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  • JUSTICE with Michael Sandel

  • Arguing Affirmative Action

  • Last time, we were discussing the distinction,

  • that Rawls draws between two different types of claims.

  • Claims of moral desert on the one hand,

  • and of entitlement to legitimate expectations on the other.

  • Rawls argued that it's a mistake to think that

  • distributive justice is a matter of moral desert.

  • A matter of rewarding people according to their virtue.

  • Today we're going to explore that question

  • of moral desert and its relation to distributive justice.

  • Not in connection with incoming wealth,

  • but in its connection with opportunities.

  • With hiring decisions and admission standards.

  • And so we turn to the case, of affirmative action.

  • You read about the case of Cheryl Hopwood.

  • She applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School.

  • Cheryl Hopwood had worked her way through high school,

  • she didn't come from an affluent family,

  • she put herself through community college,

  • and California State University at Sacramento.

  • She achieved a 3.8 grade point average there,

  • later moved to Texas, became a resident,

  • took the law school admissions test,

  • did pretty well on that,

  • and she applied to the University of Texas Law School.

  • She was turned down.

  • She was turned down at a time when the University of Texas,

  • was using an affirmative action admissions policy.

  • A policy that took into account,

  • race and ethnic background.

  • The University of Texas said, "40 percent of the population of Texas

  • is made up of African Americans and Mexican Americans.

  • It's important that we, as a law school, have a diverse student body.

  • And so we are going to take into account,

  • not only grades and test scores,

  • but also the demographic makeup of our class including, its race and ethnic profile."

  • The result, and this is what Hopwood complained about,

  • the result of that policy,

  • is that some applicants to the University of Texas Law School,

  • with a lower academic index,

  • which includes grades and test scores,

  • than hers, were admitted.

  • And she was turned down.

  • She said, she argued, "I'm just being turned down because I'm white.

  • If I weren't, if I were a member of a minority group,

  • with my grades and test scores I would had been admitted."

  • And the statistics, the admissions statistics that came out in the trial,

  • confirmed that African American and Mexican American applicants that year,

  • who had, her grades and test scores, were admitted.

  • It went to Federal Court.

  • Now, put aside the law,

  • let's consider it from the standpoint of justice and morality.

  • Is it fair, or it unfair?

  • Does Cheryl Hopwood have a case?

  • A legitimate complaint?

  • Were her rights violated, by the admissions policy of the law school?

  • How many say, how many would rule for the law school,

  • and say that it was just to consider race and ethnicity as a factor in admissions?

  • How many would rule for Cheryl Hopwood

  • and say "her rights were violated?"

  • So here we have a pretty even split.

  • Alright, now I want to hear from a defender of Cheryl Hopwood. Yes?

  • You're basing something that's an arbitrary factor,

  • you know, Cheryl couldn't control the fact that she was white,

  • or not in a minority.

  • And therefore, you know, it's not as if it was like a test score that she worked hard

  • to try and show that she could, you know, put that out there,

  • you know, that she had no control over her race.

  • Good. And what're your name? - Bree.

  • Okay. Bree, stay right there.

  • Now let's find someone who has an answer for Bree.

  • Yes? - There are discrepancies in the educational system.

  • And the majority of the time, I know this in New York City,

  • the schools that minorities go to, are not as well-funded,

  • are not as well-supplied, as white schools.

  • And so there is going to be a discrepancy,

  • naturally, between minorities and between whites.

  • If they go to better schools.

  • And they will not do as well on exams because they haven't had as much help.

  • Because of the worst school systems.

  • Let me just interrupt you to, tell me your name?

  • Aneesha. - Aneesha. Aneesha, you're pointing out

  • that minority kids may have gone in some cases

  • to schools that didn't give them the same educational opportunity as kids from

  • affluent families. - Yes.

  • And so the test scores they got,

  • may actually not represent their true potential.

  • Because they didn't receive the same kind of help

  • that they might have received had they gone to a school with better funding.

  • Good, alright. Aneesha has raised the point

  • that colleges still should choose for the greatest academic scholarly promise

  • but in reading the test scores and grades,

  • they should take into account the different meaning

  • those tests and grades have,

  • in the light of educational disadvantage in the background.

  • So that's one argument in defense of affirmative action, Aneesha's argument.

  • Correcting for the effects of unequal preparation.

  • Educational disadvantage.

  • Now, there are other arguments.

  • Suppose, just to identify whether there is a competing principle here.

  • Suppose there are two candidates,

  • who did equally well on the tests and grades.

  • Both of whom went to first rate schools.

  • Two candidates, among those candidates,

  • would it be unfair for the college or university, for Harvard, to say,

  • "we still want diversity along racial and ethnic dimensions,

  • even where we are not correcting for the effects

  • on test scores of educational disadvantage."

  • What about in that case, Bree?

  • If it's that's one thing that puts, you know someone over the edge,

  • then it's, I guess that would be, you know, justifiable.

  • If everything else about the individual first, though,

  • everything to consider about that person's you know, talents,

  • and where they come from, and who they are without these arbitrary factors, is the same.

  • Without these 'arbitrary factors', you call them.

  • But before you were suggesting, Bree, that race and ethnicity are arbitrary factors

  • outside the control of the applicants. - True, I would agree with that.

  • And your general principle is that admissions shouldn't reward arbitrary factors,

  • over which people have no control. - Right.

  • Alright. Who else, who else would like to, thank you both.

  • Who else would like to get into this, what do you say?

  • Well, first of all, I'm for affirmative action temporarily,

  • but, for two reasons.

  • First of all, you have to look at the university's purpose.

  • It is to educate their students.

  • And I feel that different races, people coming from different races have

  • different backgrounds and they contribute differently to the education.

  • And second of all, when you say that they have equal backgrounds,

  • that's not true when you look at the broader picture,

  • and you look at slavery and this is kind of a reparation.

  • I think affirmative action is a temporary solution to alleviate history,

  • and the wrongs done to African Americans in particular.

  • And what's your name?

  • David. - David. You say that affirmative action

  • is justified at least for now as a way of compensating for past injustice.

  • The legacy of slavery and segregation. - Right.

  • Who wants to take on that argument?

  • We need now a critic of affirmative action.

  • Yes, go ahead.

  • I think that what happened in the past has no bearing on what happens today.

  • I think that discriminating based on race should always be wrong.

  • Whether you're discriminating against one group or another.

  • Just because our ancestors did something,

  • doesn't mean that that should have any effect on what happens with us today.

  • Alright, good. I'm sorry, your name is? - Kate.

  • Kate. Alright, who has an answer for Kate?

  • Yes. - I just wanted to comment

  • and say that, - Tell us your name.

  • My name is Mansur. Because of slavery, because of past injustices today,

  • we have a higher proportion of African Americans who are in poverty,

  • who face less opportunities than white people.

  • So because of slavery 200 years ago,

  • and because of Jim Crow, and because of segregation,

  • today we have injustice based on race.

  • Kate? - I think that there are differences,

  • obviously, but the way to fix those differences is not by some artificial fixing

  • of the result.

  • You need to fix the problem.

  • So we need to address differences in education,

  • and differences in upbringing with programs like Head Start,

  • and giving more funding to lower income schools

  • rather than just trying to fix the result,

  • so it makes it look like it's equal when it's really it isn't.

  • Yes.

  • Well, with regard to affirmative action based on race,

  • I just want to say that white people have had their own affirmative action

  • in this country for more than 400 years.

  • It's called 'nepotism' and 'quid pro quo'.

  • So there's nothing wrong with correcting the injustice and discrimination

  • that's been done to black people for 400 years.

  • Good. Tell us your name. - Hannah.

  • Hannah. Alright who has an answer for Hannah?

  • And just to add to Hannah's point,

  • because we need now someone to respond,

  • Hannah, you could have also mentioned legacy admissions.

  • Exactly. I was going to say,

  • if you disagree with affirmative action,

  • you should disagree with legacy admission because

  • it's obvious from looking around here that there are more white legacies

  • than black legacies in the history of Harvard University.

  • And explain what legacy admissions are.

  • Well, legacy admissions is giving an advantage to someone

  • who has an arbitrary privilege of their parent having attended the university

  • to which they're applying.

  • Alright, so a reply for Hannah.

  • Yes, in the balcony, go ahead.

  • First of all, if affirmative action is making up for past injustice,

  • how do you explain minorities that were not historically discriminated against

  • in the United States who get these advantages?

  • In addition, you could argue that affirmative action perpetuates

  • divisions between the races rather than achieve the ultimate goal

  • of race being an irrelevant factor in our society.

  • And what, tell us your name.

  • Danielle. - Hannah.

  • I disagree with that because I think that by promoting diversity

  • in an institution like this,

  • you further educate all of the students, especially the white students

  • who grew up in predominately white areas.

  • It's certainly a form of education to be exposed to people from different backgrounds.

  • And you put white students at an inherent disadvantage when you surround them

  • only with their own kind.

  • Why should race necessarily be equated with diversity?

  • There are so many other forms, why should we assume

  • that race makes people different?

  • Again, that's perpetuating the idea of racial division within our universities

  • and our society. - Hannah?

  • With regard to African American people

  • being given a special advantage,

  • it's obvious that they bring something special to the table,

  • because they have a unique perspective

  • just as someone from a different religion or socio-economic background would, as well.

  • As you say, there are many different types of diversity.

  • There's no reason that racial diversity should be eliminated from that criteria.

  • Yes, go ahead.

  • Racial discrimination is illegal in this country,

  • and I believe that it was African American leaders themselves,

  • when Martin Luther King said he wanted to be judged not on the color of skin,

  • but by the content of his character, his merit, his achievements.

  • And I just think that, to decide solely based on someone's race

  • is just inherently unfair.

  • I mean, if you want to correct based on disadvantaged backgrounds,

  • that's fine, but there are also disadvantaged white people as well.

  • It shouldn't matter if you're white or black. - Tell us your name.

  • Ted. - Ted, - Yes. - Think of Hopwood.

  • It's unfair to count race or, I assume you would also say, ethnicity or religion?

  • Yes. - Do you think she has a right to be considered

  • according to her grades and test scores alone?

  • No. There is more to it than that.

  • Universities need to promote diversity.

  • So you agree with the goal of promoting diversity?

  • There's ways to promote diversity besides discriminating against people solely

  • based on a factor they cannot control.

  • Alright, so what makes it wrong,

  • is that she can't control her race.

  • She can't control the fact that she's white.

  • That's the heart of the unfairness to her.

  • Bree made a similar point.

  • That basing admissions on factors that people can't control,

  • is fundamentally unfair. What do you say?

  • There's a lot of things you can't control,

  • and if you don't for it based on merit,

  • like just based on your test scores,

  • a lot of what you can achieve has to do with family background,

  • that you were raised in.

  • If both of your parents were scholarly,

  • then you have more of chance of actually

  • of being more scholarly yourself and getting those grades.

  • And you can't control what kind of family you were born into.

  • Alright good, that's a great rejoinder, what's your name?

  • Da. - Da.

  • Ted, are you against advantages that come from the family you were born into?

  • What about legacy admissions?

  • I do believe that in terms of a legacy admission

  • you shouldn't have a special preference,

  • I mean there is a legacy admission you could argue is another part,

  • versus you could day it's important to have a small percentage

  • of people that have a several generation family attendance at a place like Harvard.

  • However that should not be an advantage factor like race,

  • it should just be another part promoting diversity.

  • Should it count at all?

  • I think that, - Alumni status, should it count at all, Ted?

  • Yes. It should count.

  • Alright, I want to step back for a moment from these arguments.

  • Thank you all for these contributions.

  • We're going to come back to you.

  • If you've listened carefully I think you will have noticed

  • three different arguments emerge from this discussion.

  • In defense of considering race and ethnicity

  • as a factor in admissions.

  • One argument has to do with correcting for the effects,

  • for the effects of educational disadvantage.

  • That was Aneesha's argument.

  • This is what we might call the corrective argument.

  • Correcting for differences in educational background,

  • the kind of school people went to.

  • The opportunities they had and so on.

  • That's one argument.

  • What's worth noticing though, is that argument is consistent

  • in principle with the idea

  • that only academic promise and scholarly potential should count in admissions.

  • We just need to go beyond test scores and grades alone,

  • to get a true estimate

  • of academic promise and scholarly ability.

  • That's the first argument.

  • Then we heard a second argument that said

  • affirmative action is justified even where there may not be

  • the need to correct for educational disadvantage

  • in a particular applicant's case.

  • It's justified as a way of compensating for past wrongs,

  • for historic injustices.

  • So that's a compensatory argument.

  • Compensating for past wrongs.

  • Then we heard, a third, a different argument,

  • for affirmative action, from Hannah and others,

  • that argued in the name of diversity.

  • Now, the diversity argument is different from the compensatory argument,

  • because it makes a certain appeal to the social purpose

  • or the social mission of the college or university.

  • There are really two aspects to the diversity argument.

  • One says it's important to have a diverse student body for the sake of

  • the educational experience for everyone.

  • Hannah made that point.

  • And the other talks about the wider society.

  • This was the argument made by the University of Texas in the Hopwood case.

  • We need to train lawyers and judges and leaders,

  • public officials who will contribute to the strength,

  • the civic strength of the state of Texas, and the country as a whole.

  • So there are two different aspects to the diversity argument.

  • But both are arguments in the name of the social purpose,

  • or the social mission or the common good,

  • served by the institution.

  • Well, what about the force of these arguments?

  • We've also heard objections to these arguments.

  • The most powerful objection to the compensatory argument is,

  • is it fair to ask Cheryl Hopwood today,

  • to make the sacrifice, to pay the compensation

  • for an injustice that was admittedly committed and egregious,

  • in the past, but in which she was not implicated.

  • Is that fair?

  • So that's an important objection

  • to the compensatory argument.

  • And in order to meet that objection,

  • we would have to investigate whether there is such a thing

  • as group rights or collective responsibility

  • that reaches over time.

  • So having identified that issue,

  • let's set it aside to turn to the diversity argument.

  • The diversity argument doesn't have to worry about that question.

  • About collective responsibility for past wrongs.

  • Because it says, for reasons Hannah and others pointed out,

  • that the common good is served,

  • is advanced if there is a racially and ethnically diverse student body.

  • Everyone benefits.

  • This indeed was the argument that Harvard made

  • when it filed a friend of the court brief to the Supreme Court in the 1978 case,

  • the affirmative action case, the Bakke case.

  • In the Harvard brief, the Harvard rationale,

  • was cited by Justice Powell,

  • who was the swing vote in the case upholding affirmative action,

  • he cited that as providing the rationale that he thought

  • was constitutionally acceptable.

  • Harvard's argument in its brief, was this:

  • "We care about diversity. Scholarly excellence alone, has never been

  • the criterion of admission, the sole criterion of admission to Harvard College.

  • Fifteen years ago diversity meant students from California and New York,

  • and Massachusetts. City dwellers, and farm boys.

  • Violinists, painters and football players.

  • Biologists, historians and classicists.

  • The only difference now,

  • Harvard argued, is that we're adding racial and ethnic status to this long list

  • of diversity considerations.

  • When reviewing the large number of candidates able to do well in our classes,"

  • Harvard wrote, "Race may count as a plus, just as coming from Iowa may count

  • or being a good middle linebacker or pianist.

  • A farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College

  • that a Bostonian cannot offer.

  • Similarly, a black student can usually bring something a white student cannot offer.

  • The quality of the educational experience of all students

  • depends in part on these differences

  • in the background and outlook that students bring with them."

  • That was Harvard's argument.

  • Now what about the diversity argument?

  • Is it persuasive?

  • If it's to be persuasive, it has to meet one very powerful objection.

  • That we've heard voiced here.

  • By Ted, by Bree.

  • Unless you're a utilitarian, you believe that individual rights can't be violated.

  • And so the question is,

  • is there an individual right that is violated?

  • Is Cheryl Hopwood's right violated?

  • If she is used, so to speak, denied admission,

  • for the sake of the common good and the social mission

  • that the University of Texas Law School has defined for itself,

  • does she have a right?

  • Don't we deserve to be considered

  • according to our excellences, our achievements,

  • our accomplishments, our hard work?

  • Isn't that the right at stake?

  • Now we've already heard an answer to that argument.

  • No, she doesn't have the right.

  • Nobody deserves to be admitted.

  • Notice how this gets us back to the issue of desert versus entitlement.

  • They're arguing there is no individual right that Hopwood has.

  • She doesn't deserve to be admitted according to any particular set of criteria that

  • she believes to be important.

  • Including criteria that have only to do with her efforts and achievements.

  • Why not?

  • I think implicit, in this argument,

  • is something like Rawls' rejection of moral desert as the basis of distributive justice.

  • Yes, once Harvard defines its mission

  • and designs its admission policy in the light of its mission,

  • people are entitled, who fit those criteria,

  • they are entitled to be admitted.

  • But according to this argument,

  • no one deserves that Harvard college define its mission

  • and design its admission criteria in the first place,

  • in a way that prizes the qualities they happen to have in abundance.

  • Whether those qualities are test scores or grades

  • or the ability to play the piano,

  • or to be a good middle linebacker,

  • or to come from Iowa,

  • or to come from a certain minority group.

  • So you see how this debate about affirmative action,

  • especially the diversity argument,

  • takes us back to the question of rights,

  • which in turn takes us back to the question of whether moral desert

  • is or is not the basis for distributive justice.

  • Think about that over the weekend and we'll continue this discussion next time.

  • Suppose we're distributing flutes.

  • Who should get the best ones?

  • What's Aristotle's answer? Anyone?

  • His answer is, the best flutes should go to the best flute players,

  • because that's what flutes are for.

  • When we ended last time,

  • we were considering arguments for and against affirmative action.

  • Counting race as a factor in admissions.

  • And, in the course of the discussion,

  • three arguments emerged,

  • three arguments for affirmative action.

  • One of them was the idea that race and ethnic background should count

  • as a way of correcting for the true meaning of test scores and grades.

  • Getting a more accurate measure of the academic potential

  • those scores, those numbers represent.

  • Second, was what we called "the compensatory argument".

  • The idea of righting past wrongs, past injustice.

  • And the third was the diversity argument.

  • And when Cheryl Hopwood in the 1990s challenged

  • the University of Texas Law School's affirmative action program,

  • in the federal courts, the University of Texas

  • made another version of the diversity argument.

  • Saying that the broader social purpose, the social mission of the University of Texas

  • Law School, is to produce leaders, in the legal community,

  • in the political community, among judges, lawyers, legislators,

  • and therefore it's important that we produce leaders,

  • who reflect the background, and the experience,

  • and the ethnic and the racial composition of the state of Texas.

  • It's important for serving our wider social mission.

  • That was the University of Texas Law School's argument.

  • And then we considered an objection

  • to the diversity argument which after all is an argument in the name of

  • the social mission, the common good.

  • We saw that Rawls does not simply believe

  • that arguments of the common good or the general welfare should prevail

  • if individual rights must be violated in the course of promoting the common good.

  • You remember that was the question, the challenge,

  • to the diversity rationale that we were considering

  • when we finished last time.

  • And we began to discuss the question "Well, what right might be at stake"?

  • Maybe the right to be considered according to factors within one's control.

  • Maybe this is the argument that Cheryl Hopwood implicitly was making.

  • She can't help the fact that she is white.

  • Why should her chance at getting into law school

  • depend on a factor she can't control?

  • And then Hannah who is advancing an argument last time

  • said Harvard has the right to define its mission

  • any way it wants to, it's a private institution.

  • And it's only once Harvard defines its mission

  • that we can identify the qualities that count.

  • So no rights are being violated.

  • Now, what about that argument?

  • What I would like to do is to hear objections to that reply.

  • And then, see whether others have an answer.

  • Yes? And tell us your name.

  • Da. - Da, right you spoke up last time.

  • How do you answer that argument?

  • Well, I think there was two things in there.

  • One of them was that a private institution could define its mission however it wants.

  • But that doesn't make however it defines it, right, like I could define my personal

  • mission as I want to collect all the money in the world.

  • But does that make it even a good mission?

  • So you can't like, you can't say that just because a college is a private institution it

  • can just define it as whatever it wants,

  • you still have to thing about, what are the way it's defining it, it's right.

  • And the case of affirmative action a lot of people have said that

  • since there's a lot of other factors involved,

  • why not race?

  • Like if we already know that, - Let's I want to stick with your first

  • point, Da. - Okay.

  • Here's Da's objection.

  • Can a college or university define its social purpose any way it wants to

  • and define admissions criteria accordingly?

  • What about the University of Texas Law School

  • not today, but in the 1950s?

  • Then, there was another Supreme Court case,

  • against the admissions policy of the University of Texas Law School

  • because it was segregated.

  • It only admitted whites.

  • And when the case went to court back in the '50s,

  • the University of Texas Law School also invoked its mission.

  • "Our mission as a law school,

  • is to educate lawyers for the Texas bar, the Texas law firms.

  • And no Texas law firm hires African Americans.

  • So to fulfill our mission,

  • we only admit whites."

  • Or consider Harvard,

  • in the 1930s

  • when it had anti-Jewish quotas.

  • President Lowell, the president of Harvard in the 1930s said,

  • that he had nothing personally against Jews,

  • but he invoked the mission, the social purpose of Harvard he said,

  • "which is not only to train intellectuals,

  • part of the mission at Harvard," he said, "is to train stockbrokers for Wall Street,

  • presidents and senators and there are very few Jews who go into those professions."

  • Now, here's the challenge.

  • Is there a principle distinction

  • between the invocation of the social purpose

  • of the college or university today,

  • in the diversity rationale

  • and the invocation of the social purpose or mission

  • of the university by Texas in the 1950s

  • or Harvard in the 1930s?

  • Is there a difference in principle?

  • What's the reply?

  • Hannah? - Well, I think that the principle that's

  • different here, is, basically the distinction between inclusion versus exclusion.

  • I think that it's morally wrong of the university to

  • say "We're going to exclude you on the basis of your religion or your race."

  • That's denial on the basis of arbitrary factors.

  • What Harvard is trying to do today with its diversity initiatives,

  • is to include groups that were excluded in the past.

  • Good, let's see if, stay there, let's see if someone would like to reply.

  • Go ahead. - Actually this is kind of in support of Hannah,

  • rather than a reply but, - That's alright.

  • I was going to say another principle difference

  • can be based on malice being the motivation for the historical

  • segregation act, so it's saying that we're not going to let blacks or Jews in because

  • they're worse as people or as a group.

  • Good, so the element of malice isn't present.

  • And what's your name? - Stevie.

  • Stevie says that in the historic segregation as racist, anti-Semitic quotas

  • or prohibitions.

  • There was built into them,

  • a certain kind of malice, a certain kind of judgment

  • that African Americans or Jews were somehow less worthy than everybody else.

  • Whereas present day affirmative action programs

  • don't involve or imply any such judgment.

  • What it amounts to saying is, so long as the policy,

  • just uses people in a way as valuable to the social purpose

  • of the institution, it's okay provided it doesn't judge them,

  • maliciously, as Stevie might add,

  • as intrinsically less worthy.

  • I'd like to raise a question.

  • Doesn't that concede that all of us

  • when we compete for positions or for seats in colleges and universities

  • in a way are being used, not judged,

  • but used, in a way that has nothing to do with moral desert.

  • Remember we got into this whole discussion of affirmative action

  • when we were trying to figure out

  • whether distributive justice should be tied to moral desert or not.

  • And we were launched on that question

  • by Rawls and his denial,

  • his rejection of the idea that distributive justice

  • whether its positions or places in the class or income and wealth

  • is a matter of moral desert.

  • Suppose that were the moral basis of Harvard's admissions policy,

  • what letters would they have to write

  • to people they rejected or accepted for that matter?

  • Wouldn't they have to write something like this:

  • "Dear unsuccessful applicant,

  • we regret to inform you that your application for admission

  • has been rejected.

  • It's not your fault that when you came along

  • society happened not to need the qualities you had to offer.

  • Those admitted instead of you are not themselves

  • deserving of a place nor worthy of a praise for the factors that led their admission.

  • We are in any case only using them and you as instruments of a wider social purpose.

  • Better luck next time."

  • What was the letter you actually got

  • when you were admitted?

  • Perhaps it should have read something like this:

  • "Dear successful applicant,

  • we are pleased to inform you that your application for admission has been accepted.

  • It turns out, lucky for you,

  • that you have the traits that society needs at the moment,

  • so we propose to exploit your assets

  • for society's advantage.

  • You are to be congratulated.

  • Not in the sense that you deserve credit for having the qualities

  • that led to your admission,

  • but only in a sense that the winner of a lottery

  • is to be congratulated.

  • And if you choose to accept our offer,

  • you will ultimately be entitled to the benefits that attach

  • to being used in this way.

  • We look forward to seeing you in the fall."

  • Now, there is something a little odd,

  • morally odd,

  • if it's true that those letters do reflect

  • the theory, the philosophy

  • underlying the policy.

  • So here's the question they pose.

  • And it's a question that takes us back to a big issue in political philosophy.

  • Is it possible, and is it desirable,

  • to detach questions of distributive justice

  • from questions of moral desert

  • and questions of virtue?

  • In many ways,

  • this is an issue that separates modern political philosophy from

  • ancient political thought.

  • What's at stake in the question of whether we can put desert, moral desert aside?

  • It seemed when we were reading Rawls,

  • that the incentive, the reason he had,

  • for detaching distributive justice from moral desert

  • was an egalitarian one.

  • That if we set desert to one side,

  • there's greater scope for the exercise of egalitarian considerations.

  • The veil of ignorance.

  • The two principles, the difference principle,

  • helping the least well off, redistribution and all that.

  • But what's interesting, is if you look,

  • at a range of thinkers we've been considering,

  • there does seem to be a reason they want to detach justice from desert

  • that goes well beyond any concern for equality.

  • Libertarian rights oriented theorists,

  • the kind we've been studying, as well as egalitarian rights oriented theorists,

  • including Rawls, and for that matter, also including Kant,

  • all agree, despite their disagreements over distributive justice,

  • and the welfare state and all of that,

  • they all agree that justice is not a matter of rewarding or honoring

  • virtue or moral desert.

  • Now why do they all think that?

  • It can't just be for egalitarian reasons

  • not all of them are egalitarians.

  • This gets us to the big philosophical question we have to try to sort out.

  • Somehow they think tying justice to moral merit or virtue

  • is going to lead away from freedom,

  • from respect for persons as free beings.

  • Well, in order to see what they consider to be at stake,

  • and in order to assess their shared assumption,

  • we need to turn to a thinker, to a philosopher,

  • who disagrees with them.

  • Who explicitly ties justice to honor, honoring virtue,

  • and merit and moral desert.

  • And that thinker is Aristotle.

  • Now, in many ways Aristotle's idea of justice

  • is intuitively very powerful.

  • In some ways it's strange.

  • I want to bring out both its power, its plausibility and its strangeness,

  • so that we can see what's at stake in this whole debate about

  • justice and whether it's tied to desert and virtue.

  • So, what is Aristotle's answer to the question about justice?

  • For Aristotle, justice is a matter of giving people what they deserve,

  • giving people their due.

  • It's a matter of figuring out the proper fit

  • between persons, with their virtues,

  • and their appropriate social roles.

  • Well, what does this picture of justice look like,

  • and how does it differ from the conception that seems to be shared among

  • libertarian and egalitarian rights oriented theorists alike?

  • Justice means giving each person

  • his or her due, giving people what they deserve.

  • But what is a person's due?

  • What are the relevant grounds of merit or desert?

  • Aristotle says that depends on the sort of things being distributed.

  • "Justice involves two factors: Things and the persons

  • to whom the things are assigned.

  • In general we say," Aristotle writes, "That persons who are equal

  • should have equal things assigned to them."

  • But here there arises a hard question.

  • Equals in what respects?

  • Aristotle says that depends on the sort of thing we're distributing.

  • Suppose we're distributing flutes.

  • What is the relevant merit or basis of desert for flutes?

  • Who should get the best ones?

  • What's Aristotle's answer?

  • Anyone?

  • The best flute players, right.

  • Those who are best in the relevant sense,

  • the best flute players.

  • Is it just to discriminate in allocating flutes? Yes.

  • All justice involves discrimination, Aristotle says.

  • What matters is that the discrimination be according to the relevant

  • excellence, according to the virtue

  • appropriate to having flutes.

  • He says it would be unjust to discriminate on some other basis.

  • In giving out the flutes, to, say, wealth.

  • Just giving the best flutes to the people who can pay the highest price,

  • or nobility of birth, just giving flutes to aristocrats,

  • or physical beauty, giving the best flutes to the most handsome,

  • or chance, having a lottery.

  • Aristotle says birth and beauty may be greater

  • goods than the ability to play the flute,

  • and those who possess them may surpass the flute player more in these qualities

  • than he surpasses them in his flute playing.

  • But the fact remains that he is the person who ought to get the best flute.

  • It's a strange idea this comparison, by the way,

  • that could you say, "Am I more handsome

  • than she is a good lacrosse player?"

  • That's a strange kind of comparison.

  • But putting that aside,

  • Aristotle says, we're not looking for the best overall whatever that might mean.

  • We're looking for the best musician.

  • Now, why this is important to see.

  • Why, should the best flutes go to the best flute players?

  • Well, why do you think?

  • Anybody?

  • What? They'll produce the best music.

  • Well, and everybody will enjoy it more.

  • That's not Aristotle's answer.

  • Aristotle is not a utilitarian.

  • He's not just saying, that way there'll be better music and everyone will enjoy it,

  • everyone will be better off.

  • His answer is the best flutes should go to the best flute players

  • because that's what flutes are for.

  • To be played well.

  • The purpose of flute playing, the purpose,

  • is to produce excellent music.

  • And those who can best perfect that purpose,

  • ought properly to have the best ones.

  • Now, it may also be true,

  • as a welcome side effect.

  • That everyone will enjoy listening to that music.

  • So that answer is true enough as far as it goes,

  • but it's important to see that Aristotle's

  • reason is not a utilitarian reason.

  • It's a reason that looks,

  • here's where you might think it's a little bit strange,

  • it looks to the purpose, the point, the goal, of flute playing.

  • Another way of describing this,

  • looking to the goal to determine

  • the just allocation,

  • the Greek for goal or end, was 'telos'.

  • So Aristotle says, you have to consider the point, the end, the goal,

  • the telos of the thing in this case of flute playing.

  • And that's how you define a just allocation.

  • A just discrimination.

  • So this idea of reasoning from the goal,

  • from the telos, is called "teleological reasoning".

  • Teleological moral reasoning.

  • And that's Aristotle's way.

  • Reasoning from the goal, from the end.

  • Now, this may seem, as I said a strange idea,

  • that we're supposed to reason from the purpose,

  • but it is, does have a certain intuitive plausibility.

  • Consider the allocation, let's say, at Harvard, of the best tennis courts

  • or squash courts.

  • How should they be allocated? Who should have priority in playing

  • on the best courts?

  • Well, you might say,

  • "Those who can best afford them."

  • Set up a fee system, charge money for them.

  • Aristotle would say "No".

  • You might say,

  • "Well, Harvard big shots, the most influential people at Harvard,

  • who would they be"?

  • The senior faculty should have priority

  • in playing on the best tennis courts.

  • No, Aristotle would reject that.

  • Some scientist may be a greater scientist than some Varsity tennis player

  • is a tennis player, but still the tennis player is the one

  • who should have priority for playing in the best tennis court.

  • There is a certain intuitive plausibility to this idea.

  • Now, one of the things that makes it strange

  • is that in Aristotle's world, in the ancient world,

  • it wasn't only social practices

  • that were governed, in Aristotle's view,

  • by teleological reasoning and teleological explanation.

  • All of nature

  • was understood to be a meaningful order

  • and what it meant to understand nature,

  • to grasp nature, to find our place in nature,

  • was to inquire into and read out the purposes or the telos,

  • of nature.

  • And with the advent of modern science, it's been difficult to think of the world that way

  • and so it makes it harder perhaps to think of justice in a teleological way,

  • but there is a certain naturalness

  • to thinking about even the natural world,

  • as teleologically ordered as a purpose of whole.

  • In fact, children have to be educated out of this way

  • of looking at the world.

  • I realized this when my kids were very young

  • and I was reading them a book, Winnie the Poo.

  • And Winnie the Poo gives you a great idea of how

  • there is a certain, natural, childlike way of looking at the world

  • in a teleological way.

  • You may remember a story

  • of Winnie-the-Poo walking in the forest one day,

  • "He came to a place in the forest,

  • and from the top of the tree there came a loud buzzing-noise.

  • Winnie-the-Poo sat at the foot of a tree, put his head between his paws,

  • and began to think."

  • Here's what he said to himself, " 'That buzzing-noise means something.

  • You don't get a buzzing-noise like that just buzzing and buzzing

  • without its meaning something.

  • If there's a buzzing-noise,

  • somebody's making a buzzing-noise.

  • And the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of,

  • is because you're a bee.'

  • Then he thought for another long time and said,

  • 'And the only reason for being a bee that I know of,

  • is making honey.'

  • And then he got up,

  • and he said, 'And the only reason for making honey,

  • is so I can eat it.' So he began to climb the tree."

  • This is an example of teleological reasoning.

  • It isn't so implausible after all.

  • Now, we grew up, and we're talked out of this way

  • of thinking about the world.

  • But here's the question,

  • even if teleological explanations don't fit with modern science,

  • even if we've outgrown them

  • in understanding nature,

  • isn't there something still intuitively,

  • and morally plausible, even powerful,

  • about Aristotle's idea that the only way to think about justice

  • is to reason from the purpose, the goal, the telos,

  • of the social practice?

  • And isn't that precisely what we were doing when we were disagreeing about

  • affirmative action?

  • You can almost recast that disagreement

  • as one about what the proper appropriate purpose, or end

  • of a university education consists in.

  • Reasoning from the purpose or from the telos.

  • Or from the end.

  • Aristotle says that's indispensable to thinking about justice.

  • Is he right?

  • Think about that question as you turn to Aristotle's politics.

  • Don't miss the chance to interact online with other viewers of Justice.

  • Join in the conversation, take a pop quiz.

  • Watch lectures you've missed, and learn a lot more.

  • Visit justiceharvard.org, it's the right thing to do.

JUSTICE with Michael Sandel

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邁克爾-桑德爾:正義什麼是正確的事第09集 爭論積極行動的問題。 (Michael Sandel:Justice What's The Right Thing To Do Episode 09 ARGUING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION)

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