Fish- Blog Post 2

In “Whiteness as Property,” Harris looks at modern-day racial subordination and argues for why affirmative action can actually be a useful tool for equality when understood through the lens of both corrective and distributive justice. Corrective justice is the “claim to compensation for . . . harm done to minority group members or their ancestors” and distributive justice is “the claim an individual or group has to the positions or advantages they would have been awarded under fair conditions” (1781). 

Harris cites Fiscus to explain specifically why distributive justice is so important and relevant to the ideas of affirmative action. Fiscus writes that “individuals or groups may not claim positions, advantages, or benefits that they would not have been awarded under fair conditions” (1784). This is basically to say that everyone should be only entitled to what they would have in a truly equal world. 

The problem with considering distributive justice from this perspective is that we have no idea what a society that is genuinely equal or fair looks like. While Harris makes a compelling argument for distributive justice, applying it, in reality, seems nearly impossible. Does it mean everyone is paid the same? Everyone is given a house of equal value? There is no leader, as no one is above anyone else? Is this fair world starting in the present day with corrective and distributive justice measures accounted for, or is this equal world starting before any true inequality was established? 

While all or any of those examples may seem unrealistic or even unimportant, the fact remains: we lack the knowledge of what an equal world really means. Throughout Harris’s arguments, it is generally accepted that there has never been an equal or fair society. While she claims “affirmative action creates a property interest in true equal opportunity,” supporting affirmative action under the theory of distributive justice may lead to dangerous ambiguities that prevent the ultimate goals of affirmative action from working (1786). Distributive justice, while being an important consideration for pursuing equality, supports a vision that nobody can validate. This makes the task of properly and effectively implementing affirmative action programs that much more difficult, on top of already large challenges like white claims of “reverse discrimination.”