminated against on the basis of a natural characteristic that he or she does not choose.

Now, when you think about it, these two claims are very different. I agree with the first but not the second. To say that a person "ought not" to be white or black or male or female seems absurd precisely because no one controls these things. But Dee has given some examples of cases in which it may be perfectly all right to discriminate on the basis of some natural characteristics. Maybe someone has enormous natural dexterity and that is exactly why we want them on our basketball team. Or someone might have very poor dexterity and that's why we do not want them. I don't think that sort of discrimination is unjust because dexterity is clearly relevant to doing what the team is supposed to do.

There may be good reasons not to discriminate on the basis of sex or race in making certain decisions, but what I am trying to show is that the fact that sex and race are involuntary characteristics is not by itself sufficient reason to regard that discrimination as unjust.