Affirmative Action

Question: Is affirmative action wrong?

My answer is as follows: No, and yet, yes.

It is not wrong in that if someone is required to make an arbitrary choice based between two candidates, choosing based on race is not more wrong (on it's face) than choosing someone based on their height, hair colour, number of pimples and so on. The colour of someone's skin is a trait not different from other attributes of people. It is useful in identifying people. For example, we could readily identify people by their hair colour, and it would not be wrong (unless we systematically oppressed them).

It is wrong in the sense that it supports an arbitrary distinction between the "races" and sexes which supports racism and sexism. So, choosing to select one person to work for you based on race or sex is, again, only supporting the institutions of discrimination. Not only does it support those institutions, but if it were to achieve success, it would only cause racism and sexism in the opposite direction. Races don't actually exist. As I mentioned above, skin colour is no different from other characteristics. Skin is a certain colour based on the place where ancestors lived, and the mixing of character traits. People who live farther north have lighter skin and hair. These traits, however, are not characteristics that make up different "races." If that were the case, we would have the "races" of green-eyed people, blue-eyed people, fat people, thin people, freckled people, long-haired people, short-haired people, asthmatic people, attached-earlobe people, free-earlobe people, and so on. Phenotypic characteristics do not constitute different "races/species" of people. Choosing to pretend like there are different races only reinforces the idea that there is. All in all, I would say that it would be best to choose from candidates based on a variety of changing reasons.