Wolf-Devine, Celia - Preferential Policies Have Become Toxic

03/09/2007

Cohen and Wellman, eds., "Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics," Blackwell, 2005

Author's major struggle is against Albert Mosley and 'preferential' or 'strong' affirmative action. This can be contrasted to 'procedural' affirmative action, where members of the targeted groups are encouraged to apply and receive fair consideration for jobs. Author claims that preferential affirmative action is in play when you get a 'yes' answer to the following question: "If another black person had applied whose credentials matched those of the rejected white candidate, would that person have gotten the job over the black candidate who was in fact chosen?"

The author sets the stage about the difficulty in discussing this issue. Calling it 'politics of inclusion' is misleading because the job market is a zero-sum game-- one is included, necessarily the other is excluded. Furthermore, there is an entanglement of race and sex in these policies, author spends some discussion to try to distinguish that many of the arguments for race don't work for sex (women).

Author evaluates the various affirmative action arguments:
1) Compensatory argument
2) Corrective argument
3) Consequentialist argument

1) Compensatory: one party has harmed another, that other need to recover damages. There could be material damages, or cultural damage.

First considered is material damage. This argument is hard to apply to entry-level workers, most of whom are born in 1970-1980, and therefore missed much of the overtly racist Jim Crow and other overt racial institutions. Also, it is hard to claim in the specific instance of one white person turned down, a black person hired, whether that one white person ever had the advantages and that one black person had the disadvantages. Also, there is a difficult moral question of whether an innocent, unaware beneficiary of an unjust action is obliged to give the advantage back. Author also objects to "projecting moral intuitions that concern one-on-one interactions onto a large and complex society".

Next is cultural damage. Well, whatever the black culture is, it is tough to say that it is 'worse' than white culture. Second, if you claim that your culture makes you disabled for a certain job, why is it reasonable that you should have it?

Two final problems with the compensatory project:
Origin problem: 'you can't blame your mother', because if it weren't for her, you wouldn't have been born. If we hadn't brought you over, you would have had to immigrate.
Completion problem: 'when are we over with this'? without a good answer (which author thinks there is none) you'll have 'endless turf war'. Mosley assumes proportional representation is fair, but author denies this due to the fact that you may never have that, for cultural reasons.

2) Corrective: stop the existing bias in hiring practices. Author replies to the argument that there are existing biases against blacks in the hiring process. Author concedes there could be some shown bias and that would allow for corrective action. But when applied on a grand scale, bias is assumed, not shown.

3) Consequentialist arguments are 2:
A) Role Models: we need blacks as role models. Author: you already have them; and you don't need the 'mixed message' of affirmative action.
B) Diversity and representation: diversity is good! Author: not all diversity is good, and don't assume that more black means more diversity. About representation, author claims that people just represent themselves, not anything else, so this argument has a false premise.

Positive account
Author argues that we should instead focus on programs to elevate the poor from the cycle of poverty, and this would disproportionally help blacks, since the poor are disproportionately black. Author also claims that affirmative action has led to more black drop-outs and failed lawyer/doctor exams. Author ultimately claims that she wants racial categories eliminated, as opposed to Mosley, who wants to preserve them.