When philosophers examine the social redistribution of resources among persons the concept of justice is usually invoked. As Aristotle noted, there are two spheres of justice: justice in distribution of resources and justice in retribution. Arguments involving affirmative action may invoke either or both. The philosophical study of both retributive and distributive justice involves the formal principle of justice, which states that "Individuals ought to receive no less nor more than they deserve.
This entails material principles of distributive justice, which include: merit, need, equality and utility. NEED- Distribute resources in such a way as to protect the least advantaged. Unfortunately, it is not often clear which material principle ought to rule in distributing any given resource and applying these principles often leads to different distribution patterns, and therefore, different individuals may benefit from adopting any of the above redistribution schemes.
For example, merit scholarships are awarded to the best students, but not necessarily the neediest. Scholarships based on need do not necessarily reward the best students.
If you distribute scholarships equally, it may tend to undermine hard work on the part of all students, especially the "best" ones. Why apply yourself in high school, if you will be given a scholarship whether you study or not? The arguments for and against affirmative action can be traced to opposing views on human nature and role of government ought to play in distributing scarce resources.
Liberalism says that government may not interfere in the free choices that individuals make in pursuit of resources. In liberal societies, such as the United States, individual voluntarily associate themselves with various groups and individuals voluntary association s in order to satisfy their needs and wants.
Hence, families, clans, tribes, and nations were invented out of self-interest. Originally the first associations were probably formed in order to secure mutual protection from other predatory individuals and groups.
Friendship, according to classical liberalism, was also born out of mutual self-interest, "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours!
With the rise of eighteenth-century liberalism, government was no longer thought of as a matter of divine right to be exercised by superior individuals, but rather as a social contract between the rulers and the ruled. This concept of a social contract is quite simple. Rationally self-interested individuals come together to form communities or groups in order to maximize self-interest.
This often requires giving up certain rights to the government, that individuals would ordinarily exercise on their own in a state of nature. The United States government, the crown jewel of Enlightenment liberalism, promised its citizens "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in its constitution.
Some Enlightenment philosophers merely sought governmental protection from those who would seize their private property, others sought a more comprehensive set of rights. Hence the difference between libertarians and welfare liberals. More on that in a minute. Before the advent of voluntary communities, social distinctions were based on natural attributes.
Hence, the Darwinian phrase, "survival of the fittest. Hence, democracy, together with the concept that "the ruled rule the rulers," became the key political tenets of liberalism. So in order for liberal democracies to function, the government must treat its individual citizens as if they were, in fact, equals and therefore, exercise impartiality. Impartiality requires, for example, that I tell the truth to everyone with equal commitment, and not just to my relatives and friends; and that I refrain from killing or stealing from persons, whether I know them or not.
Hence, morality is considered independent of whatever social distinctions and personal relationships that may arise within any particular regime at any particular time. So doing "what's right" is considered prior to all communal interests "imbedded" in family, culture, friendship, or locality.
That's why we find it morally repugnant for public officials to hire their relatives. Nepotism involves treating one's family and friends better than others, regardless of other more salient attributes.
Indeed, we expect, at least some, social goods to be distributed impartially. The problem here is that impartiality tends to undermine the basic concepts of family and friendship, which entail that we sometimes treat relatives and friends better than other persons.
In fact, my family and friends would be disappointed if I always treated them the same as I do strangers, even if I treated strangers extraordinarily well. Indeed, family and friendship demand that we treat our closer acquaintances better than everyone else. Would you be more likely to exercise beneficence toward family and friends or strangers? There is, however, an important rift within modern Enlightenment Project liberalism between libertarians and welfare liberals that can be traced back to the early social contract writers.
Although, both camps embrace democracy and agree that justice and equality are important social and political concepts, they disagree on how far communal interests can encroach upon individual interests and therefore, they disagree as to what justice and equality entail in terms of government. Libertarians are fiercely committed to individual liberty and the private ownership of property.
Human beings, they argue, naturally pursue ownership of their own resources, which in turn satisfy their personal needs and wants.
Since human needs and wants often exceed the supply of resources, competition is inevitable. To be consistent with essential American principle, such schools must be open enrollment, not picking and choosing among citizens for any reason.
Private colleges are fundamentally different because they are, well, private. They can make their own rules without imposing them on everyone or forcing anyone to fund them.
It is in these schools that affirmative action can, and should be, wholeheartedly embraced. These colleges should be clear about their policies — they should state openly that they practice affirmative action — but they are under no obligation to be color blind.
What about government aid that would go to students attending these schools? But within one or two generations, we can still identify victims and come up with plausible measures of the compensation they deserve. They still suffered injustice. Here there are two points to make. First, courts have ruled out compensatory justice as a rationale for affirmative action in university admissions. Second, procedural justice might also justify affirmative action. Suppose you believe that private, social discrimination against people who are visibly black remains a significant problem in American society, as seems likely.
In their education and home environments, blacks might on average experience more significant challenges than whites and others. Adopting a formally race-blind admissions policy would fail to take these factors into account and would not actually satisfy the procedural justice principle of racial neutrality. Implementing racial neutrality in university admissions might require taking race into account, in the absence of better metrics of the amount of discrimination a student has faced.
The principle does not aim at any particular pattern of racial diversity in admissions. Rather, it aims at maintaining a fair procedure for deciding admissions. Achieving fairness toward people of all racial backgrounds might require violating a purely formal principle of racial blindness.
To put the point another way, racial blindness can mean systematic racial bias. That may be; it is an empirical question. Again, all of this is aimed at moral theory. Can state-sponsored affirmative action be justified in principle? Is it constitutional? Is it effective at achieving its purposes?
Those are separate questions I am not trying to answer here. View all posts by Jason Sorens. Implementing racial neutrality in university admissions might require taking race into account, in the absence of better metrics of the amount of discrimination a student has faced…. On this model, race is elevated above socio-economic class, so it perversely privileges people who have had fewer significant challenges over those with more, as when, e.
At my institution, e. They grew up in poverty or to low-income working parents and attended K schools which may have been sub-optimal. I just want to claim that there is a libertarian rationale for A.
I agree, but some people would claim that libertarianism implies that state-sponsored AA is always morally impermissible. As typically practiced in the United States and elsewhere, affirmative action usually involves preferential treatment for members of specified groups. Affirmative action practiced in that manner shares common ideological premises and goals, but often different rhetoric, with efforts to promote racial and ethnic diversity.
To understand the contemporary debate over affirmative action, one must have knowledge of competing concepts of equality and of the history of discrimination in America. The key attributes of that understanding of equality are universalism and individualism: All individuals should enjoy equality under law.
Libertarians argue that such equal treatment by the law should be distinguished from equal outcomes. Libertarians have traditionally insisted that the principle of equality before the law must be absolute. Where are we to stop? Or by what principle are we to find out the point to stop at, that shall discriminate between men of the same country, part of whom shall be free, and the rest not?
The institution of human slavery—the subjugation of individuals by making them the property of others—represents the most profound nullification of equality under law. Still, for the next century, governments across the United States engaged in discrimination in access to employment, business opportunities, education, voting, and public accommodations.
The separate but equal doctrine was upheld by the U. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson in State sanctioned discrimination also was visited on other groups, particularly women and Asian Americans. Separate but equal finally was repudiated by the U. Supreme Court in in the case of Brown v.
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