Ethics of Affirmative Action Essay -- Ethics Morals

Affirmative Action: Staying on the Road to Equality â€Å"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness† (Declaration of Independence, 1776). Who would imagine that in a country under the blanket such a brilliant, ethical and proud statement of equality, there could be so much dissention about equality? Our nation has interpreted this statement differently since it was written, and still, more than two hundred years later, we are on the road to a truly equal society. This is because racism has its seeds deeply sown into the history of America. Uprooting perceptions of peoples who are dominant and peoples who are inferior has been a long process, from the Emancipation Proclamation to affirmative action. It is important that we stay on this road to equality for all, and keep affirmative action up and running.Affirmative action has its roots in racism as a remedy to it , and racism has its roots all the way back in the colonial and imperial era. Europeans began discovering other continents in the fifteenth century, and with new continents came new ways of making money. Different European countries began to scramble to acquire colonies where they could sell goods, exploit labor, and export slaves and raw materials for cheap prices. Almost all of Africa became colonialized, with different European powers claiming control over sections of Africa, and soon colonialism spread to many new places that were discovered: the Americas, the Middle East, and later Asia and the Pacific Islands. In the process of colonialism, the Europeans were taking advantage of the resour... ...hat happens when we level the playing field? â€Å"No school that has scrapped its affirmative action program has seen minority enrollment return fully to affirmative action levels† (Kranz 26). The ultimate goal is to see minorities represent their population in education and in the work force, and at this point, to attain that goal, it is more ethical to retain the policy of affirmative action than to eliminate it. In the words of Peter Singer, â€Å"In the absence of more promising alternatives it seems worth a try† (51). Works Cited * Kranz, Rachel. â€Å"Affirmative Action.† Facts on File, Inc., 2002. * Murray, Charles. â€Å"Affirmative Racism.† The New Republic, 1984. * Rachels, James. â€Å"The Elements of Moral Philosophy,† Fourth Edition. McGraw Hill, New York, 2003. Singer, Peter. â€Å"Practical Ethics,† Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.