Affirmative action is the nation's most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination. Born of the civil rights movement three decades ago, the policy calls for minorities to be given special consideration in employment, education, and contracting decisions. Institutions with affirmative action policies generally set goals and timetables for increased diversity and use recruitment, set-asides and preference as ways of achieving those goals.
Affirmative action is undoubtedly an issue of justice. From this point forward we'll define justice as it is found in Merriam-Webster: the maintenance and administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims; the assignment of merited rewards or punishments. Furthermore, for the issue to be thoroughly understood we must approach it from both a moral and political perspective. What does it mean to be morally just... politically just? The discrepancy in definition will inevitably be displayed in their determination on the issue.
The term "moral justice" suggests an abstract, idealistic system which bases its rulings on a universal code of morality and ethi
cs. To be moral is to conform to a standard of right behavior, always operating with ethical judgment. One would think this to be a faultless system. Political justice, on the other hand, seems more realistically applicable in human society.
What is the probability of achieving moral justice? We'd live in accordance to universal law; cultural relativism would be arbitrary in judgment. Religion would also be arbitrary for beliefs could not justify action. Objective truth would be established on the basis of reason, sensation, and nature alone.
In any political frame, principles are elastic and it is it has been justifiable in certain circumstances to not act according to those principles. This is not to say political justice doesn't aspire to moral justice. In many ways the two parallel each other. In our country especially, commendable efforts have been made to incorporate "notions of equality and reciprocity". The concept of equal opportunity best exemplifies what America has to offer.
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