The author contributes debate to the distributive injustices such as low pay, inferior healthcare and housing, as well as diminished opportunities in schools, which continue to blight the lives of millions of urban poor in America and beyond.

Global poverty, hunger, and lack of access to save water raise problems of how to organize human society so that everyone's needs can be met. Philanthropic proposals, such as Peter Singer's and Peter Unger's, are based on a false analogy to duties of rescue and encourage philanthropic responses, thus closing the discourse to discussion of the causes and remedies of poverty. Radical criticism of capitalist social structures are put off the table, and this is a profound error.

This critical examination of racial equality takes a new approach to breaking down racial barriers by proposing a system of equal opportunity through shared labor and contributive justice. Focuses on how race and class inevitably structure vastly unequal life prospects Shows how human society can be organized in a way that does not socialize children for lives of routine labour Looks towards contribution, not distribution, as a way to promote racial equality Argues that by sharing routine and complex labor, social (...) relationships would be transformed, eliminating competition for limited opportunities to develop and contribute abilities A discussion board for ideas and comments relating to the book can be found at: http://howtomakeopportunityequal.blogspot.com/. (shrink)

Competitive opportunity assumes limited positions of advantage. Making competitive opportunity equal without expanding opportunity would delay socialization for diminished expectations but have no advantages, thus possibly making a bad situation worse. Equal opportunity worth fighting for would be opportunity available to all non-competitively.

Should we stop spending money on things we do not really need and send the money instead to groups that aid victims of absolute poverty? Garrett Cullity and Peter Unger have given renewed vigor to the well known argument by Peter Singer that we should do this. Like Singer, Cullity and Unger compare our duties to the poor to our duties when we encounter a victim of calamity, such as a child in danger of drowning. Singer and Unger tell us (...) what to do and why we must do it; most starkly, Unger gives us the names, addresses, and toll-free phone numbers of four organizations to which we can donate, and the book cover tells us that the author's royalties are going equally to Oxfam America and the U.S. Committee for UNICEF. Unger dissolves the divide between theory and practice. (shrink)

Distributive justice, defined as justice in distribution of income and wealth, is impossible. Income and wealth are distributed either unequally or equally. If unequally, then those with less are unjustly subject to social contempt. But equal distribution is impossible because it is inconsistent with bargaining to advance our own good. Hence justice in distribution of income and wealth is impossible. More generally, societies where social relations are mediated by money are necessarily unjust, and Marx was wrong to think a socialist (...) society which retained money would lead to communism. Contributive justice proposes that each flourishes by advancing the flourishing of others. To achieve this goal all labor, both simple and complex, must be shared among all capable of doing it. The good of contributing our abilities to benefit others is then available to all non-competitively. (shrink)

John Rawls's repeated assertions that the basic structure of society creates profound and inevitable differences in life prospects for people born in different starting places seems to contradict his assertions that, under fair equality of opportunity, a person's life prospects would not be affected by class of origin for those similarly endowed and motivated. This seeming contradiction seems to be resolved by Rawls's apparent belief that class of origin inevitably affects motivation. This reconciliation leaves us with a very weak conception (...) of "fair equality of opportunity." Should Rawls have advocated something stronger? Within the constraints of his theory of justice nothing stronger seems possible. Still, his theory harbors highly implausible sociological assumptions. A more plausible sociology requires us to reject distributive justice in favor of contributive justice. (shrink)

The author contributes debate to the distributive injustices such as low pay, inferior healthcare and housing, as well as diminished opportunities in schools, which continue to blight the lives of millions of urban poor in America and beyond.

This chapter contains section titled: A radical proposal Some history Why our conception of equal opportunity changes Racism and the costs of unequal opportunity The social context of political philosophy Contributive justice Race and opportunity.

Paul Gomberg ABSTRACT: In the United States the Civil Rights Movement emerging after World War II ended Jim Crow racism, with its legal segregation and stigmatization of black people. Yet black people, both in chattel slavery and under Jim Crow, had provided abundant labor subject to racist terror; they were workers who could be recruited...

In the United States the Civil Rights Movement emerging after World War II ended Jim Crow racism, with its legal segregation and stigmatization of black people. Yet black people, both in chattel slavery and under Jim Crow, had provided abundant labor subject to racist terror; they were workers who could be recruited for work others were unwilling to do. What was to replace this labor, which had been the source of so much wealth and power? Three federal initiatives helped to (...) create new workers without rights: the welfare reform law of 1996 and the changes in immigration and crime law and policy both starting in the mid-1960s. These changes re-created vulnerable labor, disproportionately marked and stigmatized as black or Mexican. These workers create a central strength of U.S. imperialism: cheap food. Because workers without rights have an important function in a capitalist economy, a society where all workers can flourish is not capitalist but communist. (shrink)

Most discussion of the morality of abortion assume the central issue is whether the fetus is a person. I disagree. The central issue is better understood as whether the fetus is one's *baby* whom one has a duty to nurture (babies need not be persons). Understanding the central issue as centering on duties to nurture one's children allows us better to understand both liberal and conservative views about abortion.

John Stuart Mill wrote in the opening chapter of Utilitarianism, ‘A test of right and wrong must be the means, one would think, of ascertaining what is right or wrong,’ thus explaining why he thought the work to follow was practically important. In Chapter 3, ‘On the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility,’ he answers the question, ‘What are the motives to obey the principle of utility?’ This principle is presented as a morality to be adopted. Yet before the (...) nineteenth century was over Henry Sidgwick was proposing that it may well be best, from a utilitarian view, that the utilitarian doctrine is not too widely adopted. Perhaps it should be an esoteric morality.Moreover, Sidgwick argues, it seems contrary to self interest to adhere to an impartially benevolent morality. Devotion to utilitarian duty seems to require that the agent sacrifice his or her own happiness in a devotion to the relief of others that can only ‘partially mitigate’ their distress. Such a morality seems impossibly demanding. Sidgwick’s argument challenges Mill's claim that there is an adequate sanction for adoption of utilitarian morality. (shrink)

Are skeptical arguments invalid because they trade on an ambiguity of the word "possible," asserting that it is possible that our experiences are not of anything outside our own minds and concluding that it is not certain that there is an external world outside our own minds? It is sometimes asserted that such arguments invalidly trade on an ambiguity of "possible" where the premise is true only in the sense "logically possible" while the inference is valid only in the sense (...) "empirically possible." However, once we distinguish different grammatical complements of the phrase "it is possible" we recognize that, when used with the same complement, "possible" is not ambiguous. So the claim that skeptical arguments trade on an ambiguity of "possible" fails. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Preamble to contributive justice Justice is about contribution A conception of contributive justice Can contribution be normatively motivated? Contributive justice and coercion Contributive norms are supportable Some problems A fuller theory Marxism, race, and opportunity.

This chapter contains section titled: Quantity of opportunity The Meritonia argument The practical argument Illustrating the practical argument The socialization principle The strong socialization principle Reply to the strong socialization principle I: Adam Smith Reply to the strong socialization principle II: Michael Walzer We should not limit opportunity.

This chapter contains section titled: Competitive opportunity Roemer on equal opportunity The fallacy of moralizing politics Why are we different from one another?

This chapter contains section titled: Social structure, ideology, and the rationalization principle Are some born smarter than others? Rejecting ideology and rejecting the division of labor.

Austin tried to forstall skeptical conclusions from the alleged ever present possibility of error. He felt that knowledge did not preclude the possibility of error and that the appearance that it did was due to a pragmatic requirement of saying one knows. Moreover, he seemed to feel that we were often right to say we know even though it is always possible that we are mistaken. The present paper argues, contra Austin, that if it is always possible that we are (...) mistaken, then the skeptic is right that we never know and that it is never right to say we know. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Opportunities of limited and unlimited supply Two sources of esteem Comparative and competitive Power and other sources of prestige Must positions of prestige be of limited supply? Dividing labor and limiting positions of prestige Self‐esteem and sub‐group norms of esteem Social unity: can social esteem be of unlimited supply?

This chapter contains section titled: Two egalitarian traditions What is an opportunity? Resources, capabilities, and commensurability Perfectionism and liberal egalitarianisms Why pay the costs of opportunities and provision of other goods? Egalitarianism of opportunity and the neoclassical tradition.

This chapter contains section titled: Why egalitarianism of opportunity is incompatible with Rawls's egalitarianism The difference principle and the functional theory of stratification Natural lottery of talents? What motivates us? The natural history of stratification Is inequality necessary?

This chapter contains section titled: The conflict between the moral powers Market efficiency and justice From the point of view of market morality egalitarianism is unjust Markets without material incentives?

In "Freedom and Resentment" P.F. Strawson proposes that the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists can be resolved if we can identify what is missing in the compatibilist account of our morality, an account intended to reconcile determinism and moral responsibility. Strawson argues that our common morality requires us to take an involved attitude toward others. He says that compatibilist accounts of that morality suggest that we take an objective attitude toward others, which precludes being morally involved with them. I argue, (...) on the contrary, that taking an objective, results-oriented attitude toward others does not preclude moral involvement and moral community. This leaves us with the original problem of why compatibilism seems to leave something out. I argue that compatibilist accounts of morality lead to a radically altered conception of individual responsibility and its relation to general social causes of individual wrongdoing. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: What makes life good? The good of developing and exercising complex abilities The good of contributing our abilities to a social group The good of thinking well of ourselves and being thought well of by others Why labor is important to self‐ and social esteem Why we think more highly of complex than of simple abilities How complex, challenging work enhances one's life; how routine labor damages it Is this an adequate defense of the constellation?

This chapter contains section titled: Bringing issues of race and racism to the center of political philosophy Race, unequal opportunity, and the division of labor Capabilities and functionings Racism, opportunities, and capabilities Racism and other oppression Race, contribution, and political philosophy.

This chapter contains section titled: Competitiveness Competition for social esteem Social comparison and self‐esteem in Franz Kafka's “The Judgment” Group identities, racism, and the struggle for a sense of self‐worth Amour‐propre in Rousseau Esteem and respect From competition to harmony Optimism revisited.

This book is unique in its treatment of critical thinking not as a body of knowledge but instead as a subject for critical reflection. The purpose of the anthology is to turn critical thinking classes into invitations to philosophical conversations. The collection introduces students to difficult philosophical questions that surround critical thinking, moving away from dogmatism and towards philosophical dialogue. In developing these discussions, the anthology introduces students to issues in the philosophy of science, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Selections (...) include works by Charles S. Peirce, Stephen Jay Gould, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Richard Dawkins. (shrink)