Compensatory Efforts; A Critique of the Pros and Cons

Compensatory efforts, positive discrimination or reverse discrimination are the terms which nowadays are used in applied ethics for a set of efforts and privileges which are scheduled for compensation of the historical oppressions and discriminations imposed upon some groups and classes in the society. The mentioned oppressions and discriminations may be applied deliberately or inadvertently or negligently. Although these efforts and privileges were initially taken into account for black people and women, they can be adapted and executed for the other social groups or classes which have suffered from oppression and discrimination. Some forms of compensatory efforts in Iran are the cases such as distributing the justice share and allocating quota for accepting students from the deprived areas. Advocates of these efforts have organized their argumentations in two main categories of past-directed arguments and future-directedarguments. After proposing the mentioned arguments and reporting the opponents’ criticisms, this study has dealt with analyzing and evaluating the reasons of the two sides. Using the relative deprivation theories-which are among topics of political sciences-the authors have suggested an argument in favor of compensatory efforts and it appears that in addition to other arguments of the advocates of the compensatory efforts it can strengthen this position. The mentioned argument is a prospective type.