Vanessa Scholes

In this chapter, I analyse the ethics of organisations assessing applicants based on group risk statistics; for example, parole boards consider information predicting recidivism risk, and employers want to minimise the risk of selecting lower-productivity employees. The organisational rejection of applicants from risky groups is explored as a form of discrimination to help identify the distinct ethical implications for applicant autonomy from the use of group risk statistics. Contra arguments from Schoeman (1987) and Schauer (2003), I argue that there is a substantive difference between assessing applicants directly through group statistics rather than including ‘individualised’ evidence. This difference impacts on the agency of applicants in the process. As organisations have reason to statistically assess applicants, some considerations for increasing applicant agency in the process are suggested. These include focusing on the nature of the factors used to assess applicants (static or dynamic), the transparency of the process to applicants, and the use of statistics specific to individuals.

Your job application is rejected unseen because you ticked a box admitting you smoke. The employer screened out applicants who ticked the 'smoker' box, because she had read empirical studies that suggest smokers, as a group, are a higher productivity risk than non-smokers. What distinctive ethical concerns inhere in the organisational practice of discriminating against applicants on the basis of group risk statistics? I argue that risk-focussed statistical discrimination is morally undesirable due to the lack of respect for applicants as unique autonomous agents. However, I argue further that the decision-making context affects the morality of this discrimination. Other things being equal, the morality of statistical discrimination varies depending on the purpose of the organisation, the level of detail in the discrimination, and whether the discrimination is transparent to applicants and includes some benefit for applicants. Because organisations may have good reason to use risk-focussed statistical discrimination when assessing applicants, I present some recommendations for decision-makers to mitigate the lack of respect for applicants as individual agents. Organisational decision-makers can focus on the extent to which the statistical data they use comprise i) factors that feature efforts and achievements of the applicant; ii) dynamic rather than static factors; and iii) data drawn from the applicant’s own history and actions over time.

There are good reasons for higher education institutions to use learning analytics to risk-screen students. Institutions can use learning analytics to better predict which students are at greater risk of dropping out or failing, and use the statistics to treat ‘risky’ students differently. This paper analyses this practice using normative theories of discrimination. The analysis suggests the principal ethical concern with the differing treatment is the failure to recognize students as individuals, which may impact on students as agents. This concern is cross-examined drawing on a philosophical argument that suggests there is little or no distinctive difference between assessing individuals on group risk statistics and using more ‘individualized’ evidence. This paper applies this argument to the use of learning analytics to risk-screen students in higher education. The paper offers reasons to conclude that judgment based on group risk statistics does involve a distinctive failure in terms of assessing persons as individuals. However, instructional design offers ways to mitigate this ethical concern with respect to learning analytics. These include designing features into courses that promote greater use of effort-based factors and dynamic rather than static risk factors, and greater use of sets of statistics specific to individuals.

This article takes a parsimonious conception of a developed State operating under a minimalist conception of democracy and asks whether such a State must fully resource any tertiary education for its citizens A key public policy barrier to arguing an absolute obligation for the State to resource any tertiary education is considered; namely, the fact of scarce resources creating competing obligations for the State. This article argues even a minimalist conception of democracy requires that States fully resource some tertiary education, regardless of whether directing resources away from other public needs results in the non-prevention of some avoidable suffering and death. A policy recommendation for resourcing this education is considered, and an alternative policy proposed.

From the point of view of a theorist in ethics, the interest in public policy usually centres on the policy outcomes. But this point of view does not take much account of the roles and practices through which public policies are enacted. What additional ethical focuses for the policy agent might these entail? I outline four features of policy making, centred on the agent's performance of their role in the process, that raise ethical issues. These features are: the nature of the policy process; the definition of the public; the treatment of policy agents; and accounting for public policy decisions. Brief examples are used to illustrate the nature of the issues and support the conclusion that these present additional ethical focuses for agents in public policy roles.

This article takes a parsimonious conception of a developed State operating under a minimalist conception of democracy and asks whether such a State must fully resource any tertiary (post-compulsory) education for its citizens A key public policy barrier to arguing an absolute obligation for the State to resource any tertiary education is considered; namely, the fact of scarce resources creating competing obligations for the State. This article argues even a minimalist conception of democracy requires that States fully resource some tertiary (post-compulsory) education, regardless of whether directing resources away from other public needs results in the non-prevention of some avoidable suffering and death. A policy recommendation for resourcing this education is considered, and an alternative policy proposed.

Increasing empirical research on productivity supports the use of statistical or ‘rational’ discrimination in hiring. The practice is legal for features of job applicants not covered by human rights discrimination laws, such as being a smoker, residing in a particular neighbourhood or being a particular height. The practice appears largely morally innocuous under existing philosophical accounts of wrongful discrimination. This paper argues that lawful statistical discrimination treats job applicants in a way that may be considered degrading, and is likely to constrain people’s freedoms in relation to employment, thus giving us reason for moral concern.