There has been a long history of discrimination in nearly every place in the world,

including the workplace and places of education. Particularly in America, with its heterogeneous

population, there has been debate regarding whether there should be a goal of bringing more

minorities like women or people of color into businesses or college even by means of preference,

commonly referred to as ‘affirmative action.’ In embracing policies that set goals for hiring

minorities, we can better address the issues regarding discrimination against minorities in work

and higher education. These policies can address these issues in providing better outcomes for

minorities in the pursuit of achieving a better position in life by addressing discrimination in the

past and present with the application of these policies, and the value that creating more diversity

in the workplace and in education provides, as we seek to create a more virtuous, compassionate

and equitable society. In examining these policies through some of these moral principles, we

can better understand their value, even if it may seem counterintuitive in what may seem like

reverse discrimination.

In addressing past and current discrimination by means of affirmative action, we can

provide better outcomes for minorities. Where explicit discrimination in hiring or admissions

processes does not occur often in the modern day, minority groups still suffer from

discrimination in hiring and admissions. Aside from the potential disadvantage that may exist

due to class because of previous generations of discrimination, there are still subtle ways in

which discrimination can occur when hiring minority employees or admitting students, often

unintentionally, as Tom L Beauchamp states: “There may be no intention to discriminate against

anyone: nonetheless, they can have an adverse effect on the ability of minorities in securing

positions.” (218) Affirmative action serves to target this disadvantage directly, by giving

businesses and colleges goals to hire people of different groups who are likely to face this sort of
discrimination. This approach is primarily utilitarian, as it seeks to bring better outcomes and

with-it greater happiness for more people. Where our previous hiring and admissions processes

favored the majority, we must adjust so that more people have opportunities to succeed. This can

be done with affirmative action by correcting even unintentional discrimination by setting goals

and quotas of hiring or admitting those who have a higher likelihood of otherwise being

discriminated against. In doing something about the subtleties of discrimination we can refer to

Beauchamp again with the statement: “Those who believe discrimination is deep, camouflaged,

and embedded in society look for formulas that center on measurable outcomes.” (220)

Equality is a virtuous thing to strive for and affirmative action embodies this virtue.

Equality suggests that all people should be equal in opportunity, and this should apply to the

workforce and higher education. To promote equality, we must acknowledge discrimination.

Equality is intrinsically tied to justice, and often the way to bring about justice is by attempting

to save face and make things right. When considering many lawsuits and court cases, when

someone has been wronged in some way or another, we often seek to bring justice in inflicting

punishment and trying to alleviate the burden that this wrongdoing may have created. With our

focus on the latter, we can better understand what affirmative action has to do with justice and

equality, in that we can attempt to make up for and correct the wrongdoing that is discrimination

based on race, gender, or otherwise. Discrimination is a widespread issue, and especially where it

can be unintentional or otherwise difficult to prove or disprove, trying to catch every case of it

seems an impossible task. There does however seem to be a solution in affirmative action to the

injustice of this inequality, where instead of trying to catch every case of discrimination where

anyone can spot it, we can try to address it on a level where we recognize communities who are

affected by this sort of discrimination and correct from there. If there’s an extreme side to
equality when considering virtues, it might be that of uniformity. From court cases to our own

moral judgements of various situations, it’s important to consider the contexts of any action, and

when considering past injustices, what might seem like a reward or favoritism might simply be

an act that serves to address injustices that still affect many of these communities.

Diversity is something we should value and strive towards in society. As each person

learns and grows, they learn and grow by reconciling with the perspectives of others. This can

help not only the individual but also larger communities. Human knowledge has increased

considerably as more people came into contact with one another. Many scientific and academic

communities exist across cultural, racial, and gender boundaries. With a greater amount of

diversity and inclusion we can improve our communities, but this is not a simple task as not all

who wish to be a part of the group are included. As previously established, discrimination can be

subtle or unintentional, and serves to bar us from new ideas and greater possibilities. Through

affirmative action, we can actively seek diversity in our workplaces and higher education and

bring new perspectives into our communities. In seeking a more inclusive and diverse culture

and community, we could potentially improve these communities for everyone, not just those

who have been previously excluded. We can help those who have been discriminated against but

the workplaces and schools that are more diverse will likely have better workers or students as a

result of drawing employees or students from a wider range of people. An example of this given

by Beauchamp suggests that inclusion of the population of Puerto Rico helped improve the talent

pool for baseball players in America, and he suggests that we could help businesses in the same

way by trying to promote inclusivity (220).

Affirmative action is also an act of compassion. Learning of the subtle methods of

discrimination and how it affects the people who are victims of it can help us better understand
these issues. As was previously mentioned when talking about equality, it is important to

consider the context in which we act on our moral judgements. Care ethics is a strong proponent

of this, as it emphasizes values such as compassion. When we consider a care ethics approach,

we can better understand not only the struggle of discrimination and many of its intricacies by

attempting to hear out those who have been discriminated against, but it can provide us with a

reasoning for why we should seek to counteract discrimination. It is not only in terms of justice

we must think in doing right, but in seeking to help others because they struggle due to

something they cannot control. We can exercise not only justice but compassion to those who

have been wronged in terms of discrimination.

In an ideal world, where discrimination either didn’t exist or was very easy to spot and

counteract, it would be easy to say that policies like affirmative action are unjust, reverse

discrimination, a knee-jerk reaction that only serves to create more inequality. Equal opportunity

suggests that we should ignore anyone’s background when hiring and quotas create either an

unfair situation in which a minority is hired or admitted with less qualification for a position and

lower the standards for hire or that these quotas will create greater racial tensions on this basis

that may look like favoritism. As previously discussed, discrimination is not always so easy to

spot. The processes by which people are discriminated against when being hired or admitted can

be unintentional or otherwise difficult to spot, and in actively seeking inclusion, we can combat

discrimination and exclusion. We must consider the contexts in which discrimination exists

sometimes without intention, especially in cases of those who may not have fallen victim to it,

may not even be able to recognize it due to its subtleties. In the difficulty of the legal approach to

combatting discrimination this way, finding measurable ways in which to promote inclusivity

and fight discrimination is limited. Affirmative action is necessitated on the difficulty that exists
in fighting it and the difficulty that exists in otherwise trying to bring better outcomes to those

who have been discriminated against.

Affirmative action is an effective solution in bringing greater happiness to more people,

providing justice to those who have been unjustly discriminated against, bringing greater

diversity and knowledge to our communities, and giving compassion to those who have been

victimized by discrimination. We cannot ignore the effects of previous intentional discrimination

and we must acknowledge the unintentional. Without trying to amend the inequalities that exist

within the hiring and admittance processes we cannot expect to bring about equality.