ABSTRACT
The context of affirmative action is the selection of people for prized, scarce, and competitive jobs, opportunities, or honors. It is customary to distinguish between two forms such a policy may take: impartiality and preferential treatment. The aim of impartiality is to assure open access to the initial pool from which people are selected and selection in accordance with procedural rules which apply to everyone equally. The aim of prefer ential treatment is to alter the procedural rules so as to favor some people in order to increase the likelihood that they rather than others will achieve the desired position. One form of affirmative action, therefore, is commit ted to impartiality and to the rejection of preferential treatment, while the other form is committed to preferential treatment and to the rejection of impartiality. The claim for preferential treatment is that it is morally justi fied because those favored by it belong to some group many of whose members have been unjustly excluded from achieving the desired position simply because they were members of the group.
