We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
'Group Rights' and Racial Affirmative Action.
- Authors
Appiah, Kwame
- Abstract
This article argues against the view that affirmative action is wrong because it involves assigning group rights. First, affirmative action does not have to proceed by assigning rights at all. Second, there are, in fact, legitimate 'group rights' both legal and moral; there are collective rights-which are exercised by groups-and membership rights-which are rights people have in virtue of group membership. Third, there are continuing harms that people suffer as blacks and claims to remediation for these harms can fairly treat the (social) property of being black as tracking the victims of those harms. Affirmative action motivated in this way aims to respond to individual wrongs; wrongs that individuals suffer, as it happens, in virtue of their membership in groups. Finally, the main right we have when we are being considered for jobs and places at colleges is that we be treated according to procedures that are morally defensible. Morally acceptable procedures sometimes take account of the fact that a person is a member of a certain social group.
- Subjects
UNITED States; AFFIRMATIVE action programs; REPARATIONS to African Americans; SOUTH Africans; RACE discrimination; GROUP rights; SOCIAL history
- Publication
Journal of Ethics, 2011, Vol 15, Issue 3, p265
- ISSN
1382-4554
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10892-011-9103-5