Essay What is the most persuasive conception of equality of opportunity PDF

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PAIR1004

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What is the most persuasive conception of equality of opportunity? The principle of equality of opportunity has become a fundamental goal for democratic societies to achieve meritocracy. This is where individuals receive ‘treatment as an equal but not equal treatment' (Dworkin, 1977) in a system, best proposed by the radical conception, where success and advancement should be appointed to individuals almost exclusively based on the choices we make in full autonomy, with the removal of arbitrary influences like ethnicity and gender. Although this principle appears to be a "treacherously simple concept" (Holtmaat, 2004), there is yet a diverse spectrum of different conceptions, namely formal, fair and radical, for what is equality of opportunity and to what extent should government intervene and implement policies to protect these values. Whilst acknowledging that the three conceptions of equality of opportunity can only be grasped within their own historical and social context, this essay will argue that the radical conception provides a strong maxim for what we assume equality of opportunity really means and is the most useful in translating into meaningful policies and legislation, in comparison to fair and minimal.

The Minimal or Formal conception follows a traditional view that equality of opportunity occurs when social positions (such as jobs) that confer superior advantages are formally available to everyone, thus it is reliant on the proposition that fairness requires consistent equal treatment. Everyone who applies is considered, and the rules of competition are designed to select the best-qualified applicant. However, the assumed value of neutrality of formal equality is merely an illusion (Fiss, 1976), because it is debatable whether the law, legislature and the judiciary can claim to be truly neutral to all parties. To this end, formal equality cannot adequately deal with certain types of laws. For instance, licensing laws is one type of law concerning issues that do not relate to choices between groups or laws which appear to be based on prima facie neutral criteria but consequently create a disparate impact for certain people. In this way, it is argued that the formal conception of equality is fundamentally unpersuasive and most importantly rather confusing in this sense (Westen, 1982). Nonetheless, as previously illustrated, this minimal sense of equality of opportunity can still allow people's social circumstances to have a deep impact on their chances in life. Thus,

28615832 PAIR1004 ESSAY 2 it could be satisfied in the presence of large sexual, racial, etc. inequalities, making this conception the least persuasive argument for equality of opportunity which fails in its objective of equality of opportunity in comparison to the liberal and radical conception.

Moreover, the fair or liberal conception is the most conventional viewpoint of equality of opportunity that can be traced back to ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle and his dictum that equality meant that "things that are alike should be treated alike" (Aristotle et al., 1980). Based on this and John Rawls' Theory of Justice (1971), the fair or liberal conception asserts that only a person's natural ability or talent should affect their success, where individuals of roughly equal ability or intelligence alike should enjoy roughly equal prospects of success. Vital to most protagonists' defence of this model is the ‘Principle of Merit' (McCrudden, 1998). This principle is the maxim that person A received merit B in virtue of C so, for example, Ahmed (A) received the merit of having a successful album in the music charts (B) by virtue of being naturally able to sing better than other people pursuing a music career of the same genre (C). Thus, in the fair conception of equality, people like Ahmed should only face obstacles such as possibly having fewer innate abilities or talents or lacking the will to cultivate them than others. However, the fair conception of equality of opportunity fails to treat all natural talent and brute luck equally. Inequalities from social luck, such as being born into a poor family, which the fair conception does attempt to correct for, and inequalities in natural luck, for example being born with fewer natural talents, which the fair conception does not attempt to correct for, should be treated the same. It is easy to think that both types of luck are equally arbitrary from the moral point of view and that this arbitrariness is a source of injustice, social policies such as welfare regimes follow this view (thus contradicting the fair principle) as they would treat both types of luck as equal sources of injustice and inequality. As a result, the fair principle lags the radical conception as the most persuasive conception of equality of opportunity.

In the final analysis, it is argued that the radical conception is the most persuasive conception for equality of opportunity. The radical conception of equality of opportunity claims that although the fair view eradicates the influence of unjust social circumstances, it would still reward us differently based on our natural talents that is, the brute luck of our natural circumstances. According to Cohen (2009), the radical (or socialist)

28615832 PAIR1004 ESSAY 2 view seeks to even eliminate all unchosen disadvantages in our lifetime. Thus, this conception uses Luck Egalitarianism to assert that the brute luck of our class, race, even level of talent shouldn't affect distributions, but the choices we make can. For example, the doctor that should be the most rewarded should be the doctor, that is not necessarily the most talented, but the one who always chose to do further readings during their medicine degree or chose to be the most caring to their patient. This is the most preferable and just approach to equal opportunity. One persuasive aspect of this conception is that it is the most extensive and in-depth attempt to fully carry out a true sense of equality of opportunity that eliminates far-reaching possibilities of injustice or disadvantages that can prevent such a cause. For example, this is conception makes a powerful case for global distributive equality; as it would assert that if brute luck (for example, a person’s birth place) and the distribution of natural resources across the world create differential life chances for people then it would suggest for a global distributive commitment to offset the consequences of such arbitrary factors (Tan, 2008). Furthermore, the radical view is the only conception that can deal with nepotism, a phenomenon whereby a person passes on advantageous positions or privileges to their relatives, children or friends. For example, this view would encourage the use of 100% Inheritance Tax to block individuals being advantageous through their parents rather than succeeding through choices. Thus, the radical view is the most persuasive conception for equality of opportunity in comparison to the formal and fair view.

In conclusion, the radical conception of equality of opportunity is the most persuasive. Unlike formal, which only focuses on the advancement of social positions, and fair, which  mphasizes that natural talents or abilities should be the decipher of equality of opportunity, the radical view covers this and beyond – even to a global scale. The radical view builds on the formal and fair conceptions and creates very extensive measures (for example, eliminating all forms of nepotism and global distributive equality) to ensure that equality of opportunity is such a manner that the only difference between individuals is in their tastes and choices rather than their race, gender, or other arbitrary influences. Of course, it must be considered that this conception has not made much real world practical application to test out its practicality. However, in an ideological sense, this is the only conception that is true to the meaning and expectations of equality of opportunity and, thus, is the most persuasive ideal.

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References Aristotle, Ackrill, Urmson and Ross (1980). The Nicomachean ethics. 1st ed. Oxford University Press, pp.112-117, 1131a-1131b. Armstrong, C. (2006). Debating Opportunities, Outcomes and Democracy: Young and Phillips on Equality. Political Studies, 54(2), pp.289-309. Cohen, G. (2009). Why Not Socialism?. 1st ed. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Dworkin, R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously. The Western Political Quarterly, 30(4), p.227. Fiss, O. (1976). Groups and the equal protection clause. 1st ed. [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified], pp.Vol 5, page 107. Holtmaat, R. (2004). THE CONCEPT OF DISCRIMINATION. THE FIGHT AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN THE DAILY PRACTICE, [online] p.2. Available at: http://www.eracomm.eu/oldoku/Adiskri/02_Key_concepts/2004_Holtmaat_EN.pdf [Accessed 2 May 2017]. Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. 1st ed. United States of America: Harvard University Press. Sachs, B. (2011). The limits of fair equality of opportunity. Philosophical Studies, 160(2), pp.323-343. Tan, K. (2008). A Defense of Luck Egalitarianism. Journal of Philosophy, 105(11), pp.665-690. Westen, P. (1982). The Empty Idea of Equality. Harvard Law Review, 95(3), p.537....