Living with Moral Disagreement

The Enduring Controversy about Affirmative Action

Michele S. Moses

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780226344386, 9780226344249
• eBook ISBN: 9780226344416
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How to handle affirmative action is one of the most intractable policy problems of our era, touching on controversial issues such as race-consciousness and social justice. Much has been written both for and against affirmative action policies—especially within the realm of educational opportunity. In this book, philosopher Michele S. Moses offers a crucial new pathway for thinking about the debate surrounding educational affirmative action, one that holds up the debate itself as an important emblem of the democratic process.
           
Central to Moses's analysis is the argument that we need to understand disagreements about affirmative action as inherently moral, products of conflicts between deeply held beliefs that shape differing opinions on what justice requires of education policy. As she shows, differing opinions on affirmative action result from different conceptual values, for instance, between being treated equally and being treated as an equal or between seeing race-consciousness as a pernicious political force or as a necessary variable in political equality. As Moses shows, although moral disagreements about race-conscious policies and similar issues are often seen as symptoms of dysfunctional politics, they in fact create rich opportunities for discussions about diversity that nourish democratic thought and life. 

Index

admissions, 6, 14, 18, 19, 21, 26, 39; consideration of race, 45, 46, 55; narrowly tailored, 16

Advocacy Center for Equality and Democracy, 31

affirmative action, 3, 13, 18, 22, 28, 34, 38, 39, 45, 60, 90, 96–97; attitude, 80–82; beliefs, 67–69, 79–82, 85; decreases in enrollment and, 12, 63, 116n1; history of, 6–7; as intractable, 94–97; justifications for, 47–52, 94; knowledge, 79–85; legal context, 10, 13–19; legislative context, 10, 19–22; as moral disagreement, 10, 25, 26, 47, 94–95; policy background, 10–12; political context, 10; as right thing to do, 50; role models, 49; at selective institutions, 11; state bans, 13, 19–22

Alito, Samuel (justice), 17

Amendment 46 (Colorado), 21–22, 23–24, 68, 70, 75, 76, 83; confusion about, 23; defeated, 21; factors influencing votes, 23

American Civil Rights Coalition, 17

American Civil Rights Institute, 11, 20

Anderson, Elizabeth, 50

autonomy, 33

Bakke, Allan, 14

ballot initiative campaign, 54; Colorado, 13, 21; financed by wealthy individual, 59–60; pet issue, 59; petition signatures for, 21, 56

ballot initiatives, 3, 11, 12, 13, 19–22, 54–65, 68; anti-affirmative action, 19, 39; anti-bilingual education, 60; arguments against, 59–64; ar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• ONE / “Who Isn’t for Equality?”
• TWO / The Case of Affirmative Action Policy
• THREE / The Nature of Moral Disagreement: Conflicting Ideals?
• FOUR / Ballot Initiatives, Moral Disagreement, and Ideas of Equality
• FIVE / Deliberative Democracy and Policy Dialogue (with Lauren P. Saenz and Amy Farley Lobue)
• SIX / What Should We Do about Profound Moral Disagreements over Education Policy?
• Appendix A / Pre-Questionnaire
• Appendix B / Post-Questionnaire
• Appendix C / Post-Post-Questionnaire
• Appendix D / Follow-Up Interview Protocol
• Notes
• References
• Index