Risky business – the ethics of judging individuals based on group statistics.
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Open Access Location
Authors
Scholes, V.
Keywords
Applied ethics
Organisations
Decision-making
Organisations
Decision-making
Description of form
Publisher
Rights
Rights holder
Issue Date
2016
Peer-reviewed status
Type
Book chapter
Abstract
This paper analyses the ethics of organisations assessing applicants based on group risk statistics. For example, parole boards consider information predicting recidivism risk; insurance companies calculate the risk that an insured will make a claim; and employers want to minimise the chance of selecting lower-productivity employees. This paper explores organisational rejection of applicants from risky groups as a form of discrimination to help identify the distinct ethical implications for applicant autonomy from the use of group risk statistics. Contra Schoeman (1987) and Schauer (2003), this paper argues 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. The paper concludes with recommendations for how to bolster applicant agency when using risk statistics to assess applicants.
Citation
Scholes, V. (2016). Risky business – the ethics of judging individuals based on group statistics. In M. Grix and T. Dare (Eds.), Contemporary Issues in Applied and Professional Ethics (pp. 169–188). Emerald. doi:10.1108/s1529-209620160000015010