The role of personal responsibility in wrongful discrimination judgments

In its most generic definition, discrimination is the disadvantageous differential treatment of the other who belongs to a salient group that has or is believed to have some particular features. An endless list of victims and perpetrators could be invoked, with most of us easily detecting its presence. Yet, what about controversial cases where the presence of additional factors, like one’s responsibility for the targeted feature, seems to obfuscate our judgment and highlight our insufficient understanding of the concept? While studies from the last 20 years in the UK, the US, and the Nordic countries show that most of the public takes personal responsibility into account when healthcare resource allocation is considered, the relationship between personal responsibility and discrimination in this and other sectors remains poorly examined. By bringing together experimental methods and normative theories, I analyze an ethically approved and preregistered cross-country survey experiment conducted among a representative sample of British and Danish participants. In essence, I empirically test whether the presence of personal responsibility for one’s current need regarding one’s health and employment status affects laypeople’s perception of wrongful discrimination across different countries, domains, and individuals’ features and/or personal considerations.