Merit

This chapter argues that objections to affirmative action based on the ideal of meritocracy have little force. Initially, the chapter distinguishes a concern for merit from the concern not to disappoint reasonable expectations. It then offers two counterexamples to the claim that the best qualified applicants have a claim to the positions for which they have applied. The chapter also argues that once we adopt a suitably broad notion of merit, many putative affirmative action schemes do not clash with the principle of merit, and, in any case, outreach affirmative action is compatible with standard, but problematic, versions of the merit principle. It then expresses skepticism about the fruitfulness of building into the notion of affirmative action that selected candidates must be minimally qualified. Finally, the chapter suggests that it is an open question whether selecting applicants who are not the most meritorious results in the selected individuals having a lower level of merit. The reason for this is that affirmative action affects the pool of applicants.