Applied Ethics
Racism, Sexism, and Affirmative action
1. Modern societies have to deal with sexism and racism, including their institutions, practices, and attitudes. The moral issue concerns this ideal: How should a good and decent society treat sex and race? How individuals ought to regard and respond to matters relating to sex or race?
The sex or race of a person is not only a fact of superficial physiology, but the dominant characteristics that affect both the way that person looks at the world and the way the world looks at that person.
“Racism and sexism consists in taking race and sex into account in a certain way, in the context of specific set of institutional arrangements and a specific ideology which together create and maintain a specific institutions, role assignments, beliefs and attitudes. That system is one, and has been one, in which political, economic, and social power and advantage is concentrated in the hands of those who are white and male.” (Wasserstrom)
If some distribution of opportunities or social benefits systematically deprives women or the Black of what is offered to men or the White, and there is no sufficient reason which justifies such a distribution, then we have a clear case of sexism or racism.
The ideal of equal treatment and equal respect for all people regardless of race and sex has not been fully realized. Race and sex discrimination continues to be a social or moral problem, though the civil rights movement or feminist campaign have lessened racial or sexual injustice and promoted equal treatment for all citizens.
If a particular race or sex has been disadvantaged and discriminated against in the past, in order to compensate them or correct past injustice, is affirmative actionor preferential treatment as a means to remedy the lingering effects of past discrimination morally acceptable?
2. Principle of equality requires us to treat equals equally and unequals unequally.It is unjust to treat people differently in ways that deny to some of them significant social benefits unless we can show that there is a difference between them that is relevant to the differential treatment. We are required to prove that certain differences exist that justify treating people differently in socially significant ways.
The principle of justice requires that treatment of persons be according to what is due them on some grounds. Actions or practices that treat people unequally are unjust. Justice is blind—it is unbiased. It does not favour one person over another on the basis of irrelevant characteristics. Justice may involve not strict equality but proportionality.
Racism and sexism is wrong because it is unjust, because it is harmful to people. The racists and sexists treat people of a particular race or sex differently and discriminatingly simply because of their race or sex.
3. Racism means unjust discrimination on the simple basis of race. It involves not only making distinctions and grouping people, but also denigrating and degrading people of a certain race. Racism is wrong because racists make false judgments about or look down people of certain race. Say, to be black is to be member of a despised minority, to be disadvantaged, disliked and oppressed. In USA, the African Americans have been and are discriminated by the White. Racists violate the moral principle of equality.
In physiological sense, race is a natural occurrence rather than a socially created feature of the world. There are diverse skin colours and related physiological features distributed among human beings, like appearance, blood group, and gene. But classifying people upon the physiological variations or race is not in itself racism.
The concept of race could include the idea of ethnicity—a set of cultures, traditions, religions, beliefs, attitudes, etc., which the community has created part of what it means to be of a race.
How people want to be or think of themselves as belonging to a particular race could be an interesting issue. Say, a black individual undergoes medical surgeries and procedures that make him look white, does it make him white? (Is Michael Jackson black or white?) Or a white person fits in very well with the black and adopts the culture and custom of the black, does it make her black?
Although humans differ as individuals in various ways, from the mere fact that a person is black, we cannot infer anything else about that person. What is wrong with racism is that whites are superior to blacks, though some blacks are superior to some whites in capacities and abilities that could conceivably be relevant.
4. Sexism is unjust discrimination simply on the basis of sex. It involves having false beliefs about people because of their sex, or devaluing them because of their sex. It also involves power and oppression.Women are oppressed or disadvantaged both individually and as a group by the socially constructed patterns of beliefs, attitudes and practices. Sexism is wrong because it is unjust, or harmful to people. Sexism pervades politics and economy. It is part of what feminists oppose and hope to eliminate.Feminism is a movement to achieve equality between men and women.
Sexual difference appears to be a natural occurrence, and there are biological and physical differences between men and women. Men cannot bear babies but women can.
Sexual difference could be a social construct—sex-role(gender) differentiation that makes men and women different from each other. It is sex-role acculturation and socialization that mistakenly leads many people to believe that women are both naturally and necessarily better suited than men to be assigned the responsibilities of child rearing.
A person’s sex is no guide to his or her abilities, and that’s why it is unjustifiable to discriminate on the basis of sex. Principle of equality requires us to treat men and women equally, though some women are superior to some men in capacities and abilities.
Men and women do not differ markedly in their potential capacities, interests, and abilities. Given similar education and training, men and women can develop fairly similar talents and abilities, at least as similar as those between men or between women.
5. What’s wrong with sexism and racism:
a) The Kantian idea of respect for humanity explicitly embodied in the Formula of humanity as an end in itself provides a compelling response to the question about what constitutes the fundamental moral wrong of sexism and racism. Morality demands fundamental respect for the dignity of persons, whether in the agent’s own person or in the person of the other. The moral wrong of failing to respect human dignity is embodied in the idea that it is wrong for men/the White to use women/the Black merely as a means to an end women/the Black do not share.
b) In racism or sexism, a person is singled out and treated discriminatingly simply because he/she is a member of a particular race or sex—as when denied college admission or employment just because of this characteristic. A person’s sex or race is no guide to his/her abilities. Both racism and sexism violate the moral principle of equality and thus wrong.
c) As a matter of fact, women and men are different in some attributes—physical strength, size, metabolic rate, sensitivity, etc. But these differences are morally irrelevant for any differential social treatment. What differences are relevant? The relevance of a talent or characteristic or skill to a job might not be an easy matter to determine. For job promotion or admitting to university, being male or female, being black or white, is definitely neither a relevant nor significant factor to consider.
d) Justice requires that treatment of persons be according to what is due them on some grounds. It does not favour one person over another on the basis of irrelevant considerations. Not to promote a hard-working and better-qualified woman but to promote a lazy man is unjust because the lazy man does not deserve promotion and being male is not relevant for consideration. Similarly, not to promote an industrious and well-qualified black employee but to promote a mediocre and lazy white employee is unjust because skin colour is irrelevant for promotion. The hard-working and well-qualified woman and black employee deserve to be promoted, but the lazy man and white do not.
e) Any society has some institutions and practices that distinguish between individuals by virtue of their sex, and such society will teach the desirability of doing so and make one’s sexual identity an important characteristic. So there are psychological, role, and status differences between males and females. Though there is no systemic dominance of one sex over the other, they would be morally objectionable because they could impair an individual’s ability to develop his/her own traits, talents and capacities to the fullest extent to which he/she might desire. Sex roles, and the social practice accompany them, necessarily impose limits on what one can do or become. All role-differentiated living is restrictive in this sense, and thus objectionable. (Wasserstrom)
f) We could criticize such sex-role system of reward for socially developed skills as unfair because it causes certain traits in people and then penalizes them for having them. Moreover, the sex-role differentiated societies have tended to concentrate power in the hands of males, have developed institutions and inculcated ideologies that have perpetuated that power dominance and concentration. Such societies thus have restricted and prevented women from living the kinds of lives that people ought to be able to live for themselves. What may be wrong is that a kind of individual autonomy is deprived for women.
g) Are we ever justified in treating someone differently because of his/her membership in a group and because of that group’s typical characteristics—even if that person does not possess them? In fact, group differences that are both real and relevant to differential treatment are often average differences. A characteristic may be typical of a group of people, but it may not belong to some members of the group. Men are generally taller than women, but some women are taller than some men. Some men are more nurturing and caring than some women. Justice requires us to consider what characteristics a person has, rather than what is typical of the group to which he/she belongs.
h) Many people recognize that racist (or sexual) discrimination is wrong, but prejudice against blacks (women) is still widespread. A disproportionate number of blacks are still poor and hold only menial jobs, while prestigious jobs are occupied by whites or men. So long as the unequal situation perpetuates, the whites will continue their stereotyped ideas about the blacks and entrench their racist discrimination.
6. Affirmative action or reverse discrimination? The idea of affirmative action is that to remedy certain injustices we need to do more than merely “Don’t discriminate” or “Stop discriminating”. More immediate positive actions or measures are required in order to restore equality and justice. Preference or special favouring could be given to women (or blacks) or minority group members who were equally well with the others to give them some edge.
Affirmative action is a way to break the vicious circle of discrimination, disadvantage, and inequality. Without affirmative action programmes, things are not likely to change. Discrimination is so entrenched that drastic measures are needed to overcome it.
Those who objectpreferential affirmative actiontake it as reverse discrimination—itreverses past practices or patterns so that those have been discriminated against are now given preferential treatment.
Some types of affirmative action:
(i) Enlarging the pool of applicants, then hiring or admitting on the basis of competence or qualification.
(ii) Giving preferences among equally qualified applicants.
(iii) Giving preferences for less-qualified applicants.
(iv) Setting goals or ideal numbers for which to aim; they need not involve preferences.
(v) Setting quotas or fixed numbers to actually attain; these usually involve preferences.
6.1 Justifications for preferential affirmative action:
In consideration of justice, affirmative action programs are making compensation for past wrongs done to members of certain groups. Females and people of a certain race have been harmed and wronged by past discrimination, and we now need to make up for that by benefiting them, by giving them preferential treatment. Past discrimination has put women and some minority group members at a continuing disadvantage. Unless something is done, they will never be able to compete on an equal basis or have an equal opportunity.
Black people have been, and are the victims of racist discrimination. One result is that they are poorly represented in some professions. In order to remedy this it is not enough that we simply stop discriminating against them.
Say in legal profession, while there are relatively few black lawyers, relatively few young black people will take seriously the possibility of becoming lawyers, and so they will not be prepared for law school. But if relatively few young black people are well-prepared for law school, and admission committees hold them to the same high standards as the white applicants, there will be relatively few black lawyers. It is a vicious circle. To break the circle and set things right abruptly, law school admission committees may give preferential treatment to black applicants.
In utilitarian consideration, affirmative action programs benefit everyone. The programs do more good than harm. We live in a multiracial and plural society and benefit from mutual respect and harmony. We all bring diverse backgrounds to our employment and educational institutions, and we all benefit from the contributions of people who have a variety of diverse interests and perspectives.
Past discrimination is, in fact, a relevant difference between groups of people and we would thus be justified in treating people differently. Preferential treatments are designed to benefit those who are members of groups that have been discriminated against in the past.
6.2 Criticisms and objections against preferential treatment:
(a) Affirmative action can be argued against of its injustice by appealing to the principle of equality.Race and sex are irrelevant characteristics for different treatment. It is a reverse discrimination. Just as it was wrong in the past to use these characteristics to deny people equal opportunities, so it is also wrong in the present, even if it is now used this to give them preferences. Race and sex are not differences that should count in treating people differently to deny benefits to some and grant them to others. Preferences for some mean denial to others. Preferential treatment is reverse discrimination and discrimination is wrong.
(b) In compensatory justice, only those wronged ought to be compensated, and only those responsible for the wrong ought to be made to pay. But some affirmative actions have compensated people regardless of whether they themselves have been harmed in the past, and some affirmative actions have also required that some people pay who have not been responsible for the past discrimination. It is wrong or unjust to punish someone (who is disadvantaged in reverse discrimination) who has not wronged anyone in the past.
(c) In utilitarian consideration, the affirmative action programs do not work or do more harm than good. The programs benefited not the lower class of the minority, but the middle-class. Most disadvantaged black people are not to benefit preferential treatment. Unless affirmative action, say, admission, is accompanied by financial and tutorial aid, it is useless or wasted. There is the likelihood of stigma attached to those have been admitted or hired through affirmative action programs. This can be debilitating to those who are chosen on this ground. Moreover, racial tension could increase and result from these preferential treatments.
Suggested readings:
- Jeffrey Olen & Vincent Barry, Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings, Chapter 10. Wadsworth, 2008.
- Barbara MacKinnon, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Chapter 12, Thomson, 2004.
- James Rachels, Reverse Discrimination, in Justice and Economic Distribution. J. Arthur & W. H. Shaw (ed.) Prentice Hall, 1978.
- Will Kymlicka, Sexual Equality and Discrimination: Difference vs. Dominance, in An Introduction to Contemporary Political Philosophy,chapter 7: Feminism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
- Richard A. Wasserstrom, On Racism and Sexism: Realities and Ideals, in Barbara MacKinnon’s Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Chapter 12, Thomson, 2004.
- Lisa Newton, Reverse Discrimination as Unjustified, in Barbara MacKinnon’s Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Chapter 12, Thomson, 2004.
- Charles Murray, Affirmative Racism, in The New Republic. December 31, 1984.
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