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The Value in Equal Opportunity: Reply to Kershnar
Author(s) -
O'DEA JOHN
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5930.2007.00377.x
Subject(s) - equal opportunity , value (mathematics) , interpretation (philosophy) , opportunity cost , aggregate (composite) , positive economics , sociology , law and economics , mathematical economics , epistemology , economics , microeconomics , mathematics , philosophy , statistics , materials science , composite material , linguistics
tephen Kershnar (2004) recently argues that under its most plausible interpretation, equality of opportunity is simply not something worth pursuing; at least, not for itself. In this paper I try to show that even if we accept Kershnar's characterisation of equality of opportunity in terms of weighted aggregate chances, none of his objections succeed. Opportunities, not outcomes, are the appropriate focus of EO advocates; hedonic treadmills are irrelevant to the issue; we do not need to assume general equality in some attribute to ground equality of opportunity; finally, it is possible to show that it is permissible to promote EO at some cost to other independent values.