Great Article on Merit by Kwame Anthony Appiah: Do we really want to run a society based only on merit?

Affirmative Action Again: Do we really want to run a society based only on merit?

Harvard University is back in the news.  They are asking to consider race as one of the factors used in determining admission.  An Asian-American group is asking Harvard to stopping using race in the admissions.  

Harvard philosopher and ethicist, Anthony Appiah, argues that,  we many want to give out society's rewards based on more than just merit.  

Appiah in the Guardian

So, I am not doing justice to this great article but I am going to try to summarize.

The article does not take the standard approach of questioning "What exactly is merit ?" instead it considers what society would look like if everything was based on merit.  Appiah is arguing that societies develop hierarchies to efficiently distribute resources.  During the 1500-1900, ruling hierarchies were based on family ties and connections. In the 1900, we switched to merit based approaches. Merit maybe be good for assigning people to specific occupations. However, it also decreases the overall happiness in society, because of the contempt of the "winners" have for the "losers".  No one can ever understand the true value of a individual. Instead we must make it possible for every individual to flourish.

Appiah proposes "an alternative vision, in which each of us takes our allotment of talents and pursues a distinctive set of achievements and the self-respect they bring."

An interesting aside, is that the "winners" (merit or otherwise) do everything in their power to assure their children are also winners including rigging the system or endowing their kids with money, education, and opportunity.