The 'Why ain'cha rich?' argument for one-boxing in Newcomb's problem allegedly vindicates evidential decision theory and undermines causal decision theory. But there is a good response to the argument on behalf of causal decision theory. I develop this response. Then I pose a new problem and use it to give a new 'Why ain'cha rich?' argument. Unlike the old argument, the new argument targets evidential decision theory. And unlike the old argument, the new argument is sound.

The thesis of this essay is that equal opportunity (EO) "strictly dominates" (in the game-theoretic sense) reparations. That is, (1) all the ways reparations would make our world more just would also be achieved under EO; (2) EO would make our world more just in ways reparations cannot; and (3) reparations would create injustices which EO would avoid. Further, (4) EO has important practical advantages over reparations. These include economic efficiency, feasibility, and long-term impact. Supporters of reparations should (...) abandon that ideal to support equal opportunity instead. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an analysis of equal opportunity. I argue that equal opportunity occurs where two or more persons with equal natural abilities and willingness to work hard have chances at various jobs that are in the aggregate of equal value. I then argue that equal opportunity is neither valuable nor something that the government ought to pursue. First, it is not clear why we should value opportunities rather than outcomes. (...) Second, the value of equal opportunity rests on the value of interest satisfaction. However, if interest satisfaction is relatively constant across different jobs and different job opportunities, then the concern for interest satisfaction will not ground the value of equal opportunity. Third, equalizing opportunities is not in itself valuable because persons are not equally valuable. Fourth, even if equal opportunity were valuable, the government can pursue it only by trespassing on individual rights. (shrink)

John Rawls's work has greatly contributed to rehabilitating equality as a basic social value, after decades of utilitarian hegemony,particularly in normative economics, but Rawls also emphasized that full equality of welfare is not an adequate goal either. This thesis was echoed in Dworkin's famous twin papers on equality, and it is now widely accepted that egalitarianism must be selective. The bulk of the debate on ‘Equality of What?’ thus deals with what variables ought to be submitted for selection and how (...) this selection ought to be carried out. (shrink)

The equal opportunities issue constitutes one of the biggest ethical and practical challenges ever faced by business, because it strikes at fundamental cultural assumptions about the purpose and responsibilities of business and the rights of individuals which are ingrained from childhood. The author is chairman of Business in the Community's‘Opportunity 2000′.

John Rawls's work (1971) has greatly contributed to rehabilitating equality as a basic social value, after decades of utilitarian hegemony,particularly in normative economics, but Rawls also emphasized that full equality of welfare is not an adequate goal either. This thesis was echoed in Dworkin's famous twin papers on equality (Dworkin 1981a,b), and it is now widely accepted that egalitarianism must be selective. The bulk of the debate on ‘Equality of What?’ thus deals with what variables ought to be submitted for (...) selection and how this selection ought to be carried out. (shrink)

Pursuing equality is an important challenge for any modern democratic society but this challenge faces two sets of difficulties: the theoretical question of what sort of equality to pursue and for whom; and the practical question concerning which legal and political institutions are the most appropriate vehicles for implementing egalitarian social policy and thus realizing egalitarian justice. This book offers original and innovative contributions to the debate about equality of opportunity. The first part of the book sets out a (...) theory of equality of opportunity that presents equal opportunities as a normative device for the regulation of competition for scarce resources. The second part shifts the focus to the consideration of the practical application by courts or legislatures or public policy makers of policies for addressing racial, class or gender injustices. The author examines standardized tests, affirmative action, workfare, universal health-care, comparable worth, and the economic consequences of divorce. (shrink)

The paper discusses Ian Wells’s recent argument that there is a decision problem in which followers of Evidential Decision Theory end up poorer than followers of Causal Decision Theory despite having the same opportunities for money. It defends Evidential Decision Theory against Wells’s argument, on the following grounds. Wells's has not presented a decision problem in which his main claim is true. Four possible decision problems can be generated from his central example, in each of which followers of Evidential Decision (...) Theory do at least as well as followers of Causal Decision Theory. There is another case in which followers of Causal Decision Theory have the same opportunities for making money but end up worse than followers of Evidential Decision Theory. (shrink)

I distinguish four different interpretations of ‘equality of opportunity.’ We get four interpretations because a neglected ambiguity in ‘opportunity’ intersects a well-known ambiguity in ‘equality.’ The neglected ambiguity holds between substantive and non-substantive conceptions of ‘opportunity’ and the well-known ambiguity holds between comparative and non-comparative conceptions of ‘equality.’ Among other things, distinguishing these four interpretations reveals how misleading ‘equal opportunity for advantage’ formulations of luck egalitarianism can be. These formulations are misleading in so far as (...) they obscure the difference between two separate claims about which inequalities are consistent with true equality. Luck egalitarianism claims that inequalities that have been chosen in some suitable sense are consistent with true equality, while the traditional ideal of equality of opportunity only claims that inevitable inequalities that have been determined through fair competitions are consistent with true equality. Obscuring the difference between these two claims therefore serves both to arrogate the rhetorical advantages of the traditional ideal to luck egalitarianism and to cover over a limitation to luck egalitarianism’s ambition to provide a comprehensive principle of distributive justice. (shrink)

Although liberal political philosophers have long recognised the tension between equal opportunity and the family, most have assumed there is little society can do to mitigate it. Brighouse and Swift argue, by contrast, that an analysis of the value of the family reveals limits on the rights of parents to benefit their children and hence points to a way to reconcile the family with equal opportunity. Their solution for resolving the tension between equal opportunity (...) and the family, however, leads to some untenable conclusions. A better solution for promoting equal opportunity in the family is to level up the opportunities that less advantaged parents have to promote the development and wellbeing of their children so that they are on par with the opportunities of the most advantaged parents. Five strategies are outlined for achieving this goal. Once society has provided all parents with real opportunities to fulfil their fiduciary duties, Brighouse and Swift's argument for limited parental partiality can be applied without contradiction. The result is an alternate solution for mitigating the conflict between equal opportunity and the family in liberal political philosophy. (shrink)

What does the prospect of being able to alter a human being's “natural assets” by genetic engineering imply for our understanding of the requirements of justice, and of equal opportunity in particular? Although their proponents are reluctant to admit it, some of the most prominent contemporary theories of justice yield a quite radical conclusion: If safe and effective intervention in the genetic “natural lottery” becomes feasible, there will be at least a strong prima facie case for doing so (...) in the name of equality of opportunity , if this is the most effective way to meet the demands of justice. (shrink)

Equality of opportunity is a complex and contested ideal. There is disagreement about what the most plausible account of equal opportunity is, why equal opportunity matters, and how much it matters relative to other considerations that bear on how we ought to act. Over and above those disagreements about the general ideal of equal opportunity, there are further disagreements about what equal educational opportunity requires, why equal educational opportunity matters, (...) and how much it matters relative to other considerations that bear on what educational policies we ought to enact. Much of the literature on equal opportunity and education focuses on equal opportunity and K-12 (i.e., primary- or secondary-level) education. But there is now also a sizeable literature that focuses on distinctive questions about equal opportunity and higher (i.e., tertiary-level) education. That latter set of questions – how the ideal of equal opportunity bears on higher education – is the primary topic of this chapter. The chapter is divided into two parts. The first part of the chapter focuses on more theoretical issues in normative ethics and foundational political philosophy. It first surveys some disagreements about the nature, scope, grounds, and stringency of equal opportunity requirements; in light of those disagreements, it then surveys a variety of views about how the ideal of equal opportunity bears on higher education. The second part of the chapter focuses on more practical issues in applied ethics and applied political philosophy. It surveys some contemporary controversies in higher education that implicate concerns about equal opportunity. (shrink)

According to the ‘starting-gate’ interpretation of equality of opportunity, individuals who enjoy equal starts can legitimately become unequal to the extent that their differences derive from choices for which they can be held responsible. There can be no coercive transfers of resources in favour of individuals who disregarded their own futures, and no limits on the right of an individual to distribute resources intrapersonally. This paper assesses two ways in which advocates of equality of opportunity might depart (...) from the starting-gate interpretation. The first involves limiting the degree to which people are liable to pay the costs of their past choices. The second involves limiting their initial opportunities so as to prevent certain risky or apparently short-sighted choices. The paper compares these alternatives in terms of their compatibility with a particular conception of persons as morally equal and temporally extended. It constructs this conception by combining reductionist premises about personal identity with the premise that our status as equals is based on the fundamental requirement of opacity respect. Two conclusions about equality of opportunity are shown to follow from this conception of persons as morally equal and temporally extended: the first is that an individual’s liability to pay the costs of her past choices does not diminish over time; the second is that the individual’s initial scope of choice, in bringing about intrapersonal distributions between her current and future selves, can nevertheless be permissibly limited. The two conclusions are consistent, and the second allows for departures from starting-gate equality of opportunity. (shrink)

In the post‐civil rights era in the United States, it is common to see included in a job announcement a declaration of the following sort: “we are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.” The ideal of equal opportunity has a complex relationship to the idea and practice of affirmative action, which is taken for granted in a typical job ad. I will explore the notion of equal opportunity insofar as it has figured in feminist philosophical (...) writings about practical agendas and programs for change, such as affirmative action, pregnancy and maternity leave, and comparable worth. As the concept of equal opportunity has gained moral and legal authority, social theorists have concentrated on what is practically required to guarantee equal opportunity. Identifying and articulating the practical requirements depends upon some conception of the obstacles to equal opportunity, such as discrimination based on race and sex, poverty, unequal needs and abilities, and so on. I will especially concentrate on how feminist philosophers have grappled with sex‐based discrimination and needs in proposing or advocating programs intended to broaden women's opportunities. (shrink)

Three common assumptions of both liberal theory and political debate are the autonomy of the family, the principle of merit, and equality of life chances. Fishkin argues that even under the best conditions, commitment to any two of these principles precludes the third._“A brief survey and brilliant critique of contemporary liberal political theory…. A must for all political theory or public policy collections.” –_Choice_ “The strong points of Fishkin’s book are many. He raises provocative issues, locates them within a broader (...) theoretical framework, and demonstrates an urgent need for liberals to set certain priorities. His main message—that liberalism has radical implications for ordinary life—needs to be heard by many.” --Virginia L. Warren, _Michigan Law Review_ “A highly original and powerfully argued book…. Fishkin is undoubtedly right, and his warning needs to be taken seriously…. This is not a book that catechizes us about what we should believe concerning the practicalities of distributive justice. It is a book that advises us about how we need to think about beliefs that are already popular dogmas, in the interest of making sense.” –James Gaffney, _America_ James S. Fishkin_ is associate professor of political science at Yale University. He is also the author of _The Limits of Obligation_ and _Beyond Subjective Morality_. (shrink)

On the one hand, there seem to be compelling parallels to moral responsibility, blameworthiness, and praiseworthiness in domains other than the moral. For example, we often praise people for their aesthetic and epistemic achievements and blame them for their failures. On the other hand, it has been argued that there is something special about the moral domain, so that at least one robust kind of responsibility can only be found there. In this paper, I argue that we can adopt a (...) unifying framework for locating responsible agency across domains, thereby capturing and explaining more of our actual practices. The key, I argue, is to identify the right conditions for being morally accountable, which I take to be a matter of having an opportunity of a good enough quality to act well. With this account in hand, I argue that we can adopt a unifying framework that allows us to recognize parallels across domains, even as it points the way to important differences among them. (shrink)

This paper is a response to papers by Wilson, Burwood and White concerning equal opportunities as an educational ideal. I seek to legitimate this ideal, in contrast to these earlier attempts to persuade us that it is incoherent, unreasonable or misguided. I argue that, given the social context in which the term is used, it is meaningful and represents rational and praiseworthy goals. I identify four aspects of ‘equal opportunities’ and conclude that the concern to promote such opportunities (...) arises from desire for a more just educational provision and out of concern for the well-being of children in oppressed groups. (shrink)

In this paper, I will inquire into the basic assumptions underlying Rawls’s argument for the distribution of resources according to the difference principle. Rawls assumes a ‘social division of responsibility’ between society and individual citizens which implies that society need not compensate its members for differences in welfare that are the result of the relative cost of effecting their conception of the good. Rawls’s basic justification for holding people individually responsible for the costs of effecting their conception of the good (...) is that it may be assumed that they are able to revise their ends in light of their relative costs. I will show that this assumption of the revisability of our ends is incompatible with Rawls’s justification of the first principle of justice, which has to assume that people’s conceptions of the good and the ends and aspirations that are based on them are given. Removing this friction from Rawls’s theory leads to a position about the distribution of resources akin to the idea of equal opportunity for welfare developed by writers like G.A. Cohen and Richard Arneson. However, it differs from their versions because it focuses on the importance of people’s ability to form and pursue some determinate conception of the good. I will sketch the outlines of this position and will try to indicate how it could be implemented as a workable conception of justice. (shrink)

This thesis argues that a particular version of equal opportunity for welfare is the best way of meeting the joint demands of three liberal egalitarian ideals: distributional equality, responsibility, and respect for individuals’ differing reasonable judgements of their own good. It also examines which social choice rules best represent these demands. Finally, it defends the view that achieving equal opportunity for welfare should not only be a goal of formal public institutions, but that just citizens should (...) also sometimes be guided by it in their everyday life. The version of equal opportunity for welfare it defends differs from some well-known contemporary versions in the following ways. First, it rejects a definition of welfare as the degree of satisfaction of a person’s preferences, because, it argues, this conception of welfare cannot adequately deal with preference change. Instead, it suggests that we should adopt a conception of welfare based on a list of goods and conditions that are recognised as valuable from the perspective of a variety of different conceptions of the good. Second, it argues that individuals’ prima facie claim to an equally valuable share of the world’s resources—a claim which is based on their equal moral worth—is limited to situations in which giving one person a more valuable share means that someone else ends up with a less valuable share. It also argues that in situations where we can improve at least one person’s situation without worsening anyone else’s, we generally do not fail to respect each person’s equal moral worth by doing so, even if this leads to inequalities. Third, it defends a distinct view of responsibility, which justifies social arrangements that give people certain options with reference to the value that individuals can achieve (but don’t necessarily achieve) through their choices from these options. (shrink)

The equal opportunities issue constitutes one of the biggest ethical and practical challenges ever faced by business, because it strikes at fundamental cultural assumptions about the purpose and responsibilities of business and the rights of individuals which are ingrained from childhood. The author is chairman of Business in the Community's‘Opportunity 2000′.

The article reveals the existence of a greater sensitivity than in the past towards equality. Nevertheless, equality policies have failed to rise above the limits imposed by a culture that sees the male prevail in industrial relations. Both domestic law and European legislation have in uenced collective bargaining in Italy as regards equal opportunities. The presence of women in bargaining, in equal opportunities committees and in study groups has led to success regarding a core of issues such as (...) sexual harassment, positive action, working hours and parental leave and has favoured a positive praxis both for equality and bargaining between which there is positive synergy. The article discusses the problems which hinder a general acceptance of equality bargaining and a bargaining model that places the female worker among the subjects to be represented. (shrink)

Michael Levin, in Feminism and Freedom, argues that sex-stereotyping is inevitable and legitimate since there are innate non-anatomical differences between the sexes. He, further, believes that sex-stereotyping is compatible with members of both sexes acting freely and having equal opportunity in the job market and other areas of life. I will attack both claims, but I will particularly concentrate on the second one. I believe that Levin is only able to make his view sound plausible because of his (...) minimal definitions of “freedom” and “equal opportunity” which I shall argue are not acceptable. The result of his mistake is that he presents us with a false dilemma: We must choose between either a Libertarian ideal---which includes freedom, equal opportunity, the inevitable sex-stereotyping and resulting patriarchal society (since it cannot be eliminated voluntarily)---and Feminism---which denies the legitimacy of sex-stereotyping, insists that unequal outcome means inequality of opportunity and so supports a quota system, and attempts to accomplish its aims, at great cost, by depriving people of freedom. (shrink)

Michael Levin, in Feminism and Freedom, argues that sex-stereotyping is inevitable and legitimate since there are innate non-anatomical differences between the sexes. He, further, believes that sex-stereotyping is compatible with members of both sexes acting freely and having equal opportunity in the job market and other areas of life. I will attack both claims, but I will particularly concentrate on the second one. I believe that Levin is only able to make his view sound plausible because of his (...) minimal definitions of “freedom” and “equal opportunity” which I shall argue are not acceptable. The result of his mistake is that he presents us with a false dilemma: We must choose between either a Libertarian ideal---which includes freedom, equal opportunity, the inevitable sex-stereotyping and resulting patriarchal society (since it cannot be eliminated voluntarily)---and Feminism---which denies the legitimacy of sex-stereotyping, insists that unequal outcome means inequality of opportunity and so supports a quota system, and attempts to accomplish its aims, at great cost, by depriving people of freedom. (shrink)

The United States has never been culturally or religiously homogeneous, but its diversity has greatly increased over the last century. Although the U.S. was first a multicultural nation through conquest and enslavement, its present diversity is due equally to immigration. In this paper I try to explain the difference it makes for one area of thought and policy – equal opportunity – if we incorporate cultural and religious pluralism into our national self-image. Formulating and implementing a policy of (...) equal opportunity is more difficult in diverse, pluralistic countries than it is in homogeneous ones. My focus is cultural and religious diversity in the United States, but my conclusions will apply to many other countries – including ones whose pluralism is found more in religion than in culture. (shrink)

We investigated cross-language influences from the first and second languages in third language processing, to examine how order of acquisition and proficiency modulate the degree of cross-language influences, and whether these cross-language influences manifest differently in online and offline measures of L3 processing. The study focused on morpho-syntactic processing of English as an L3 among Arabic-Hebrew-English university student trilinguals. Importantly, both L1 and L2 of participants are typologically distant from L3, which allows overcoming confounds of previous research. Performance of trilinguals (...) was compared to that of native English monolingual controls. To investigate the source of cross-language influences, critical stimuli were ungrammatical sentences in English, which when translated could be grammatical in L1, in L2 or in both. Thus, the L3 morpho-syntactic structures included in the study were a mismatch with L1, a mismatch with L2, a Double mismatch, with both L1 and L2, or a no mismatch condition. Participants read the English sentences while their eye-movements were recorded, and they also performed grammaticality judgments following each sentence. Across both measures, cross-language influences were assessed by comparing the performance of the trilinguals in each of the critical interference conditions to the no-interference condition, and by comparing their performance to that of the monolingual controls. L1 interference was evident in first pass sentence reading, and marginally in offline grammaticality judgment, and L2 interference was robust across second pass reading and grammaticality judgments. These results suggest that either L1 or the L2 can be the source of cross-language influences in L3 processing, but with different time-courses. The findings highlight the difference between online and offline measures of performance: processing language in real-time reflects mainly automatic activation of morpho-syntactic structures, whereas offline judgments might also involve strategic and meta-linguistic decision making. Together, the findings show that during L3 processing, trilinguals have access to all previously acquired linguistic knowledge, and that the multilingual language system is fully interactive. (shrink)

This rejoinder to Roemer examines Roemer's amendment to his EOp criterion, explains the similarities and differences between Roemer's approach to equality of opportunity and the economic literature inspired by the fair allocation theory, and proposes some clarifications on the compensation principle and the role of the reward principle in the definition of a responsibility-sensitive social criterion. It highlights the power of the ideal of respect for individual preferences with respect to the reward issue and the concern for potential harshness (...) of the social criterion toward the individuals who fail to make good use of their opportunities. It discusses Roemer's objection against holding individuals responsible for their preferences. (shrink)

This paper explores the questions of equality and social justice for people with disabilities in sports and, by extension, other civil societal practices that involve the pursuit of excellence. I argue that such practices come within the purview of justice depending on the interplay between political activism, institutionalized anti-discrimination statutes such as the ADA, and the internal norms of a practice. There are many ways to interpret the ADA, and a successful argument for a right to a pursuit of excellence (...) requires that the ADA be understood as an anticaste principle. That interpretation allows me to show how even voluntary, ostensibly apolitical social practices can stigmatize groups of people ??? people with disabilities, for example ??? and how such practices can be refigured to bring about social justice. (shrink)

Book review of Lesley A. Jacobs' Pursuing Equal Opportunities: The Theory and Practice of Egalitarian Justice.

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.