3 - Equal Opportunity without Natural Inequalities

Summary

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the last chapter, I noted two influential objections raised by egalitarians to the general concept of equality of opportunity. The first, which was the principal focus of my initial formulation of the three-dimensional model of equal opportunities as a regulative ideal, holds that equality of opportunity is an inadequate account of egalitarian justice because it is merely formal and empty of a commitment to substantive equality. The second objection makes the accusation that equality of opportunity builds upon and magnifies natural inequalities between persons, and for this reason is not a genuine account of egalitarian justice. It is this second objection that has convinced so many modern liberal egalitarians to give up on the ideal of equality of opportunity. In John Schaar's very influential 1967 critique, equality of opportunity “is really a demand for an equal right and opportunity to become unequal … [I]t so arranges social conditions that each individual can go as high as his natural abilities will permit.” Likewise, Ronald Dworkin charges that equality of opportunity is fraudulent as an ideal, “fraudulent because in a market economy people do not have equal opportunity who are less able to produce what others want.” The single most influential execution of this objection came, however, in John Rawls's 1971 book, A Theory of Justice. According to Rawls,

Equality of opportunity means an equal chance to leave the less fortunate behind in the personal quest for influence and social position … intuitively it still appears defective. For one thing, even if it works to perfection in eliminating the influence of social contingencies, it still permits the distribution of wealth and income to be determined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents.[…]