Lakisha Phillips Ashford University SOC 120 Introduction to Ethics & Social Responsibility 7/18/2015 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Classical ethical theories and different ethical perspectives have a great application in the way affirmative action is viewed in the society. Other theories differ with these issue while others give a close relation to affirmative action and the way it has been taken by many organizations and institutions worldwide. Affirmative action refers to a policy that involves institutions or organizations engaging in active efforts in order to improve the opportunities for a specific group of individuals that appear to be excluded from the society (Mosser, 2013). Some of these groups are excluded in terms of race, color, religion or also national origin and this action always targets to increase a number of individuals from a particular groups within institutions, businesses not forgetting other areas in the society where there has been historically low representation by these groups. Affirmative action has been known to give the so called minorities an advantage the moment it comes to applying for employment opportunities, higher institution of learnings and other organizations in societies. It goes a step far by giving extra points when a test results where organizations are financially motivated to come out racially diverse. The effects of the outcome is always enables these candidates that appear less qualified to get a position, to be chosen and achieve minority quotas. This action was made a bill in order to prevent racism after a period where segregation was declared unconstitutional with the motive of employers to give opportunities to minorities but it has been said to be molded with a lot of issues. Utilitarianism theory For one to understand the way an ethical theory deals with affirmative action, the main important thing is understanding the perspective or theory first. Utilitarianism is one of the ethical theory which talks about focusing on expected outcome of a particular act instead of morality of that specific act itself. It can be summarized with the saying that “the end justifies the means” (Fluker, 2009). The other best way to describe this particular theory is that an individual choose an act which produces best outcome for high number of persons while giving room to least possible harm. Utilitarianism theory considers actions that give rise to the reverse of the feeling of happiness which can be termed as harm, however any harm that is created is able to be outweighed in case sufficient utility has been created in the result. For instance, when a life one individual needs to be taken for a purpose of saving two or more lives, utilitarianism theory suggests that it is the right action since there is creation of more utility compared to harm. Applying this theory to affirmative action can take many ways to approach the subject. In this case I will focus on why utilitarianism can be against practicin ...