Justifications of Reverse Discrimination

Abstract

The primary literature of reverse discrimination would furnish that style of philosophising which places language at the centre of concern with a treasure trove of instances. Even the definition of the phrase provides sufficient material for those whose interest, like Bentham’s, is in dyslogistic or eulogistic terms, in what he called, in somewhat less jaw-breaking terminology, “passion-kindling epithets”; and Stevenson’s notion of “persuasive definition”, too, is well illustrated by the range of phrases used to refer to the central phenomenon. Thus the phrases “reverse discrimination”, “positive discrimination”, “preferential treatment” and “affirmative action” are widely, even undiscriminatingly, used. In general, it seems that those opposing the practice tend to use harsher phrases such as “reverse discrimination” or “positive discrimination” and those supportive in principle tend to use the softer phrases such as “affirmative action”.