Liberty Versus Equal Opportunity*: James S. Fishkin

Social Philosophy and Policy 5 (1):32-48 (1987)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Liberalism has often been viewed as a continuing dialogue about the relative priorities between liberty and equality. When the version of equality under discussion requires equalization of outcomes, it is easy to see how the two ideals might conflict. But when the version of equality requires only equalization of opportunities, the conflict has been treated as greatly muted since the principle of equality seems so meager in its implications. However, when one looks carefully at various versions of equal opportunity and various versions of liberty, the conflict between them is, in fact, both dramatic and inescapable. Each version of the conflict poses hard choices which defy any systematic pattern granting priority to one of these basic values over the other. In this essay, I will flesh out and argue for this picture of fundamental conflict, and then turn to some more general issues about the kinds of answers we should expect to the basic questions of liberal theory.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 86,554

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Fair Equality of Opportunity.Larry A. Alexander - 1985 - Philosophy Research Archives 11:197-208.
Equality of opportunity for welfare defended and recanted.Richard J. Arneson - 1999 - Journal of Political Philosophy 7 (4):488–497.
Liberal Equality.Amy Gutmann (ed.) - 1980 - Cambridge University Press.
Fair Equality of Opportunity.Larry A. Alexander - 1985 - Philosophy Research Archives 11:197-208.
Against competitive equal opportunity.Paul Gomberg - 1995 - Journal of Social Philosophy 26 (3):59-73.
Equal Negative Liberty and Welfare Rights.Peter Vallentyne - 2011 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2):237-241.
Equality of Opportunity Globalized?Darrel Moellendorf - 2006 - Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 19 (2).
Equal Negative Liberty and Welfare Rights.Peter Vallentyne - 2011 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2):237-41.
Equality of What? Why Liberty?Diego Odchimar Iii - 2007 - Philosophia: International Journal of Philosophy (Philippine e-journal) 36 (1).

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-31

Downloads
105 (#143,477)

6 months
2 (#526,686)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?