You might think A isn't as qualified as B. But it is known that inherent bias against A is very likely. So you might decide, even though I believe B to be more qualified, I will go with A, knowing that my judgement might be wrong, because of the likelihood of inherent bias.
In a way, yes, the known biases, can create a new bias. I bias against my known biases. This does mean that at an individual level, I favored someone else, when I initially wouldn't have. But does it result in better outcomes? I think this is where it matters. Let me explain.
If one is chosen and given opportunity over another. That choice is always going to be judgemental and opinionated. You're trying to predict who will make better use of the opportunity and contribute back the most for being given it.
But predictions, like in machine learning, show that a biased data set often perform poorly. So I think part of positive discrimination is to say, diversity could actually yield better results. Yet, because we don't have diverse data, we don't know for sure. But its still okay for the person who chooses to be of the opinion that it would. I find that no different then saying, well I felt they were more knowledgeable. All of it are intractable metrics in an attempt to predict outcome.
Edit: Some more thoughts related to fairness. Is it fair to give opportunity only to those who would maximise it? What if it was true, that there was a genetic quality, sex, or race, or a more specific one, like height, IQ, EQ, etc., which was the key variable to maximize the opportunity? Is it fair to say only they shall be given such opportunity, always? Or should we pick at random? Would that be more fair? Are there other scheme? What does it even mean to be fair? Your genetics aren't fair, should society be fairer then them? Clearly in the modern western world, we seem to define fairness as, whoever can maximize the opportunity the most, shall be given it. Aka, meritocracy. Is this best for our society though? If so, are we doing a good job at it? What if we try to do that, but instead have been giving opportunity to those who most resemble us? Not to those who can most maximise it? What then? Is that unfair?
Positive discrimination is like bombing a village known to harbor terrorists. Sure, you may kill some terrorists and drive the rest underground. You'll also radicalize a bunch of villagers. Suddenly ideas that used to be relegated to the lunatic fringe are going mainstream.
Sound anything like the US political situation in 2018?
Evidence and facts dont support the retaliatory bias position - retaliatory bias is currently too insignificant a force in comparison to previous systemic or societal biases.
Maybe if we lived in a highly equitable society in the first place, the position would make sense - the forces would be more relatively matched.
Currently, all things being equal - the systemic biases are far more significant and harmful to society as a whole.
Judging fairness by maximizing opportunity sounds a lot like the hypothetical counter-utilitarianism argument about harvesting YOU for organs thus saving more lives. Maximizing fairness to society instead of the individual is the basis of ideologies like communism and fascism.
There are numerous examples of how written exams are often biased against minorities due to either using cultural references/vocabulary or to frame problems using metaphors that more apply to an average white person than an average non-white person, so there’s that.
For example we had here in Sweden for a short time a program which gave bonus points for university student applications if the student would end being a minority in their class based on gender. The problem was that rather then seeing more women entering male dominated fields, it was more men who applied for seats in female dominated fields and thus ended up gaining the benefit of this program. It was then challenged by feminist groups as being discriminative which they won which then resulted in the program being scraped. A major issue is that on average the higher education here in Sweden in female dominated so any positive discrimination that is intended to countering inherent bias would primarily benefit men, unless those actions are applied explicitly to the minority of programs which is male dominated such as abstract math, IT, engineering and a few more. As such modern affirmative actions programs are much more selective in where it get applied.
Same issue applies to using affirmative action to counter gender segregation in the work sector. Both men and women have the same employment rate here in Sweden, and about 90% of men and women work in a profession which is gender segregated. Neither gender is more likely or less likely to be a minority or majority, which means that affirmative action in the hiring process would apply equally to both men and women. The only way to break the symmetry is to only apply affirmative action in places which the intended group is the minority and thus get the benefit, such as two current political initiative to get more women into sport management and management boards. By limit to only gender segregation in those areas they can be sure that only women will benefit from the initiative and political this seems to be a major success.
If we use data sets and machine learning to counter bias then it would likely work but it would also benefit both men and women. Political this is not acceptable. People claim that positive discrimination is to be used to countering inherent bias but the way it is actually used is all about political power and who can benefit from it.
It's worse than that.
What doctor would you go to, a white man, a black man, or a woman, if you knew that there's affirmative action for blacks/women, and you wanted (and could afford) the best doctor?
Mind you, picking white man isn't even racist, it's rational in the Bayesian framework (the white/male had to have better exam scores to be admitted to the school than blacks/women).
Only if you assume no inherent counter-bias, which is of course ridiculous. Without affirmative action, blacks/women would have to have equal exam scores coupled with adverse conditions (statistically, on average) to the white/male candidate. By that logic, they would need to perform much better on aggregate.
Anyway, my original question was about fairness :).
I guess the hope is that increased participation will slowly reduce the severity of adversity, but whether that is effective I'm less sure of (I don't really believe it will ever disappear completely tbh).
As for it being more rational to choose the person who contends with adversity on the assumption that the adversity never disappears (and therefore continues to impair), this only works on the assumption that affirmative action is a complete, perfect remedy to adversity: otherwise those contending with adversity must still overachieve to a certain degree to get the same positions (and therefore represent a potentially better rational choice).
Of course I wouldn't really, I'm just using your logic.
Although technically that's a different effect. Affirmative action is, AFAIK, meant to counter negative bias before (i.e. positive discrimination at university entry is meant to counter worse education and poverty at a primary- and high-school level), whereas you're talking about overcoming biases after graduation ("old boys network" etc).
Just philosophizing.
However, to take the bait and make an attempt at analysing it:
- (race/gender-based) adversity in education usually has the effect of reducing your chances of succeeding in exams, admissions, etc.
- (race/gender-based) adversity in professional practice usually has the effect of reducing your chances of acquiring customers, partners, progression within an organisation.
So while she may still face after admission, that adversity should have a much more significant affect on her paycheck than on her medical performance.
How would that work? If we talked about oral exams or job interview then surely there can be a bias. But written exams? I can't imagine how it would be affected by your race.
What can be however affected is your access to quality education prior to the admission, which will affect your admission changes, which should not be an issue after the admission because now you are getting the same quality education as others.
While I can imagine that socio-economic issues (like being black=poor) may affect your access to quality education prior to the admission, I can not imagine how being a woman would affect your access to quality education. Maybe stereotypes in case of STEM?
What is it with this obsession that every requires the best doctor? I don't want the best doctor, I want a good enough doctor who is close to my house location or I will stick to my current doctor because I had good experience with them. Once I stumble upon problems with that doctor I might reevaluate. Sometimes good is good enough, you don't always need the best of the best. My dentist is a woman, and not white. She's great. My doctor is a white male, he is also great. Skin or gender mean nothing to me in this context.
Being only willing to settle for the absolute best doctor in the world is ridiculous, but it is perfectly rational to want to choose the best one out of a small group of candidates. I can't imagine approaching it any other way when my personal health is on the line.
[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medisch_tuchtcollege
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_van_Leeuwenhoekziekenhu...
Feeling safe is related to rapport with the person which is again related to ethnicity, gender, age, behavior, etc.