INDE 410: Engineering Ethics

2.2 Case Study: Affirmative action

Read the following case and then address the questions below and answer them in due time on
Moodle.

Affirmative action, also known as employment equity or positive discrimination, refers to the
practice of favoring certain groups of people who have been disadvantaged in the past. For
example, the US have used affirmative action in the educational sector to increase the percentage
of minorities in college. In other words, universities can often have lower standards for minority
applicants, such as African or Latin Americans. You can read more about affirmative action in
the US here.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/12/us/affirmative-action-fast-facts/index.html

As another example, in 2015 the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, took the
groundbreaking step of having a gender quota for his cabinet ministers, assigning half of them to
be female (read more here). As one lawyer put it:

“I would say… you really have to do affirmative action to get women and other minorities up to
the level where the men were.”

Nevertheless, despite the idea being around for more than 50 years, affirmative action remains a
controversial topic and not always legal. The idea of quotas is of course implemented in other
countries such as Lebanon based on other factors, such as religion.
1. What is the ethical dilemma when it comes to affirmative action? Which values, virtues,
or norms are in conflict?
2. Who are the people involved when it comes to affirmative action policies? Think about it
from different standpoints (educational, political, etc.)
3. What happiness and what pain can be caused when affirmative action is adopted?
4. Is affirmative action right from a utilitarian standpoint? Explain why or why not, making
sure to carefully analyze the different aspects of the felicific calculus.
5. Is diversity an intrinsic or instrumental value? Or both? Explain your point of view.