Moral and Political Justice

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 …

…being without the backing of interest groups, presidential leadership, or congressional mandate. They were instituted for pragmatic, quantifiable ways to respond to persistent discrimination in American 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.