The Legitimacy Of The Affirmative Action From The Perspective Of Utilitarianism And Its Enlightment Of Fairness To Our Higher Education

Our education field has always paid a great attention to the research of American education, meanwhile, we have made some achievements referring to Affirmative Action. It is the core value of Affirmative Action, justice, equality and diversification, that useful for us to review and think deeply about the policy of our higher education, which oriented efficiency and elite. Besides, public policies need to constantly change to reach the balance between them and the actual social life. By studying the effects, valuation choices, and legitimacy of Affirmative Action, we can further understand the special role of education policy plays and its significant social responsibility, as well as how to avoid the conflicts between the policies and actual social life to the greatest extent.Policies of Affirmative Action have a great effect on the educational rights’distribution among each stakeholder groups in the field of higher education. At the same time, controversies towards the action are fierce. Groups who support it hold the view that the policies are not only do well in promoting the equality of Americans’ educational chances and the higher educational rights of disadvantageous groups, but also success in realizing the diversification of the campus. On the contrary, opponents argue that these policies undermine some interests of certain white people, which they regard as a kind of "reverse discrimination". From the existing research, both domestic and foreign, have mainly focused on the effects of Affirmative Action and the causes of conflicts about relevant policies. There is also a small number of researches, has demonstrated the feasibility and legitimacy of Affirmative Action from the points of philosophy, legal science, sociology, and psychology and so on.On the basis of former studies, firstly, I will testify the legitimacy and efficiency of Affirmative Action by using utilitarianism, which guided by finalism and represents the rational behavior of human beings, as theoretical foundation. Secondly, from the perspective of public policy, even though Affirmative Action has sacrificed a small group of people’s educational rights for the time being, it has facilitated interests of vulnerable groups practically, and has really promoted the fairness and justice of the field of education, even the whole society. As a public policy, Affirmative Action is definitely consistent with the central idea of political philosophy that the aim of a public policy is to promote the interests of the whole society. By combining theories with practices, the paper will conclude that Affirmative Action is legal and effective. At last, according to the former work, I will try to come up with some suggestions about our higher educational policies, such as to define the orientation of policy clearly, to add the concept of "vulnerable compensation" to education, and consider all the stakeholders into the policy decision system.