Living with Moral Disagreement : The Enduring Controversy about Affirmative Action (Paperback)

The book comes at a moment in United States history defined by the first Black president, as well as by discussions of whether race still matters in public life, and a shift in the debates over how best to address issues of equality of educational opportunity: equity-focused policies or achievement-focused policies. Within this sociopolitical context, the disagreement about affirmative action in higher education admissions continues, most significantly through state ballot initiatives and court challenges. Philosopher of education Michele Moses wants to improve the deliberation over affirmative action in hopes of a mutually acceptable resolution of the moral controversy.  We must understand the moral and political underpinnings of the debate—the  persistent moral disagreement about affirmative action’s role in our democratic society—so that concepts such as equality of educational opportunity can be understood in a meaningful way, rather than merely as slogans that can be endorsed easily by people with quite different ideological perspectives and policy ideas.
 
Moses first provides a philosophical analysis of the enduring moral disagreement about affirmative action in light of court rulings and pieces of state legislation related to affirmative action and race-conscious education policy. Second, she explores the role of disagreement in democracy and how education scholars can participate in and promote public dialogue and deliberation around issues of deep moral disagreement. Affirmative action provides an analytically interesting instance of controversial race-conscious education policy that has profound implications for equality and diversity in higher education. Moses brings political philosophy to bear on reshaping the scholarly conversation around affirmative action, with implications for other deeply contested education policy issues that affect equality of educational opportunity.