The focus of relevancy is getting and keeping as many
clients as possible. We will accept this determinant as it is,
for it is only relevance and inclusivity which interest us at
this place. (As an ultimate value we would definitely condemn
such a determinant.) The factor of distinction is the appearance
of the workers who have to personally deal with those
clients. We assume that in a strict sense all people considered
are or would be doing their work equally well, whatever they are
wearing or not wearing, so long as they have the job. It is
essential to this example that the quality of work is defined in
terms independent of the number of customers that actually are
attracted or will be attracted. We also assume that a number of
clients will not do business with the firm in question if the
workers of this firm they have to deal with, dress or adorn
themselves in a way these clients find objectionable for reasons
which are false or irrelevant to the quality of the service
rendered to these clients. (Also this requirement is inherent in
this kind of example. The fact that the client dislikes the
clothes or adornments is by itself no sufficient reason not to
do business with the persons, the men or the women concerned.
For the sake of argument, the falsity or irrelevance of the
client`s reasons must be recognized by the manager at least
vis-à-vis `er own workers.)
The question is now whether the employer can morally --so
far as the relevance principle is concerned-- require a worker,
a female worker or a male worker to dress or adorn
`imself so
that no customer will stay away (granting that there is such a
fashion). The manager might give the following justification for
not employing a person of 'undesirable' appearance: (a1) the
object of business is to make money and to get as many clients
as possible --note that if this were really the only objective,
`e would have to do business
with any customer, also a fascist
regime, for instance--; (a2) the worker`s appearance repels
clients or potential clients; (a3) hence, appearance is relevant
in respect of the person`s position in the firm, and firing or
not hiring a person with an appearance which keeps clients away
is not to be denounced as discrimination. (b) If there are also
people who would not like to deal with members of, for example,
racial or ethnic minorities (easily recognizable by their skin
color, accent, and so on), this is a different case --the
manager might argue-- because people cannot alter their color
or other ethnic characteristics, whereas they should be able to
dress or adorn themselves in an adequate way, that is, a way all
clients find 'normal' for human beings, or for men or for women.
(c) To hire or refuse to hire somebody on the grounds of `er
race, ethnicity or sex is illegal --the employer might finally
argue-- but to do this on the basis of somebody`s personal
appearance is not.
From the standpoint of the universal version of the relevance
principle the employer`s 'relevance' is circular because: (a)
--given our basic assumptions-- the customers stay away for
false or irrelevant reasons. These 'reasons', or rather the
attitudes underlying them, are themselves morally objectionable.
The relevance with respect to the focus therefore depends
on external nonrelevance (or nonrelevance and/or falsity).
(b) The workers may be able to adjust their personal appearance
(whereas nobody can sufficiently change, say, `er skin color or
female gender) but this 'freedom' is not to the point, as the
question is precisely whether the worker should do so from a
normative point of view. (Negative) freedom is then already
presupposed, that is, both the freedom of the worker to dress
and adorn in widely divergent ways, and the freedom of the
company (private or governmental) to discriminate or not to
discriminate on the basis of appearance, ethnicity, gender,
marital status, sexual orientation, political or denominational
ideology adhered to, or what have you. Such 'freedom' merely
refers to an absence of practical constraints, not to any
normative justification (or it must be on the grounds of some
principle of liberty). And, it has to be stressed again that the
question of whether an action is right or wrong should not be
confused with the question of whether it should be forbidden or
not. (c) While freedom to change is not an argument for or
against, the legality of an action is in itself not an argument
for or against its being normatively justifiable either.
(Something is not immoral because the law disallows it, nor is
something moral because the law does not disallow it.) If
clients have prejudices concerning personal appearance as they
have prejudices concerning race and sex, it is not any better to
base a judgment of relevance on the occurrence of the former
prejudices than to base it on the latter, altho the former thing
may be legal and the latter not.
As the causal connection between the worker`s personal
appearance and the number of customers attracted depends on a
case of external nonrelevance, the employer may, according to
the universal version of the relevance principle, not require
`er employees to change their appearance just to make sure that
no (biased) customer will be repelled by this appearance. This
conclusion holds when the argument is taken at face value.
However, if the very existence or continuation of the firm or
job itself is at stake, the worker`s appearance does matter in a
different way. Under this condition, the company at issue would
have to keep or hire a person for a job which would be lost if
`e were indeed kept there or hired for this job. Not being able,
then, to do `er work well in the strict sense (because not at
all) in the near future, even the worker `imself could recognize
this as a reason not to keep or employ `im. The relevant factor
is, then, not personal appearance, but the quality of work to be
done and remaining to be done in the strict sense.
The implications of this proviso are not necessarily as
far-reaching as one might suspect. Firstly, it must be a
particular job which will be lost if a particular person of
'unwanted' appearance stays with this firm or is put on this
job. If only the total number of jobs of the same kind would
diminish, the work left could still be done just as well by
people of the (formerly) disputed appearance. Secondly, a
general decrease in employment and business will only result if
the client does not go to anyone else to get the service `e
wants. It will not result if the client is going to get it
anyhow. Sure, no business person would like to see `er clients
go to a competitor (but a business person endorsing the
relevance principle would like to see `er discriminating clients
go elsewhere). This presupposes, however, that the client can go
to a firm which complies with `er every wish, however discriminatory.
And this presupposes that there is such a firm which
can do that legally and/or without being controlled morally by
the rest of the community. Thirdly, the question is not really
whether one or more jobs would be lost if a company were to
employ bodies of 'unwanted' appearance, but rather whether more
jobs would be lost than if the company refused to employ people
discriminated against by a certain category of clients or
potential clients. The number of clients lost would only be more
in the former case, if the number of (potential) clients who
stay away if the firm gives in to people who discriminate
against some of its workers, were less. Hence, the proviso will
or will not have far-reaching implications dependent on the
situation. All those endorsing the relevance principle can try
to make sure that the conditions of the proviso clearly do not
hold. Their moral strategy should be to make it as difficult as
possible for discriminating clients to go to a different firm.
Furthermore, they themselves would not deal with firms giving in
to that sort of customers.
When looking at this matter it is absolutely necessary to
keep sight of the fact that the above example would remain of
the same kind if people`s biases with respect to ethnicity,
nationality or denominational convictions, for instance, were
substituted for those with respect to dress and adornment. If
someone would let business prevail over a conscientious interpretation
of the universal version of the relevance principle in
the latter case, `e had no reason not to let it prevail in the
former case, judging from the normative standpoint. And when `er
doxastic or purported 'relevance' does objectively speaking not
hold, a distinction made by `im on the grounds of any of these
factors is discriminatory. Thus, in the event that the client is
a country which requires the employees of a company to belong to
a monotheist religion, it is the task of all people espousing
the universal version of the principle of discriminational
relevance to ensure that the proviso does not hold, and that
this distinction is not relevant for the company in question.
This entails in the first place that they themselves refuse to
deal with such a country and with people doing business with
such a country under those conditions.
1.1.7.0
FROM IRRELEVANCE SET FREE
You shall know when an utterance is likely to be false,
and the presence of the truth shall bind everyone.
You shall know when a distinction is likely to be irrelevant,
and the absence of irrelevance shall free everyone.