{"title":"Equality of opportunity","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 4 scrutinizes justifications appealing to equality of opportunity. Initially, it defines “opportunity” and then proceeds to distinguish between formal and substantive equality of opportunity. It shows why, contrary to common beliefs, on some interpretations formal equality of opportunity is compatible with, indeed requires, affirmative action. Also, on those interpretations of formal equality of opportunity where it rules out affirmative action, formal equality of opportunity does not constitute a plausible fundamental requirement of justice. The chapter also argues that affirmative action generally promotes substantive equality of opportunity across individuals; that substantive equality of opportunity can be rooted in distributive fairness and the relational concern that we all relate to one another in a fair way; and, finally, that a number of common challenges to substantive equality of opportunity can either be defeated or will in themselves motivate closely related justifications of a wide set of affirmative action policies.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122698046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reverse discrimination","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter argues that there simply is no cogent objection to affirmative action based on the fact that, by its very nature, it is a form of unjust discrimination. The core of the chapter’s argument can be stated in the form of a dilemma: Either affirmative action amounts to discrimination in a generic sense, or it amounts to discrimination in some more specific sense, e.g., unjust differential treatment of people because of their membership of different socially salient groups. If the former, then it is true that affirmative action involves discrimination, but discrimination in a generic sense is not morally objectionable. If the latter, it is not the case that all forms of affirmative action involve discrimination in this sense. Thus, affirmative action is not unjust discrimination—so-called reverse discrimination—per se.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129036204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Merit","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter argues that objections to affirmative action based on the ideal of meritocracy have little force. Initially, the chapter distinguishes a concern for merit from the concern not to disappoint reasonable expectations. It then offers two counterexamples to the claim that the best qualified applicants have a claim to the positions for which they have applied. The chapter also argues that once we adopt a suitably broad notion of merit, many putative affirmative action schemes do not clash with the principle of merit, and, in any case, outreach affirmative action is compatible with standard, but problematic, versions of the merit principle. It then expresses skepticism about the fruitfulness of building into the notion of affirmative action that selected candidates must be minimally qualified. Finally, the chapter suggests that it is an open question whether selecting applicants who are not the most meritorious results in the selected individuals having a lower level of merit. The reason for this is that affirmative action affects the pool of applicants.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131439919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"The brief final chapter does three things: (1) it summarizes the content of the book; (2) it sets out four of its main claims; and (3) it ends with some remarks about real-life affirmative action schemes mentioned in earlier chapters. Roughly, the pertinent four main claims of the book are (1) the cautious pro-affirmative action claim—that affirmative action is justified to the extent that it mitigates discrimination or reduces inequality of opportunity; (2) the plurality claim—that affirmative action schemes differ hugely in justification-relevant ways; (3) the contingency claim—that the justifiability of any particular affirmative action scheme depends significantly on contingent social facts; (4) and the incongruence claims—that the principle underlying different arguments for (or objections against) affirmative action often pull in different directions.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"295 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133167893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Publicity","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"According to the publicity objection to affirmative action, inevitably public affirmative action programs are self-defeating. This is the empirical premise of the objection. The normative premise says that affirmative action is justified only if it does not violate the liberal publicity constraint and has a reasonable chance of being successful. The chapter argues that the former premise is false and the latter groundless. The normative premise is groundless because, in the form publicity must take to be congenial to the publicity objection, it cannot be based on the work of a selection of prominent liberal defenses of publicity. The empirical premise is false. Even if we focus on those goals which most plausibly are best served by nonpublic rather than public affirmative action, public affirmative action might still serve these goals even if not optimally so. While some actual affirmative action schemes might be objectionable because of the way in which they flout requirements of publicity, we cannot reject affirmative action on grounds of publicity.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129068238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mismatch","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter scrutinizes objections pointing to the putative fact that affirmative action is both under- and overinclusive, i.e. it both benefits people who are not relevantly disadvantaged and harms people who neither bear responsibility for nor are innocent beneficiaries of the injustice that the relevant affirmative action schemes address. While the empirical premise of the initial version of the under-/over-inclusion objection is true, its normative premise is implausibly demanding, i.e. that any degree of under-/over-inclusion renders a scheme unjust. Hence, I propose to revise this argument such that its normative premise becomes less demanding and, thus, more plausible in that, inter alia, it coheres with the belief that a penal system might be justified even if it raises issues about under-/overinclusion similar to those raised by affirmative action. The resulting argument is a better objection in that its normative premise, with some qualifications, seems relevantly true. However, it is no longer clear that the required empirical premise is true, i.e. that the mismatch between deserved and actual harms and benefits is not smaller with affirmative action than without.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"94 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117307015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What is affirmative action?","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter (1) offers a definition of affirmative action; (2) presents a typology of affirmative action policies; (3) and distinguishes between different kinds of justifications for affirmative action. These are all three useful points. Often when people seemingly disagree about the justifiability of affirmative action, they define it differently; have different kinds in mind even though they define affirmative action in the same way; or have different kinds of justifications of affirmative action in mind, even though they define it in the same way and have the same kinds in mind. Moreover, if we do not know what affirmative action is, we are not in a position to say which non-moral properties it has. If so, we cannot tell whether it is morally justified per se, since presumably if affirmative action per se is (un)justified, it is (un)justified in virtue of non-moral properties that it has by way of definition. The chapter concludes with a thumbnail sketch of the rest of the book.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114341421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stigma and self-esteem","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter looks at the objection that the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action are harmed through its stigmatizing effects and, thus, that affirmative action is self-defeating. It offers three main reasons why this objection is weak. First, it seems likely that stigma is not merely a matter of rational statistical inferences but also a matter of irrational processes such as implicit bias, the sheer numbers effect, etc. Second, much stigma is likely to reflect epistemic injustice, e.g. recipients of affirmative action are likely to suffer from comparative and non-comparative epistemic injustice in the form of overgeneralizations to a higher degree than other groups. Hence, the stigma objection provides no objection to affirmative action schemes that also involve means to eliminate the relevant epistemic injustice. This relates to the chapter’s third point, which is that affirmative action policies can be part of a larger package of policies that, taken as a whole, is immune to the stigma objection.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129107944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mitigating discrimination","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 3 explores the anti-discrimination justification for affirmative action, i.e., the argument that affirmative action is justified as a means of eliminating discrimination or, less ambitiously, neutralizing the negative effects of discrimination on discriminatees. It shows why this argument amounts to a strong argument in favor of affirmative action even on the assumption that discrimination is not unjust per se. It also offers some general reasons why affirmative action is a better means of mitigating unjust discrimination than aggressive anti-discrimination law enforcement or cash payments. Finally, it defends the two premises of the anti-discrimination argument against the proportional representation assumption and the moral division of responsibility challenge.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123554577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Role models","authors":"K. Lippert‐Rasmussen","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648787.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter assesses arguments contending that affirmative action is justified as a means of ensuring role models for minorities. It argues that often this argument is best construed as one that appeals to a suitably broad notion of qualifications and which, coincidentally, justifies some of the selection schemes that are normally regarded as affirmative action. As such, within a certain range of settings, most notably educational ones, it is a rather strong argument, though possibly reducible to the equality of opportunity argument. Moreover, exactly what sort of affirmative action it supports—if any at all—depends on which distributive shape its normative premise takes and on the specifics of the psychology of role modeling—issues which are generally under-described in the literature.","PeriodicalId":365406,"journal":{"name":"Making Sense of Affirmative Action","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127268097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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