I recently had a discussion with other philosophers regarding the tit for tat (def: retribution, eye for an eye) structure of the politics and morality involved in a policy of affirmative action. We agreed that it’s unfortunate that racial issues seem to revert to some form of tit for tat, but what other possibilities are there with our societal and political structures/mindsets? We concluded that ideally requests for forgiveness from one culture to another combined with a more altruistic attitude on behalf of the offending culture ought to be enough to solve the problems of racial injustice in the world, but, as is easy to see, that hope can’t amount to much more than a pipe dream. So, realistically we argued whether or not any lasting good can come of tit for tat politics.
Those that thought that tit for tat couldn’t ever be good hoped that massive monetary reparations might fix the injustices. The opposition to that is that you can’t realistically convince a powerful majority to do anything like that. Then there is the whole question regarding the image of buying off a group of people as if to say, “Here’s some money, let’s both be quiet and forget anything happened.” The other suggestion was that a strong policy of affirmative action to balance out the scales quickly would hopefully work. If a policy like that could be sold to the powerful majority you have the problem of the individuals, primarily in the lower class, that are going to get trampled while the policy was in effect.
From the perspective of these lower class individuals that tried very hard to get into good schools and had another person hand them a free pass to school based solely on their ethnicity while they get rejected they are being dealt a great injustice. The problem of racism is inflamed in the lower classes who, hypothetically, would have been less racist to begin with because they had more in common with the other cultures than the upper classes did. So far it doesn’t seem like there is a realistic win-win scenario.
The moral issues involved in such tit for tat policies essentially boil down to a utilitarian moral calculus problem. If there is no strong affirmative action then certain injustices continue and various virtues are less able to be grasped by the affected minority. If you institute affirmative action you are bringing down a universal virtue of fairness to suffer sometime until virtues of liberty, justice, etc. can work themselves up from the pits they are in due to the current injustices. This is all to say you either do nothing of moral conscience and hope somehow the problem fixes itself or you create a second wrong to make a final right.
I see the whole problem and think that the problem is mostly with our predisposed responses based upon a flawed political system and societal structure. I think with a proper political foundation and good societal mindset a win-win situation ought to be able to follow as a natural predisposition of correct foundations. Recently having read Michael Parenti’s arguments for the Constitution being the manipulative consequence of an elitist few; my only conclusion is that liberty and equality for all, despite ethnic/cultural differences, is going to require a vastly different political/societal atmosphere in every country that this is to be a goal. And all this is to say “BRING ON THE REVOLUTION!!!”
- Blake Stevens
Leave a Reply