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The Superficial Morality of Color Blindness: Why “Equal Opportunity” May Not Be Enough?

The Superficial Morality of Color Blindness: Why “Equal Opportunity” May Not Be Enough? Past racial subordination resulting in significant inequality creates a “transition problem” of determining how to deal fairly with the legacy of an unjust history. I show that – in the presence of continued social segregation and when human capital spillovers within social networks are important – the consequences of past discrimination may persist indefinitely, absent some racially egalitarian intervention. I conclude that under such conditions “color blindness” – that is, official indifference to race in the formulation of public policies – is NOT an adequate response to this problem, and that “affirmative action” (i.e., policies whose explicit objective is to create more equal social outcomes between racial groups) is ethically justified. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Eastern Economic Journal Springer Journals

The Superficial Morality of Color Blindness: Why “Equal Opportunity” May Not Be Enough?

Loury, Glenn C
Eastern Economic Journal , Volume 39 (4) – Sep 10, 2013
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References (14)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Eastern Economic Association
Subject
Economics; Economics, general; Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods
ISSN
0094-5056
eISSN
1939-4632
DOI
10.1057/eej.2013.35
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Past racial subordination resulting in significant inequality creates a “transition problem” of determining how to deal fairly with the legacy of an unjust history. I show that – in the presence of continued social segregation and when human capital spillovers within social networks are important – the consequences of past discrimination may persist indefinitely, absent some racially egalitarian intervention. I conclude that under such conditions “color blindness” – that is, official indifference to race in the formulation of public policies – is NOT an adequate response to this problem, and that “affirmative action” (i.e., policies whose explicit objective is to create more equal social outcomes between racial groups) is ethically justified.

Journal

Eastern Economic Journal – Springer Journals

Published: Sep 10, 2013

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