Justice

1023 Words3 Pages

Teleological reasoning is reasoning from the “telos,” meaning of the goal, the end or the purpose of something being distributed. This is Aristotle’s way of positioning the idea that the appropriate purpose of a social goal results from reason from the telos which ties into Michael Standel’s lecture “Arguing with Affirmative Action.” Now the question arises; is Aristotle correct? Is it so that justice is giving people their dues? Perhaps this is true when one considers the respects of equality. All in all there are several ideas to consider however; perhaps affirmative action has become solely a temporal way of alleviating the discrimination done in the past. Students provide their different perspectives to questions that rose from Standel’s discussion of a court case with a white woman named Cheryl Hopwood. Hopwood argued that she was not admitted because of the fact that she was white despite her outstanding grades and academic achievements. The students more so were led towards the idea in which universities’ missions are to increase diversity in their institutions. Standel also introduced Aristotle and his idea that everything must be equally distributed respectably if it stands for distributing items or opportunities to those who are assigned to them. When discussing Aristotle’s belief of fitting a person’s virtue with a suitable goal explains or describes his belief of teleological reasoning. Standel provided a vivid example as to precisely justifying what Aristotle proposed being teleological reasoning with Winnie the Pooh, “That buzzing-noise means something. You don’t get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing noise, a... ... middle of paper ... ...ng inequality in educational backgrounds shall be taken into consideration for different ethnical backgrounds however not to compensate our past dues rather to be given the opportunities and advantages those who were slaves and segregated were never provided. Nevertheless, it is not a violation of a white person’s rights to deny admission when it is for the sole purpose for a university to satisfy their mission and bring others who may have more to offer and contribute. Moreover, Aristotle’s belief, that, “in general we say that persons who are equal should have equal things assigned to them” conceivably is incorrect considering the fact that not everyone is given an equal opportunity to begin with. It is common to come across those individuals who will oppose increasing diversity but as Cesar Chavez once said, “once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.”

More about Justice

Open Document