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Being good-looking is useful in so many ways. In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also help

admin2014-09-05  69
问题     Being good-looking is useful in so many ways. In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers. The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.
    Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.
    How could we remedy this injustice? A radical solution may be needed-, why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals? We actually already do offer such protections in a few places, including in some jurisdictions in California, and in the District of Columbia, where discriminatory treatment based on looks in hiring, promotions, housing and other areas is prohibited. The mechanics of legislating this kind of protection are not as difficult as you might think. Ugliness could be protected generally in the United States by small extensions of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Ugly people could be allowed to seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies in overcoming the effects of discrimination.
    You might argue that people can’t be classified by their looks — that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In one study, more than half of a group of people were assessed identically by each of two observers using a five-point scale; and very few assessments differed by more than one point.
    There are possible other objections. "Ugliness" is not a personal trait that many people choose to embrace; those whom we classify as protected might not be willing to admit that they are ugly. But with the chance of obtaining extra pay and promotions amounting to $230,000 in lost lifetime earnings, there’s a large enough incentive to do so. Bringing antidiscrimination lawsuits is also costly, and few potential plaintiffs could afford to do so. But many attorneys would be willing to organize classes of plaintiffs to overcome these costs, just as they now do in racial-discrimination and other lawsuits.
    Economic arguments for protecting the ugly are as strong as those for protecting some groups currently covered by legislation. So why not go ahead and expand protection to the looks-challenged? There’s one legitimate concern. With increasingly tight limits on government resources, expanding rights to yet another protected group would reduce protection for groups that have commanded our legislative and other attention for over 50 years. You might reasonably disagree and argue for protecting all deserving groups. Either way, you shouldn’t be surprised to see theUnited States heading toward this new legal frontier.
In the author’s opinion, to legislate protection for the ugly is______.
选项 A、ideologically radical
B、fundamentally unnecessary
C、economically unrealistic
D、legally feasible
答案D
解析 本题考查文中作者的观点态度。作者在第三段明确提出应该为长相丑陋的人提供法律保护。“进行立法保护并不是人们通常以为的那么困难，只需对《美国残疾人法案》做出细微扩展就可实现。”因此，[D]正确。[A]、[B]和[C]是反向干扰。
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