“Affirmative action” has shifted in meaning over the years,Footnote 1 and the phrase remains ambiguous;Footnote 2 but the affirmative action I propose to defend takes the following form: Show
Both (A) and (B) (above) must apply. To be qualified for a place, position or contract, an applicant must be able to carry out adequately the tasks attached to that place, position or contract, or the recruiting or contracting institution must reasonably anticipate them to be. An applicant not able adequately to carry out these tasks, or whom the recruiting or contracting institution reasonably anticipates not to be, is unqualified. Among qualified applicants, an applicant who is able to carry out the tasks in question to a higher standard than another applicant is more qualified than that other applicant. Among unqualified applicants, an applicant who is able to carry out the tasks in question to a higher standard than another applicant is less unqualified than that other applicant. A body of workers, students, trainees or contractors becomes more diverse with regard to the possession or non-possession of a given characteristic, the closer the ratio of possessors to non-possessors of that characteristic in the body in question comes to 1:1. The closer a body of workers, students, trainees or contractors comes to 100% possessors of a characteristic, or 100% non-possessors of it, the less diverse is the body in question with regard to the possession or non-possession of that characteristic. An institution intentionally discriminates against those who possess a given characteristic when it implements a policy of treating those who possess that characteristic differently from those who do not possess it, on the basis of their possession of the characteristic in question, and in a way which tends to harm or disadvantage them or which otherwise constitutes an injustice. It is possible for an institution intentionally to discriminate against those who possess a given characteristic without that constituting an injustice. An institution may be articulated into a number of branches or subsidiaries at different levels of the institution’s overall hierarchy, enjoying various degrees of autonomy. When this is the case, a branch or subsidiary at one level may implement a preferential policy in order to make redress for unjust discrimination perpetrated by itself, or by a different branch or subsidiary at the same level as it, or by a different branch or subsidiary at a different level to it, or by the institution as a whole. The institution as a whole may implement a preferential policy in order to make redress for unjust discrimination perpetrated by any branch or subsidiary at any level of its overall hierarchy, or by the institution as a whole. Not every policy or programme which deserves the label “affirmative action” satisfies the above description. An institutional policy which gave preference even to unqualified candidates, for example, or a policy of preference implemented with the sole aim of reaping the benefits of diversity could also count as cases of affirmative action. Equally, a preferential policy intended by one institution to make redress to C-possessors for an injustice committed against them by a second institution, unconnected to the first, could count as affirmative action, as could a preferential policy intended to make redress for unjust, but not seriously unjust, discrimination, or for discrimination which, though unjust, was not intentional. Additional aims could, furthermore, replace or supplement (B) (i) and (ii), making a preferential policy affirmative action of a distinctive type. To create a more just society in the future could be one such aim,Footnote 3 as could be to achieve a workforce or student body whose proportional possession of characteristic C was in line with that of the national population.Footnote 4 And sometimes affirmative action consists simply of steps taken by a recruiter or contractor to ensure that it does not discriminate unjustly against C-possessors, and to ensure that as many C-possessors as possible are aware of the places, positions or contracts it offers.Footnote 5 I do not propose to defend any of these further forms of affirmative action; but that does not imply I regard all of them as indefensible. I do, though, regard as indefensible some cases of affirmative action which would satisfy the above description. For instance, the degree of preference an affirmative action programme gave to C-possessors might be greater than was warranted by the gravity of the injustice for which the preferential policy in question was intended as redress. The variety and extent of the benefits which could reasonably be expected to flow from a given preferential policy might also have a bearing on whether that preferential policy ought to be implemented. But factors under (B) (ii) and factors under (B) (i) impact upon the normative status of preferential policies under (A) in rather different ways, as I will explain shortly. I must also explain in due course what it is for one party to make redress to another party for an injustice done by the former to the latter. But, as a preliminary approximation, to make redress to someone whom one has wronged is to make up for what one has done to them by doing something for them (for example, transferring goods or money to them, or performing or providing a service for them). I will not, on the other hand, specify under what conditions intentional discrimination against those who possess a given characteristic constitutes an injustice against those possessing that characteristic. It will be enough for the purposes of my argument to rely on consensus regarding various classes of case. What follows is chiefly a defence of affirmative action of the type I have specified. However, I will also make clear what sorts of consideration can mean that in certain circumstances it is not justified. Although conceptually it is somewhat narrow, the type of affirmative action I am defending is instantiated by a large number of current and historical cases. The United States of America and the Republic of South Africa—to take just the two most discussed examples—are states which have, in the recent past (well within living memory in both cases, in the South African case within a generation), discriminated against those inside their borders who were of particular ethnicities in a way which constituted a serious injustice. In both the United States and South Africa legislation and judicial rulings emanating from various levels of the state, and enforced by the police and the army, intentionally placed special restrictions on the employment and education opportunities,Footnote 6 freedom of movement,Footnote 7 and voting rightsFootnote 8 of those who were of particular ethnicities. Soon after acknowledging that they had discriminated unjustly against those who were of the ethnicities in question, these two states both implemented preferential policies intended to make redress to those of the ethnicities in question for this serious injustice. These policies (still in place to differing degrees in both countries) were implemented by various levels of the state, and gave preference to those of the ethnicities in question who applied for a range of employment opportunities, education and training places, and government contracts.Footnote 9 Besides stressing the necessity of making redress, both of these states, in order to justify their preferential policies, have appealed to the benefits, to local communities as well as to society as a whole, of increased diversity (with regard to being or not being of the ethnicities in question) in the bodies of workers, students, trainees or contractors affected by those policies. Though these policies have largely been in line with the specification of affirmative action I gave earlier, it must be admitted they have sometimes contradicted it by abandoning the explicit aim of redress—and perhaps in other respects too. Moreover, they have at times pursued further aims on top of (B) (i) and (B) (ii), including that of approaching or achieving bodies of workers, students, trainees or contractors with an ethnic make-up in line with that of the national population.Footnote 10 And, unsurprisingly, implementation has not always corresponded perfectly with declared policy.Footnote 11 Much the same could also be said of many historical and current affirmative action policies implemented not by states but by other institutions, such as corporations and universities. The type of affirmative action I specified earlier faces a three-pronged assault, against which I mean to defend it:
But we can distinguish two different sorts of redress, both of which might be owed by X to Y: Compensation. When X wrongs Y, it will often be the case that X’s wrong action harms Y. The wrong done by X to Y, that is to say, will often cause a reduction in Y’s overall welfare. This reduction may be capturable in straightforwardly quantitative terms, particularly if the harm is a financial loss or a loss of property which Y was retaining solely for purposes of sale or exchange. But the reduction may not be fully capturable in quantitative terms, needing also to be understood as the loss of a qualitative aspect of Y’s welfare—Y’s sense of hearing, for example, or various mental capacities. In either case, the harm in question generally could have come about without Y’s having been wronged at all, let alone wronged by X: Y could have suffered the harm solely through their own fecklessness, say, or solely due to a natural disaster no one could have predicted. In either case it makes a significant difference when Y suffers the harm not through one of these other causes, but because of a wrong done to them by X. When a wrong done by X to Y causes a reduction in Y’s overall welfare, X ought to take action to restore Y’s welfare to what it would have been had X’s wrong action never impacted adversely upon it.Footnote 15 When X wrongs Y in a way which harms Y, that is to say, X ought to give compensation to Y for the harm done. It would, of course, often be impossible for X to compensate Y fully for the harm X’s wrong action caused them. When this is the case, X might sometimes be excused from providing full compensation to Y, as they also might when it is only through an extraordinary sacrifice on X’s part that they could provide full compensation to Y. But it is not necessary to discuss the normative upshot of all such mitigating circumstances in order to make clear what sort of redress is constituted by compensation. Rectification. Compensation is not the only sort of redress. I will introduce eight considerations which, taken together, amount to a case for thinking that another type of redress—rectification, or making amends—is both possible and, at least in the case of a serious wrong, required of the perpetrator of that wrong.
I have given a reasonably full account of rectification, as I think the structure of this sort of redress is more complicated than that of compensation, and less well understood (even though making amends for what we have done is, as I have suggested, a widespread and recognisable type of activity). It would, of course, be possible to agree that this additional sort of redress, separate from compensation, exists, without agreeing with everything I have said about how rectification operates; and not all of what I say in what follows will depend on rectification functioning exactly as I have proposed it does. But one important consequence of the picture of rectification I have put forward is that the choice of amends to make for a wrong is somewhat more open-ended than the choice of how a victim is to be compensated. As I outlined above, if X has wronged Y, then the compensation X owes to Y is very tightly controlled by the nature and extent of the harm X’s wrong action caused to Y. The amends X needs to make to Y, on the other hand, are controlled by the expressive and status-restoring functions of a sincere apology, and by the nature of X’s wrong action. So the choice of amends is by no means entirely open-ended. However, just as with gift-giving there will normally be a large number of potential gifts which could fulfil the expressive functions required in a particular case, so with amends-making there will normally be many different ways in which the constraints arising from the functions of an apology and the nature of the perpetrator’s wrong action might be met. This is why when choosing how to make amends, as when choosing a gift, there is room for creativity—even a kind of poetry. While compensation is blandly predictable, a particularly fitting gift or a surprisingly apt way of making amends can be the stuff of anecdote. If the redress owed by perpetrators of unjust discrimination to those they discriminated against were limited to compensation, the first prong of the assault on affirmative action (“wrong people”) would be very compelling. It should, however, first be admitted that the beneficiaries of many affirmative action programmes are to a large extent people who did suffer harm because of the injustice for which the affirmative action programme is meant as redress. Moreover, neither the fact that many who were harmed by discrimination do not benefit from affirmative action at all, nor the fact that many who benefit from affirmative action are benefited less than they were harmed by discrimination, constitute decisive objections to affirmative action as a method of compensation. This is because there is no reason why an affirmative action programme should be an institution’s only method of compensating people it has discriminated against: it could be introduced in conjunction with other methods of compensation (such as cash payments) for those not fully compensated, or not compensated at all, by the affirmative action programme. In addition, it will in some cases be reasonable to expect that those who were harmed by the unjust discrimination but do not directly benefit, or do not directly benefit enough, from the affirmative action programme will nonetheless benefit indirectly from it—for example, through a family member’s using their increased income to benefit them. Nonetheless, it is certainly true that affirmative action programmes usually benefit at least some people who were not harmed at all by the relevant unjust discrimination, and often bestow benefits on people who were harmed by the discrimination which are much greater than the harm they suffered due to discrimination. These are serious problems with affirmative action, insofar as it is considered exclusively as a method of compensating those who were harmed by unjust discrimination. However, to conclude that affirmative action is an inept way of making redress for unjust discrimination, as the first prong of the assault on affirmative action does, it would be necessary to rule out the possibility that affirmative action is an adequate way of making amends for unjust discrimination. That is to say, even though affirmative action might be the wrong policy to choose if all an institution needed to do was make up for the harm suffered because of its unjust discrimination, it might still be a perfectly good way of making up for the wrong of discriminating unjustly. In fact, to be defensible as a method of making redress, all that must be shown of a given affirmative action programme is that it goes some way towards compensating those who are owed compensation or that it goes some way towards making amends to those to whom amends are due—or both—without directly benefiting people to whom neither compensation nor rectification are due, or directly benefiting people to whom they are due, but to an extent which exceeds what is due to them on both counts. Affirmative action need neither be the only way in which an institution makes amends for discriminating unjustly, nor the only way in which an institution compensates victims of its unjust discrimination for the harm they suffered. The question to whom redress should be made receives a different answer depending whether the redress in question is compensatory or rectificatory. That is because, as we have seen, it is possible to wrong somebody without harming them, and, consequently, at least when the wrong was serious, it can be the case that one should make amends to some person to whom one owes no compensation whatsoever. When an institution implements a policy of discriminating against C-possessors in a way which constitutes a serious injustice, it is not only to those C-possessors who suffered harm as a result of this serious injustice that the institution should make amends. For example, when a state enacts a law applying to all its citizens which unjustly discriminates against C-possessors, the enactment of that law is an injustice against all C-possessors who are citizens of that state. In some cases, it is, admittedly, harder to delimit with precision who is wronged by a discriminatory policy. For instance, if a corporation based in London adopted a hiring policy which was unjustly discriminatory against C-possessors, it would seem too narrow to say that adopting this policy wronged only those C-possessors who actually applied for a job while the policy was in place; on the other hand, it is surely too broad to say it wronged all C-possessors that exist. In many cases the exact extent of amends which it is appropriate to make will depend on the answer to complex problems in theoretical ethics which I cannot resolve here. For example, if it is not possible to wrong someone who does not yet exist, then it could not be appropriate for a state to make amends for its discriminatory laws to anyone who was born after those laws were revoked. (It might, though, be necessary for that state to compensate some people born after the discriminatory laws were revoked, if they have been harmed as a result of them.) If, on the other hand, it is possible to wrong someone who does not yet exist, then people born after the discriminatory laws were revoked could also be among those to whom amends are due. But one does not need to settle all controversies about the extent of those wronged in particular cases of unjust discrimination to see that the first prong of the assault on affirmative action is wrong to assume redress should only be made to those who suffered harm as a result of unjust discrimination. Because discrimination can be a harmless wrong, it is reasonable to expect that rectificatory redress for a given case of unjust discrimination will be due to more people than are owed compensation. Now let us consider whether affirmative action can constitute adequate rectification for unjust discrimination. It is clear that, considered as a way of making amends for unjust discrimination, affirmative action has the quality of “opposite”-ness which we saw is characteristic of rectificatory acts. Unjust discrimination tends to disadvantage or exclude people in respect to various goods and opportunities. Affirmative action, by contrast, involves giving people a relative advantage in respect to goods and opportunities. This makes affirmative action well suited to performing the expressive and communicative functions described in (f) and (g) (above). When accompanied by a sincere verbal apology, the introduction of an affirmative action programme for C-possessors can fittingly express remorse for—by symbolically “negating”—the wrong of discriminating unjustly against C-possessors in the past. Unjust discrimination by institutions, especially states, is often widely known of. The public introduction of an affirmative action programme for C-possessors, accompanied by a sincere verbal apology, can be an effective way of publicly confirming the moral status of C-possessors, which the institution’s discrimination implicitly called into question.Footnote 27 Compensatory redress, which makes up for harm, should benefit a victim to the same degree as the wrong committed against them caused them harm. But that is not true of rectificatory redress, which makes up for a wrong, since the same wrong can cause different amounts of harm (including none at all) in different instances. So, if a policy of affirmative action is introduced as rectificatory redress for unjust discrimination, it is not an effective objection to point out, as the first prong of the assault on affirmative action does, that affirmative action does not benefit people in proportion to how much harm unjust discrimination caused them. One might assume that rectificatory redress should benefit a victim in proportion, not to how much they were harmed, but to how serious the wrong committed against them was, and thus expect that victims of the same discriminatory policy ought to receive the same amount of rectificatory redress. However, the assumption behind this expectation is flawed, because compensation and rectification differ not just in what they make up for, but also in how they make up for it. Paradigm cases of compensation have, as I discussed earlier, the character of a straight swap—x amount of harm being made up for with x amount of benefit. But rectification, as we saw, makes up for a wrong through the expressive and communicative functions which tie it constitutively to the act of apologising. Consequently it is as mistaken to assess a rectificatory act principally in terms of how much it benefits its recipient as it is to assess a gift principally in terms of how much it cost. The first prong of the assault on affirmative action trades on a one-sided conception of redress. It lulls us into the false assumption that redress for unjust discrimination is exhausted by compensation for the harm that discrimination caused,Footnote 28 and then points out that affirmative action benefits some people who were not harmed at all by unjust discrimination and benefits those people who were harmed to an extent which generally fails to match the extent of the harm they suffered. I have explained why we must reject the false assumption on which this prong of the assault rests. There is, in addition to compensation for harm, another form of redress, rectification of a wrong. I have explained why affirmative action programmes have characteristics that suit them to being methods of making amends for unjust discrimination. I have also explained why, once we consider affirmative action as, at least in part, a method of rectification of unjust discrimination, there is no longer a legitimate expectation that victims of the same unjustly discriminatory policy should be benefited equally by a rectificatory affirmative action programme. Furthermore, I have explained why, given that unjust discrimination can be a harmless wrong, it is acceptable and to be expected that some beneficiaries of affirmative action should not have been harmed at all by unjust discrimination. Insofar as an affirmative action policy is implemented in order to rectify an injustice, this goal places its own constraints on that policy’s design. Only those who have been wronged ought to benefit from affirmative action as a form of amends-making. This may in practice translate into a minimum age for those who can benefit from the affirmative action policy, or a restriction of the scope of the policy to citizens of a certain country or residents of a certain region. Of course, when amends-making on a massive scale is called for, as with some of the worse injustices committed by states, a somewhat substantial margin of error may have to be tolerated. This margin will be more tolerable when there is a high chance that beneficiaries of affirmative action to whom rectification is not due were nonetheless harmed as a result of the injustice, so that, though amends may not be due to them directly, the advantages they receive through affirmative action can at least go some way towards compensating them adequately for this harm. No one is likely to deny that the implementation of rectification on a large scale must be something of a messy process; and it is not for philosophy to speculate about how it should best be managed. But philosophy can contribute the conceptual point that, while adequate compensation ought to be carefully matched in quantity, and sometimes in quality, to each injured party’s individual welfare loss, the constraints on adequate rectification do not dictate anything like this finely-tuned matching process. That is why we should grant that, considered solely as a means of compensation, affirmative action would generally be unacceptably clumsy, but maintain—contrary to the first prong of the assault on affirmative action—that it can be a fitting means of rectificatory redress for all that. The third prong of the assault on affirmative action (“wrong reasons”) trades on the same false assumption as the first prong. This prong of the assault grants, for the sake of argument, that diversity with regard to the possession or non-possession of some characteristic (characteristic C) which does not itself render an applicant more qualified can bring benefits to an institution, those linked to it, or the wider community. (I will later briefly discuss what some of these benefits might be.) It then considers two possibilities. The first possibility is that the first prong of the assault on affirmative action is successful, in which case affirmative action programmes cannot legitimately be introduced in order to make redress to victims of unjust discrimination. But if that is the case, says this prong of the assault, then affirmative action programmes certainly can’t be introduced purely in order to achieve the benefits of C-diversity. Such consequentialist considerations, it claims, could not trump applicants’ legitimate expectation of equal opportunities. The second possibility is that (contrary to the first prong of the assault on affirmative action) affirmative action programmes at least sometimes are justifiable as ways of making redress to victims of unjust discrimination. But if that is the case, says this prong of the assault, then any benefits of C-diversity that ensue could only be happy by-products, since the decision to implement an affirmative action policy and the design of the affirmative action policy which is implemented could be justified only by their ability to compensate victims of unjust discrimination for the harm they suffered. Even if it were granted that redress to victims of unjust discrimination would be exhausted by compensation for the harm they suffered, this prong of the assault would still not be fully convincing. This is because, even though, as we have seen, what counts as adequate compensation is very tightly controlled by the nature and extent of the harm which needs compensating, there is normally at least some room for choice as to the method of compensation. If in a particular case an affirmative action programme were an adequate way of compensating victims of discrimination for the harm they suffered, it is unlikely it would be the only adequate way possible. Surely, in such a case, it would be acceptable to choose affirmative action as the method of compensation rather than another, equally adequate, method of compensation, for the sake of the benefits of C-diversity, if these could reasonably be anticipated to outweigh the benefits of the other option. If so, surely it could be appropriate to criticise an institution, such as a state, which chose the other option rather than affirmative action, thus throwing away the benefits of C-diversity, no equivalent of which was to be had from the option selected. But, in that case, the choice of affirmative action as the method of compensation can be justifiable not just in virtue of its compensatory ability, but also in virtue of the benefits to be expected from C-diversity. Though it insists that constraints of fairness would rule out introducing an affirmative action programme solely for the sake of the benefits of C-diversity, this prong of the assault on affirmative action does not claim that such constraints would rule out affirmative action for the sake of redress. That is fortunate, because this latter claim is far less plausible than the former claim. It is a commonplace of moral theory that constraints of fairness can restrict what means one may use to achieve desirable outcomes. But it is also generally recognised that individuals and institutions can, in the course of their business, acquire obligations which they must first discharge before they are at liberty to dispose of the goods and opportunities in their gift according to principles of pure distributive justice. For example, a dying man might have four friends to each of whom, all else being equal, distributive justice would say he should bequeath an equal share of his fortune. But if, in the course of his illness, he has borrowed £2,000 from one of those friends, then it is clear the dying man should first repay his debt, and only then endeavour to do what distributive justice demands given the allotment following his repayment. Incurring a financial debt is not the only way one can acquire an obligation of this kind. If one of his friends had done the dying man an extraordinary service in the past, it could also be appropriate for the man to do something for that friend, to express his gratitude, which would diminish the shares of his fortune that the other three friends ultimately received. The parallel between this obligation and the obligation to repay a loan is acknowledged in the colloquial phrase “a debt of gratitude”. A further way in which one can acquire an obligation of this kind is by wronging somebody, and in this case the obligation one acquires is an obligation to make redress to the victim of one’s wrong action. Though we don’t speak of “a debt of redress”, “a debt of compensation” or “a debt of amends”, the obligations these made-up phrases refer to are as familiar to us as financial debts and debts of gratitude.Footnote 29 When it comes to that part of redress due to a victim which is rectificatory (making amends for a wrong), there will, as we have already seen, generally be more scope for choice of the means of redress than with compensation. That is because what counts as adequate amends is, unlike what counts as adequate compensation, not tightly controlled by the nature and extent of the harm caused. Consequently, in cases where affirmative action would be one adequate means of rectification, it is even more likely than in cases where affirmative action would be an adequate means of compensation that other acceptable options will exist. Should those other options not promise benefits comparable to the benefits of diversity to be expected as a result of an affirmative action programme, then surely it would be reasonable and acceptable to choose affirmative action as the method of making amends over those other options because of the superior consequences it will have. But if that is true then it can be reasonable and acceptable to implement an affirmative action programme (rather than another method of making amends) because of the beneficial consequences reasonably to be expected from it. The second prong of the assault on affirmative action (“no benefits”) denies that beneficial consequences are to be expected from the increase in diversity effected by affirmative action, or at least claims that these are neutralised or outweighed by the harmful consequences of affirmative action. The chief beneficial effects on institutions, those professionally linked to them, or the wider community which are said to flow from an increase in diversity due to affirmative action include:
It is also said that affirmative action can have a variety of harmful effects, chief among which are:
It has been claimed that diversity could not have both beneficial effect (α) (above) (“achievement of excellence”) and beneficial effect (β) (above) (“destruction of stereotypes”), because if—for whatever reason—C-possessors were different enough from non C-possessors in their views and thinking for beneficial effect (α) to ensue, then stereotypes concerning them would not be destroyed but confirmed, meaning beneficial effect (β) did not ensue.Footnote 38 However the most harmful stereotypes, and consequently those it would be most beneficial to destroy, have to do with the relative professional and intellectual ability of people from different groups; and it is perfectly possible to realise that an individual is as able as you are in some respect at the same time as acknowledging that—perhaps because of their cultural background, or life experiences—they have come up with an idea or an approach to a problem which you would never have thought of yourself. Therefore it is false to say that beneficial effect (α) and beneficial effect (β) could not both ensue from an increase in diversity together. Otherwise it is difficult to say very much which applies across the board in response to the second prong of the assault on affirmative action. It is certainly plausible to think that each of the various effects listed above would indeed ensue in some instance of affirmative action. It seems much less plausible to say that the harmful effects (α)-(δ) listed above would ensue, and either neutralise or outweigh the beneficial effects (ε)-(θ) listed above, in every instance of affirmative action. From what I have said already in response to the first and third prongs of the assault on affirmative action, it follows that an affirmative action policy may sometimes legitimately be implemented even if its harmful effects outweigh its beneficial effects, since it may still constitute a fitting, or indeed the most fitting, way of making amends for unjust discrimination—though of course this is less likely to be the case if it is the beneficiaries of the affirmative action policy themselves who bear the brunt of its harmful effects. It would be desirable to do empirical research in order to establish how beneficial or harmful, overall, a prospective affirmative action programme is likely to be, because such research could rightly influence the decision whether to make amends for unjust discrimination through affirmative action or by some other means. However, I do not claim that the benefits to be expected from an increase in diversity could justify an affirmative action programme on their own. Critics of affirmative action claim that its defenders who appeal to the benefits of diversity when justifying affirmative action are bound by consistency to endorse further policies which they would likely prefer to oppose. For example, it has been claimed that anyone who supports affirmative action because of beneficial effect (α) (above) (“achievement of excellence”) must also endorse preferential hiring of religious fundamentalists in most professions, and the preferential appointment of political conservatives in university humanities faculties.Footnote 39 Both these policies would add to the diversity of viewpoints represented in those professions or institutions, so it is inconsistent—say the critics—to oppose them. Or else critics of affirmative action point out that to achieve most of the beneficial effects listed above it may well only be necessary for the proportion of C-possessors in a body of workers, students or contractors to rise very slightly above zero. Such a very slight increase might well be enough to trigger innovation through viewpoint diversity, destroy negative stereotypes and provide the necessary role models to the wider community. But then—say the critics—it would not be justifiable to introduce an affirmative action programme which effected anything more than this slight increase in the proportion of C-possessors.Footnote 40 Someone who defended affirmative action solely on the basis of the benefits of diversity might be vulnerable to charges of inconsistency like these. But what I have argued is that, when choosing how to make amends to C-possessors for past C-discrimination, the benefits to be anticipated from C-diversity may justify the decision to rectify that injustice by means of affirmative action rather than by other means. Thus it is already fixed by the goal of making amends to C-possessors that C-possessors, not others, will be the ones given preference, should a preferential recruitment or contracting policy be chosen as the means of rectification. Unless there is an equal need to make amends to the other groups mentioned—religious fundamentalists and political conservatives—it is not true that consistency demands affirmative action policies for these groups just because such policies would have some of the same benefits.Footnote 41 Equally, if the role of an appeal to the benefits of diversity is limited to justifying the choice of affirmative action over other methods of rectification, then it is not true that the preferential policy must be calibrated to produce only that level of C-diversity which will have beneficial effects, and nothing more. That is because once the justificatory power of an appeal to the benefits of diversity is exhausted, there still remains the standing justificatory power of the requirement that amends be made to a wronged party, on which the former was in any case always dependent. It is also worth noting at this stage that increasing diversity may in some instances itself constitute a form of redress. This is because if someone is the sole C-possessor, or one of very few C-possessors, in an organisation, this can be a difficult situation which is disadvantageous to them in various ways. If this disadvantageous situation came about due to the organisation’s unjust discrimination against C-possessors in the recent past, this means it is a case of harm due to injustice which would warrant compensation. Increasing C-diversity in the organisation would constitute at least the beginnings of compensation, since it would alleviate the disadvantageous position of the C-possessor in question.Footnote 42 This consideration could sometimes be a further reason why an organisation should choose a policy of C-preference as its way of making amends to C-possessors. Affirmative action is not always the best way for an institution to make redress for unjust discrimination. But the fact that preferential recruiting or contracting policies can be a fitting way of making amends for—and not just a means of compensating the harm caused by—unjust discrimination enlarges the class of cases where affirmative action is an appropriate means of redress far beyond what its critics have claimed. The philosophical assault on affirmative action which portrays is as structurally unsuited to providing redress for unjust discrimination is fatally flawed because it relies on an impoverished conception of redress. Defenders of affirmative action have been accused of flitting opportunistically between incompatible arguments for policies of preference. However, it is untrue to say that justifications of affirmative action which invoke the benefits of diversity are incompatible with justifications of it which invoke the necessity of redress, and it is certainly untrue that the benefits of diversity could never play a decisive role in justifying a preferential policy. The benefits to be expected from diversity can legitimately lead an institution to choose a preferential policy, and not any one of a number of other options, as its way of making amends for unjust discrimination. Empirical research, and not just philosophy, will be relevant to determining when such a choice is the right one. When giving a consequentialist argument for affirmative action one need to show only that these programs can have a good consequences?When giving a consequentialist argument for affirmative action one need show only that these programs can have good consequences. Arguments for affirmative action based on reasons of compensatory justice must show that compensation to members of certain groups is justified.
Which of the following objections to affirmative action programs is raised by consequentialist Critica?Which of the following objections to affirmative action programs is raised by consequentialist critics? They mainly benefit middle-class rather than lower-class African Americans.
What is the concept of affirmative action?Affirmative action is defined as a set of procedures designed to; eliminate unlawful discrimination among applicants, remedy the results of such prior discrimination, and prevent such discrimination in the future. Applicants may be seeking admission to an educational program or looking for professional employment.
What is affirmative action quizlet?Definition of Affirmative Action: -Steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded.
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