August 2008

Is everyone else as amazed as I am about the recent decision by the Ladies Professional Golf Association [where 45 of the top 120 players on the circuit are South Korean] to demand that all players be conversant in English?  I am not prone to such comments, but I can’t help but wonder if this could happen anywhere other than the U.S.  I am particularly taken aback by how easily the association feels it can justify such a decision in branding/marketing terms.  Consider the quote from the deputy commissioner (via NY Times):

“We live in a sports-entertainment environment,” said Libba Galloway, the deputy commissioner of the tour, the Ladies Professional Golf Association. “For an athlete to be successful today in the sports entertainment world we live in, they need to be great performers on and off the course, and being able to communicate effectively with sponsors and fans is a big part of this.”

Nothing personal ladies, just business.  This explanation doesn’t seem too far removed from, “Our fans and sponsors would rather not see South Koreans win so many tournaments, so we will begin every tournament by penalizing South Korean players three strokes.  If they don’t like it, they can go home.  Nobody is forcing them to play.”

This makes me wonder, as a legal/moral issue, where the appropriate line lies between “workplace discrimination” and “responsible business practices given the needs/demands of your patrons.”  Clearly, it is illegal for a restaurant owner to not hire a server because he is worried about losing his racist patrons.  Conversely, Bucknell University is justified in expecting that its faculty members are able to teach in English.

The relevant question seems to be, “Is this characteristic/skill central to performing the job?”  According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,  “A rule requiring that employees speak only English on the job may violate Title VII unless an employer shows that the requirement is necessary for conducting business. If the employer believes such a rule is necessary, employees must be informed when English is required and the consequences for violating the rule.”

The language “if the employer believes such a rule is necessary” is quite striking, and seems to potentially be in conflict with the demand in the previous sentence that employers show that the requirement is necessary for conducting business. As the LPGA case illustrates, decisions regarding  “what is necessary for conducting business” can be quite controversial/potentially racist.

Any thoughts on these matters?  Can someone point me to particularly excellent literature on the subject?

Ah, Fall.  Classes here have started already!  Probably because of what I am teaching this semester I started thinking about the questions we (members and subscribers to this blog and potential members and subscribers of this blog) address.  It seems to me there are three basic questions of our field(s).

1. What should the social world be like?
This, I think, is the domain of social philosophy, properly understood.  One part of that domain, I think, is the political—leading to questions 2 and 3.  The domain of the social, though, is broader and includes how people act in social situations—i.e., here is where we should probably place questions about (non-governmental) power differentials and such (the parenthetical, of course, implies that we can differentiate between governmental and non-governmental power).  I suspect that those that call themselves “political theorists” are often more interested in other aspects of social philosophy than are those that call themselves “political philosophers.”  I’d be interested in knowing if others think that is right or wrong.

2. Should there be a government?
Perhaps this is the primary question of political philosophy.  If the answer is “no,” then the third question might not be asked.  (It might be asked even if the answer is “no” though since even if we should not have a government, we may not have a choice in the matter and would want to determine the best option possible.)  In any case, I think there are a number of elements to this question: Can anyone have a right to rule?  Does anyone have that right? Does anyone have a duty to obey?

3. What sort of government should we have?  This has, I think, 3 sub-questions:
a. Who, of those in a society, should rule?
b. What should the government have the power to do?
c. How should the powers be codified? Are they codifiable? How are the codifications to be understood and interpreted? (philosophy of law)

For completeness, I think we might also say:
The first question “What should the social world be like?” is a part of a broader question: “How should we be and what should we do?”  That, I think, means that Social Philosophy is properly conceived of as part of Ethics—which strikes me as right.  With that addition, we can recognize this tree (or something like it) where each lower field is a branch of the field above it:

Philosophy
Value Theory (as well as Metaphysics and Epistemology and …)
Ethics (as well as aesthetics and …)
Social Philosophy (as well as Normative Ethics, meta-Ethics, and applied ethics)
Political Philosophy (as well as race theory, gender theory, and …)
Philosophy of Law (as well as … )

What do people think about all of this?