Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 09: "ARGUING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION"

[Music] funding for this program is provided by additional funding provided [Music] by last time we were discussing the distinction that RS draws between two different types of claims claims of moral desert on the one hand and of entitlements to legitimate expectations on the other RS argued that it's a mistake to think that distributive justice is a matter of moral dessert a matter of rewarding people according to their virtue today we're going to explore that question of moral dessert and its relation to distributive justice not in connection with income and wealth but in its connection with

opportunities with hiring decisions and admission standards and so we turn to the case of affirmative action you read about the case of Cheryl Hopwood she applied for admission to the University of Texas law school Cheryl hoard had worked her way through high school she didn't come from an affluent family she put herself through Community College and California State University at Sacramento she achieved a 3.8 grade point average there later moved to Texas became a resident took the law school admissions test did pretty well on that and she applied to the University of Texas law school

she was turned down she was turned down at a time when the University of Texas was using an affirmative action admissions policy a policy that took into account race and ethnic background the University of Texas said 40% of the population of Texas is made up of African-Americans and mexican-americans it's important that we as a law school have a diverse student body and so we are going to take into account not only grades and test scores but also Al the demographic makeup of our class including its race and ethnic profile the result and this is what

Hopwood complained about the result of that policy is that some applicants to the University of Texas law school with a lower academic index which includes grades and test scores than hers were admitted and she was turned down she said she argued I'm just being turned down because I'm white if I weren't if I were a member of a minority group with my grades and test scores I would have been admitted and the statistics the admissions statistics that came out in the trial confirmed that African-American and Mexican-American applicants that year who had her grades and test

scores were admitted it went to federal court now put aside the law let's consider it from the standpoint of justice and morality is it fair or is it unfair does Cheryl Hopwood have a case a legitimate complaint were her rights violated by the admissions policy of the law school how many say how many would rule for the law school and say that it was just to consider race and ethnicity as a factor in admissions how many would rule for Cheryl Hopwood and say her rights were violated so here we have a pretty even split all

right now I want to hear from a defender of Cheryl Hopwood yes you're basing something on that's an arbitrary Factor you know Cheryl couldn't control the fact that she was white or not in a minority and therefore you know it's not as if it was like a test score that she worked hard to try and show that she could you know put that out there you know that she had no control over her race good and what's your name Bri okay Bri stay right there now let's find someone who's uh who has an answer for

Brie yes there are discrepancies in the educational system and majority of the time I know this in New York City the schools that minorities go to are not as well funded are not as well supplied as white schools and so there is going to be a discrepancy naturally between minorities and between whites if they go to better schools and they will not do as well on exams because they haven't had as much help because of a worse school system so let me just interrupt you just to tell me your name Anisha Anisha Anisha you're pointing

out that Minority kids may have gone in some cases MH to schools that didn't give them the same Educational Opportunity as kids from affluent families yes and so the test scores they got may actually not represent their true potential because they didn't receive the same kind of help that they might have received had they gone to a school with better funding all right Anisha has raised the point that colleges still should choose for the greatest academic scholarly promise but in reading the test scores and grades they should take into account the different meaning those tests

and grades have in the light of educational disadvantage in the background so that's one argument in defense of affirmative action inisha argument correcting for the effects of unequal preparation educational disadvantage now there are other arguments suppose just to identify whether there is a is a competing principle here Suppose there are two candidates who did equally well on the tests and grades both of whom went to First Rate schools two cand candidates among those candidates would it be unfair for the college or university for Harvard to say we still want diversity along racial and ethnic Dimensions

even where we are not correcting for the effects on tescor of educational disadvantage what about in that case Bri if it's that one thing that puts you know someone over the edge then it's I guess that would be you know justifiable if everything else about the individual first though everything they consider about that person's you know talents and where they come from and who they are without these arbitrary factors is the same without these arbitrary factors you call but before you were suggesting bre that race and ethnicity are arbitrary factors outside the control of the

applicants true I would agree with that and your general principle is that admissions shouldn't reward arbitrary factors over which people have no control right all right uh who else who else would like to thank you both who else would like to get into this what do you say well first of all uh I'm for affirmative action temporarily but uh what for two reasons first of all you have to look at the University's purpose it is to educate their students and um I feel that different races people coming from different races have different backgrounds and they

contribute differently to you know the education and second of all um when you say they have equal backgrounds they that's not true when you look at the broader picture and you look at slavery and these are this is kind of a reparation I think uh affirmative action is a temporary solution to alleviate um history and uh the wrongs done to African-Americans in particular and what's your name David David you say that affirmative action is Justified at least for now as a way of compensating for past Injustice the Legacy of slavery and segregation right who wants

to take on that argument we need now a Critic of affirmative action yes go ahead I think that what happened in the past has no bearing on what happens today and I think that discriminating based on race should always be wrong whether you're discriminating against one group or another just because our ancestors did something doesn't mean that that should have any effect on what happens with us today all right good I'm sorry your name is Kate Kate all right who has an answer for Kate yes um I just wanted to comment and say that tell

us your name uh my name is Monsour because of slavery because of past injustices today we have a higher proportion of African-Americans who are in poverty who face less less opportunities than white people and so because of slavery 200 years ago and because of Jim Crow and because of segregation today we have Injustice based on race Kate um I think that there are differences obviously but the way to fix those differences is not by some artificial fixing of the result you need to fix the problem so we need to address differences in education and differences

in um in upbringing with with programs like Head Start and giving more funding to lower income schools rather than trying to just fix the result so it makes it look like it's equal when really it isn't yes well with regard to affirmative action based on race I just want to say that white people have had their own affirmative action in this country for more than 400 years it's called nepotism and quid proquo so there's nothing wrong with correcting the Injustice and discrimination that's been done to black people for 400 years good tell us wait tell

us your name Hannah Hannah all right who has an answer for Hannah and just to add to Hannah's point because we need we need now someone to respond Hannah you could have also mentioned legacy admissions exactly I was going to say if you disagree with affirmative action you should disagree with Legacy admission because it's obvious from looking around here that there are more white legacies than black legacies in the history of Harvard University and explain what legacy admissions are well legacy admissions is giving an advantage to someone who has an arbitrary um privilege of their

parent having attended the University to which they're applying all right so a reply for Hannah yes in the balcony go ahead first of all if affirmative action is making up for past injustice how do you explain minorities that were not historically discri discriminated against in the United States who get these advantages in addition You could argue that affirmative action perpetuates divisions between the races rather than achieve the ultimate goal of race being a relevant factor in our society and what tell us your name Danielle Hannah I disagree with that because I think that by promoting

diversity in an institution like this you further educate all of the students especially the white students who grew up in predominantly white areas it's certainly a form of Education to be exposed to people from different backgrounds and you put white students at an inherent disadvantage when you surround them only with their own kind why should race necessarily be equated with diversity there's so many other forms why should we assume that race makes people different again that's perpetuating the idea of racial division within our universities and our society Hannah with regard to um African-American people being

given a special Advantage it's obvious that they bring something special to the table because they have a unique perspective just as someone from a different religion or socioeconomic background would as well as you say there are many different types of diversity there's no reason that racial diversity should be eliminated from that criteria yes go ahead racial discrimination is illegal in this country and I believe that it was African-American leaders themselves when Martin Luther King said he wanted to be judged not on the color of his skin but by the content of his character his Merit

his achievements and I just think that to do to decide solely based on someone's race is just inherently unfair I mean if you want to if you want to correct based on disadvantaged backgrounds that's fine but there are also disadvantaged white people as well it shouldn't matter white tell us your name Ted Ted yes think of Hopwood it's unfair to count race or I assume you would also say ethnicity or religion yes do you think she has a right to be considered according to her grades and test scores alone there no there's there is more

to with than that you need to universities need to promote diversity and I so you agree with the goal of promoting diversity there's ways to promote diversity besides discriminating against people solely based on a factor that they cannot control all right so what makes it wrong is that she can't control her race she can't control the fact that she's white that's the that's the heart of the unfairness to her Bri made a similar point that basing admissions on factors that people can't control is fundamentally unfair when are you say there's a lot of things you

can't control and if you're going to go it through it based on Merit like just based on your test scores a lot of what you can achieve has to do with like the family background that you raised it if both your parents were um scholarly then you have more of a chances of actually being more scholarly yourself and getting those grades and you can't control what kind of family you born into so I me good what tell that's that's a great rejoiner what's your name uh da da Ted are you you against um advantages that

come from the family you were born into what about legacy admissions I mean I I I do believe that in terms of like a legacy admission you shouldn't have a special preference I mean there is a legacy admission You could argue as another part of verse you could say it's important to have a small percentage of people that have a a several generation family in family attendance at a place like Harvard however that should not be a a f an advantaged Factor like race that should just be another part promoting diversity should it count at

all I think that alumni status should it count at all Ted yes it should it should count all right I want to step back for a moment from these arguments thank you all for these contributions we're going to come back to you if you've listened carefully I think you will have noticed three different arguments emerg from this discussion in defense of considering race and ethnicity as a factor in admissions one argument has to do with correcting for the effects for the effects of educational disadvantage that was anisha's argument this is what we might call the

the corrective argument correcting for differences in educational background the kind of school people went to the opportunities they had and so on that's one argument what's worth noticing though is that that argument is consistent in principle with the idea that only academic promise and scholarly potential should count in admissions we just need to go beyond test scores and grades alone to get a true estimate of academic promise and scholarly ability that's the first argument then we heard a second argument that said affirmative action is Justified even where there may not be the need to correct

for educational disadvantage in a in a particular applicant's case it's Justified as a way of compensating for past wrongs for historic injustices so that's a compensatory argument compensating for past wrongs then we heard a third a different argument for affirmative action from Hannah and others that argued in the name of diversity now the diversity argument is different from the compensatory argument because it makes a certain appeal to the social purpose or the social mission of the college or university there are really two aspects to the diversity argument one says it's important to have a diverse

student body for the sake of the educational experience for everyone Hannah made that point and the other talks about the wider Society this was the argument made by the University of Texas in the Hopwood case we need to train lawyers and judges and leaders public officials who will contribute to the strength the Civic strength of the State of Texas and the country as a whole so there are two different aspects to the diversity argument but both are arguments in the name of the social purpose or the social Mission or the common good served by the

institution well what about the force of these arguments we've also heard objections to these arguments the most powerful objection to the compensatory argument is is it fair to ask Cheryl Hopwood today to make the sacrifice to pay the compensation for an injustice that was admittedly committed and was egregious in the past but in which she was not implicated is that fair so that's an important objection to the compensatory argument and in order to meet that objection we would have to investigate whether there is such a thing as group rights or Collective responsibility that reaches over

time so having identify that issue let's set it aside to turn to the diversity argument the diversity argument doesn't have to worry about that question about Collective responsibility for wrongs because it says for reasons Hannah and others pointed out that the common good is served is Advanced if there is a racially and ethnically diverse student body everyone benefits and this indeed was the argument that Harvard made when it filed a friend of the court brief to the Supreme Court in the 1978 case affirmative action case the baky case and the Harvard brief the Harvard rationale

was cited by Justice Powell who was the Swing Vote in the case upholding affirmative action he cited that as providing the rationale that he thought was constitutionally acceptable Harvard's argument in its brief was this we care about diversity scholarly Excellence alone has never been the Criterion of admission the sole Criterion of admission to Harvard College 15 years ago diversity meant students from California and New York and Massachusetts city dwellers and farm boys violinists painters and football players biologists historians and classicists the only difference now Harvard argued is that we're adding raal and ethnic status to

this long list of diversity considerations when reviewing the large number of candidates able to do well in our classes Harford wrote race May count as a plus just as coming from Iowa May count or being a good middle linebacker or pianist a farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College that a Bostonian cannot offer similarly a black student can usually bring something a white student cannot offer the quality of the educational experience of all students depends in part on these differences in the background and Outlook that students bring with them that was Harvard's

argument now what about the diversity argument is it persuasive if it's to be persuasive it has to meet one very powerful objection that we've heard voiced here by Ted by Bri unless you're a utilitarian you believe that individual rights can't be violated and so the question is is there an individual right that is violated is Cheryl hopwood's right violated if she is used so to speak denied admission for the sake of the common good in the social mission that the University of Texas law school has defined for itself does she have a right don't we

deserve to be considered according to our excellences our achievements our accomplishments our hard work isn't that the right at stake now we've already heard an answer to that argument no she doesn't have a right nobody deserves to be admitted notice how this gets us back to the issue of Dessert versus entitlement they're arguing there is no individual right that Hopwood has she doesn't deserve to be admitted according to any particular set of criteria that she believes to be important including criteria that have only to do with her efforts and achievements why not I think implicit

in this argument is some something like rs's rejection of moral desert as the basis of distributive justice yes once Harvard defines its Mission and Designs its admission policy in the light of its Mission people are entitled who who fit those criteria they are entitled to be admitted but according to this argument no one deserves that Harvard College Define its Mission and design its admission criteria in the first place in a way that prizes the qualities they happen to have in abundance whether those qualities are test scores or grades or the ability to play the piano

or to be a good middle linebacker or to come from Iowa or to come from a certain minority group so you see how this debate about affirmative action especially the diversity argument takes us back to the question of rights which in turn takes us back to the question of whether moral dessert is or is not the basis for distributive justice think about that over the weekend and we'll continue this discussion next [Music] time suppose we're Distributing flutes who should get the best one what's Aristotle's answer anyone his answer is the best flutes should go to

the best flute players because that's what flutes are for when we ended last time we were considering Arguments for and against affirmative action counting RAC is a factor in Admissions and in the course of the discussion three arguments emerged three Arguments for affirmative action one of them was the idea that race and ethnic background should count as a way of correcting for the true meaning of test scores and grades getting a more accurate measure of the academic potential those scores those numbers represent second was what we call the compensatory argument the idea of writing past

wrongs past Injustice and the third was the diversity argument and when Sherl Hopwood in the 1990s challenged the University of Texas law school school's affirmative action program in the federal courts the University of Texas made another version of the diversity argument saying that the broader social purpose the social mission of the University of Texas law school is to produce leaders in the legal community in the political Community among judges lawyers legislators and therefore it's important that we leaders who reflect the background and the experience and the ethnic and the racial composition of the State of

Texas it's important for serving our wider social mission that was the University of Texas law school's argument then we considered an objection to the diversity argument which after all is an argument in the the name of the social Mission the common good we saw that RS does not simply believe that arguments of the common good or the general welfare should Prevail if individual rights must be violated in the course of promoting the common good you remember that was the question the challenge to the diversity rationale that we were considering when we finished last time and

we began to discuss the question well what right might be at stake maybe the right to be considered according to factors within one's control maybe this is the argument that Cheryl Hopwood implicitly was making she can't help the fact that she's white why should her chance at getting into law school depend on a factor she can't control and then Hannah who was advancing an argument last time said Harvard has the right to Define its Mission any way it wants to it's a private institution and it's only once Harvard defines its mission that we can identify

the qualities that count so no rights are being violated now what about that argument what I would like to do is to hear objections to that reply and then see whether others have an answer yes and tell us your name da da right you spoke up last time how do you answer that argument well I think there was two things there one of them was that a private institution could Define its Mission however it wants but then that doesn't make however it defines it right like I could Define my personal mission as I want to

collect all the money in the world but does that make it even a good Mission so you can't like you can't say that just because a uh college is a private institution it could just Define it whatever it wants we still have to think about whether the way it's defining it is right and in the case of affirmative action a lot of people have said that since there's a lot of other factors involved we could why not race like if we already know that the system let's I want to stick with your first point here's

DA's objection can a college or university Define its social purpose any way it wants to and then Define admissions criteria accordingly what about the University of Texas law school not today but in the 1950s then there was another Supreme Court casee against the admissions policy of the University of Texas law school because it was segregated it only admitted whites and when the case went to court back in the 50s the University of Texas law school also invoked its Mission our mission as a law school is to educate lawyers for the Texas bar for Texas law

firms and no Texas law firm hires African-Americans so to fulfill our mission we only admit whites or consider Harvard in the 1930s when it had anti-jewish quotas president L president of Harvard in the 1930s said that he had nothing personally against Jews but he invoked the mission the social purpose of Harvard he said which is not only to train intellectuals part of the mission of Harvard he said is to train stock Brokers for Wall Street presidents and senators and there are very few Jews who go into those professions now here's the challenge is there a

principal distinction between the invocation of the social purpose of the college or university today in the diversity rationale and the invocation of the social purpose or mission of the University by Texas in the 1950s or Harvard in the 1930s is there a difference in principle what's the reply Hannah well I think that the principle that's different here is um basically the distinction between inclusion versus exclusion I think that it's morally wrong of the university to say we're going to exclude you on the basis of your religion or your race that's Denial on the basis of

arbitrary factors what Harvard is trying to do today with its diversity initiatives is to include groups that were excluded in the past good let's see if stay there let see if someone would like to reply go ahead as actually this was kind of in support of Hannah um rather than a reply but I was going to say another principal difference can be based on malice being the Jus or the motivation I guess for the historical segregation act so it's saying that we're not going to let blacks or Jews in because they're worse as people or

as a group good so the element of malice isn't present and what's your name Stevie Stevie says that in the uh in the historic segregationist racist anti-semitic quotas or prohibitions there was built into them a certain kind of malice a certain kind of judgment that African-Americans or Jews were somehow less worthy than everybody else whereas present day affirmative action programs don't involve or imply any such judgment what it amounts to saying is so long as a policy just uses people in a way as valuable to the social purpose of the institution it's okay provided it

doesn't judge them maliciously As Stevie might add as intrinsically less Worthy I'd like to raise a question doesn't that concede that all of us when we compete for positions or for seats in colleges and universities in a way are being used not judged but used in a way that has nothing to do with moral desert remember we got into this whole discussion of affirmative action when we were trying to figure out whether distributive justice should be tied to moral desert or not and we were launched on that question by RS and his denial his rejection

of the idea the distributive justice whether it's positions or places in the class or income and wealth is a is a matter of moral desert suppose that were the moral basis of Harvard's admissions policy what letters would they have to write to people they rejected or accepted for that matter wouldn't they have to write something like this dear unsuccessful applicant we regret to inform you that your application for admission has been rejected it's not your fault that when you came along Society happened not to need the qualities you had to offer those admitted instead of

you are not themselves deserving of a place nor worthy of praise for the factors that led to their admission we are in any case only using them and you as instruments of a wider social purpose better luck next time what was the letter you actually got when you were admitted perhaps it should have read something like this dear successful applicant we are pleased to inform you that your application for admission has been accepted it turns out lucky for you that you have the traits the that Society needs at the moment so we propose to exploit

your assets for society's Advantage you are to be congratulated not in the sense that you deserve credit for having the qualities that led to your admission but only in the sense that the winner of a lottery is to be congratulated and if you choose to accept our offer you will ultimately be entitled to the benefits that attach to being used in this way we look forward to seeing you in the fall now there is something a little odd morally odd if it's true that those letters do reflect the theory the philosophy underlying the policy so

here's the question they POS and it's a question that takes us back to a big issue in in political philosophy is it possible and is it desirable to detach questions of distributive justice from questions of moral desert and questions of virtue in many ways this is an issue that separates modern political philosophy from ancient political thought what's at stake in the question of whether we can put dessert moral desert aside it seemed when we were reading RWS that the incentive the reason he had for detaching distributive justice from moral dessert was an egalitarian one that

if we set dessert to one side there's greater scope for the exercise of egalitarian considerations the veil of ignorance the two principles the difference principle helping the least well off redistribution and all that but what's interesting is if you look at a range of thinkers we've been considering there does seem to be a reason they want to detach Justice from dessert that goes well beyond any concern for equality libertarian rights oriented theorists of the kind we've been studying as well as egalitarian rights oriented theorists including RS and for that matter also including Kant all agree

despite their disagreements over distributive justice and the welfare state and all of that they all agree that Justice is not a matter of rewarding or honoring virtue or or moral desert now why do they all think that it can't just be for egalitarian reasons not all of them are egalitarians this gets us to the big philosophical question we have to try to sort out somehow they think tying Justice to moral Merit or virtue is going to lead away from freedom from respect for persons as free beings well in order to see what they consider to

be at stake and in order to assess their shared assumption we need to turn to a thinker to a philosopher who disagrees with them who explicitly ties Justice to honor honoring virtue and Merit and moral desert and that thinker is Aristotle now in many ways Aristotle's idea of justice is intuitively very powerful in some ways it's strange I want to bring out both its power its plausibility and its strangeness so that we can see what's at stake in this whole debate about Justice and whether it's tied to Desert and virtue so what is Aristotle's answered

the question about Justice for Aristotle Justice is a matter of giving people what they deserve giving people their due it's a matter of figuring out the proper fit between persons with their virtues and their appropriate social roles well what does this picture of Justice look like and how does it differ from the conception that seems to be shared among libertarian and egalitarian rights oriented theorists alike Justice means giving each person his or her due giving people what they deserve but what is a person's due what are the relevant grounds of Merit or dessert Aristotle says

that depends on the sort of things being distributed Justice involves two factors things and the persons to whom the things are assigned in general we say Aristotle writes that persons who are equal should have equal things assigned to them but here there arises a hard question equals in what respect Aristotle says that depends on the sort of thing we're Distributing suppose we're Distributing flutes what is the relevant Merit or basis of dessert for flutes who should get the best ones what's Aristotle's answer any one the best the best flute players right those who are best

in the relevant sense the best flute players is it just to discriminate in allocating flutes yes all Justice involves discrimination Aristotle says what matters is that the Discrimination be according to the relevant Excellence according to the virtue appropriate to having flutes he says it would be unjust to discriminate on some other basis in giving out the flutes say wealth just giving the best flutes to the people who can pay the highest price or nobility of birth just giving flutes to Aristocrats or physical Beauty giving the best flutes to the most handsome or chance having a

lottery Aristotle says birth and Beauty may be greater Goods than the ability to play the flute and those who possess them may surpass the flute player more in these qualities than he surpasses them in his flute playing but the fact remains that he is the person who ought to get the best flute it's a strange idea this comparison by the way that I mean could you say am I more handsome than she is a good lacrosse player it's a strange kind of comparison but putting that aside Aristotle says we're not looking for the best overall

whatever that might mean we're looking for the best musician now why this is important to see why should the best flutes go to the best flute players well why do you think anybody what best music they'll produce the best music well and everybody will enjoy it more that's not Aristotle's answer Aristotle is not a utilitarian he's not just saying that way there will be better music and everyone will enjoy it everyone will be better off his answer is the best best flutes should go to the best flute players because that's what flutes are for to

be played well the purpose of flute playing the purpose is to produce excellent music and those who can best perfect that purpose ought properly to have the best ones now it may also be true as a welcome side effect that everyone will enjoy listening to that music so that answer is true enough as far as it goes but it's important to see that Aristotle's reason is not a utilitarian reason it's a reason that looks here's where you might think it's a little bit strange it looks to the purpose the point the goal of flute playing

another way of describing this looking to the goal to determine what the just allocation the Greek for goal or end was tilos so Aristotle says you have to consider the point the end the goal the tilos of the thing in this case of flute playing and that's how you define a just allocation a just discrimination so this idea of reasoning from the goal from the tilos is called theological reasoning theological moral reasoning and that's Aristotle's way reasoning from the goal from the end now this may seem as I said a strange idea that we're supposed

to reason from the purpose but it is does have a certain intuitive plausibility consider the allocation let's say at Harvard of the best tennis courts or squash courts how should they be allocated who should have priority in playing on the on the best courts well you might say those who can best afford them set up a fee system charge money for them Aristotle would say no you might say well Harvard Big Shots the most influential people at Harvard who would they be the senior faculty should have priority in playing on the best tennis courts no

Aristotle would reject that some scientists may be a greater scientist than some varsity tennis player is a tennis player but still the tennis player is the one who should have priority for the best playing on the best tennis court there is a certain intuitive plausibility to this idea now one of the things that makes it strange is that in Aristotle's world in the ancient world it wasn't only social practices that were governed in Aristotle's view by theological reasoning and Theological explanation all of nature was understood to be a meaningful order and and what it meant

to understand nature to grasp nature to find our place within nature was to inquire into and read out the purposes or the teoss of Nature and with the Advent of modern science it's been difficult to think of the world that way and so it makes it harder perhaps to think of Justice in a teleological way but there is a certain naturalness to thinking about even the natural world as teleologically ordered as a purpose of whole in fact children have to be educated out of this way of looking at the world I realized this when my

kids were very young and I was reading them a book Winnie the Pooh and Winnie the Pooh gives you a great idea of how there is a certain natural childlike way of looking at the world in a theological way you you may remember a story of Winnie the Pooh walking in the forest one day he came to a place in the forest and from the top of a tree there came a loud buzzing noise winie the Pooh sat at the foot of the tree put his head between his paws and began to think here's what

he said to himself that buzzing noise means something you don't get a buzzing noise like that just buzzing in buzzing without it's meaning something if there's a buzzing noise somebody's making a buzzing noise and the only reason for making a buzzing noise that I know of is because you're a bee then he thought for another long time and said and the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey and then he got up and he said and the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it so he

began to climb the tree this is an example of theological reasoning it isn't it isn't so implausible after all now we grow up and we're talked out of this way way of thinking about the world but here's the question even if theological explanations don't fit with modern science even if we've outgrown them in understanding nature isn't there something still intuitively and morally plausible even powerful about Aristotle's idea that the only way to think about Justice is to reason from the purpose the goal the tilos of the social practice and isn't that precisely what we were

doing when we were disagreeing about affirmative action you could almost recast that disagreement as as one about what the proper appropriate purpose or end of a university education consists in reasoning from the purpose or from the hos or from the end Aristotle says that's indispensable to thinking about Justice is he right think about that question as you turn to Aristotle's [Applause] politics don't miss the chance to interact online with other viewers of Justice join the conversation take a pop quiz watch lectures you've missed and learn a lot more visit visit justiceharvard.org it's the right thing

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