Wrongful Discrimination and a Social Concept of Autonomy

Abstract

This six-chapter thesis forwards a social concept of autonomy as the foundation to describe acts of wrongful discrimination in a way that fills a gap in the existing literature. Although many common accounts speak of wrongful discrimination as a failure to treat an individual as an equal, or a type of “demeaning” treatment, I argue that these accounts fail to fully acknowledge the impact of our external social environments on autonomy. In Chapter One, I provide a snapshot of wrongful discrimination (in the context of Canadian law) before arguing against using “treatment as equals” to describe what goes wrong in cases of wrongful discrimination. Instead, I suggest that an account that takes on a feminist concept of autonomy will provide a stronger foundation for describing acts of wrongful discrimination. In Chapter Two, I describe the respective strengths and weaknesses of two extant accounts of wrongful discrimination by Sophia Moreau and Benjamin Eidelson. This chapter takes forward strengths from their work and adds a host of further concerns to support my own theory-building. In Chapter Three, I present my social concept of autonomy in full, outlining each element in detail before describing how one should measure autonomy on this account. Chapter Four examines four types of infringements on autonomy that can occur due to being socially situated and subject to an oppressive and controlling external environment. Each infringement links back neatly to the social concept of autonomy outlined in the previous chapter. In Chapter Five, I examine how not all infringements on autonomy can be properly called wrongful discrimination. I describe how mere infringements on autonomy become acts of wrongful discrimination when they fall along lines of current or historical oppression. Further, I explain how this thesis admits of levels of wrong outside the realm of wrongful discrimination—some acts of differentiation and sorting can be wrong without being wrongful discrimination. Finally, Chapter Six displays the strengths of the theory in action by applying the framework to fifteen unique cases from Canadian case law. The goal of this chapter is to showcase the practical usefulness of the theory when it comes to sorting concrete cases and identifying when wrongful discrimination has occurred. Here, I will examine three landmark cases discussed in Chapter One of the thesis along with thirteen new cases.