Personal Responsibility in an Unjust World: A Reply to Eidelson

Abstract

In this reply to Benjamin Eidelson’s Patterned Inequality, Compounding Injustice and Algorithmic Prediction, I argue that moral unease about algorithmic prediction is not fully explained by the importance of dismantling what Eidelson terms “patterned inequality.” Eidelson is surely correct that patterns of inequality that track socially salient traits like race are harmful and that this harm provides an important reason not to entrench these structures of disadvantage. We disagree, however, about whether this account fully explains the moral unease about algorithmic prediction. In his piece, Eidelson challenges my claim that individual actors also have reason to avoid compounding prior injustice. In this reply, I answer his challenges