Our society's greatest moral crisis is racism. For purposes of this study, the specific aspect of racism to be covered will be affirmative action in education and employment. The question to be explored is, what moral obligation does society have, based on moral theories and theories about morality, to treat minorities in a special manner designed to correct wrongs committed against those minorities in the past?
The theory of Thomas Hobbes is a theory about morality. To Hobbes, morality is not an issue because the basis of society is to restrict personal behavior by social and legal pressures. Human beings are compelled by natural forces to pursue their own personal desires, and they set aside some of those desires when they enter into a social contract which provides them with a security they would not have had they chosen to remain in a state of nature.
As we read, for Hobbes, "The question of 'good' or 'evil' does not enter into the picture. What is evil is living in fear" (Rosenstand 384). For Hobbes, then, there is absolutely no moral imperative which would call for society to correct past racial injustices through affirmative action.
In stark contrast to Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau sees the state of nature as one in which human beings are free to express not their selfishness and greed but instead their compassion: "So compassion is a prerational foundation for morals. It is the basis of all other social virtues, because we identify with whoever suffers. . . . Naturally and emotionally, we are unselfish" (Rosenstand 391).
For Rousseau, in terms of his theory about morality, the problem enters the equation at the point where civilization and rational thinking begin, and the individual is separated from his heart and his compassion. Depending on the degree to which society corrupts the individual's sense of compassion, Rousseau would seem to favor some sort of social policy which would cause that compassion to...