The limits of fair equality of opportunity€¦ · · 2012-10-11The limits of fair equality of...

The limits of fair equality of opportunity

Benjamin Sachs

Published online: 13 April 2011

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. (outside the USA) 2011

Abstract The principle of fair equality of opportunity is regularly used to justify

social policies, both in the philosophical literature and in public discourse. How-

ever, too often commentators fail to make explicit just what they take the principle

to say. A principle of fair equality of opportunity does not say anything at all until

certain variables are filled in. I want to draw attention to two variables, timing and

currency. I argue that once we identify the few plausible ways we have at our

disposal for filling in those variables, it will become apparent that a reasonable

version of the principle will be quite narrow. Its usefulness as a justificatory basis

for social policies will be limited to those policies that target the distribution of

competitive opportunities among people entering majority.

Keywords Fair equality of opportunity � Rawls

1 Introduction

The principle of equality of opportunity became a central topic in philosophy with

the publication of A Theory of Justice.1 In it, Rawls argued that we should go

beyond careers open to talents, a version of the principle in which social positions

are formally available to everyone, and adopt a more substantive version of equality

of opportunity in which equally talented people have an equal chance of attaining

them—‘‘fair equality of opportunity’’. He went on to suggest that such a principle

B. Sachs (&)

Program in Environmental Studies and Center for Bioethics, New York University,

285 Mercer Street, Room 908, New York, NY 10003, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

1 Rawls (1971).

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Philos Stud (2012) 160:323–343

DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9721-6

could be used to justify universal education at public expense2 and an inheritance

tax.3 Other than that, he was silent on the question of what social policies could be

grounded in fair equality of opportunity.4 In the years since A Theory of Justice was

published, philosophers have appealed to fair equality of opportunity as a theoretical

basis for all manner of social policies, such as universal health care,5 continuing

education and job training programs6 and affirmative action.7 My intention here is to

raise doubts about whether the principle of fair equality of opportunity is suitable to

be invoked in defense of policies such as these.

The first ingredient in any successful fair equality of opportunity-based argument

for a social policy is a convincing principle of fair equality of opportunity, yet work

remains to be done in figuring out how to construct one. Principles of fair equality of

opportunity differ based on how certain variables are filled in, and we need to find

out which ways of filling in those variables yield a plausible principle. In this article

I undertake just that investigation and conclude that the most plausible versions of

the principle of fair equality of opportunity will be quite narrow. Their justificatory

power will be limited to a very small number of social policies that are similar, in

certain specifiable ways, to the ones Rawls advocated. Therefore, if we want to find

justification for a wider range of social policies, we should concentrate our efforts

on determining whether other principles of justice are equal to the task.8

Before proceeding, a word on methodology. In what follows I will object to

various versions of fair equality of opportunity on the grounds that those versions

support unacceptable social policies. One might worry that any such objection

reflects a failure to distinguish principles of justice from principles of regulation.

2 Ibid., pp. 73, 87, 278.3 Ibid., pp. 277–278.4 The principle of fair equality of opportunity encompasses the principle of careers open to talents, which

itself justifies social policies such as antidiscrimination laws. In this article I am concerned with what

follows from the part of the principle of fair equality of opportunity that goes beyond careers open to

talents.5 Daniels (1985, chap. 3; and 2008, chap. 2); Pogge (1989, §16); Buchanan et al. (2000, chap. 3).6 Daniels (1985, pp. 34 and 41; 2008, p. 53).7 Specifically, affirmative action for the purpose of achieving equality between the races or sexes. Jacobs

(2004, chaps. 4–5). (It should be noted that Jacobs explicitly rejects the Rawlsian version of fair equality

of opportunity; see chap. 3 of his book.) Insofar as affirmative action is backward-looking, or conceived

of as compensation for past or ongoing discrimination, careers open to talents is the most likely source of

justification. Contrast Shanley and Segers (1979).8 One might worry that if we are so confident in the rightness of that wider range of social policies, then it

is disingenuous to feign an interest in principles of justice. In other words, if we’re just going to advocate

for the policies that seem right to us then searching for principles of justice that can justify them is little

more than a game. Notice, however, that there is work to be done even if we are totally confident in the

rightness of a certain social policy. Namely, we will still need to determine its precise shape. And I submit

that the precise shape of a social policy often ought to depend on which principle of justice justifies it.

Take universal health care as an example of a social policy that most liberals are confident is right. If that

policy were justified based on equality of opportunity, then it would appear that we should opt for a

system in which out-of-pocket purchase of supplemental health care is banned. This would ensure that no

one uses his greater resources to secure for himself a greater-than-equal opportunity via the purchase of

better health care. If, on the other hand, universal health care were justified based on a principle of

sufficiency then that argument for such a system would be muted.

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Principles of justice don’t on their own require or rule out any social policies at all.

In order to get from a principle of justice to a principle of regulation—that is, a

principle that tells us which social policies to enact—we need empirical information

about the likely effects of various policies and we need to determine whether we

accept other principles that have their own consequences for social policy (when

supplemented by the relevant empirical information).

Inevitably, then, discussing the implications of principles of justice for social

policies involves a fudge. One never has all the relevant empirical information and

almost no one claims to have worked out a complete system of principles. But

discussion of social policy cannot wait, so we should do the best we can. In the spirit

of making political philosophy relevant to real-world issues, we have to make

reasonable assumptions about the facts and about which other principles will

ultimately be vindicated. Various theorists have done just that and arrived at

conclusions about which social policies can draw support from the principle of fair

equality of opportunity. Here I do the same, albeit in support of less sanguine

conclusions.

2 The variables

If we believe in fair equality of opportunity (FEO), then we believe

FEO1: Opportunity should be equal among the equally talented.

This will serve as my template for principles of fair equality of opportunity.

What does it mean for opportunity to be equal? This, of course, depends on what

an opportunity is. I will follow Richard Arneson in defining an opportunity as a

chance of getting a good if one seeks it.9 Equality of opportunity for X among

a given group of people, then, obtains when everyone in that group has as likely of a

chance of getting X if they seek it.10 But what determines how likely one’s chance is

to get a good if one seeks it? There are multiple possible outcomes of any attempt to

obtain something. (Which of a person’s possible outcomes becomes her actual

outcome depends on the choices she and others make, the talents she and others

were born with, social circumstances, and luck.) So the likelihood of one’s chance

of obtaining X if one seeks it is the number of one’s possible futures in which one

obtains X divided by the number of one’s possible futures in which one seeks X

(there will often be multiple such possible futures, since there are often many

different ways of seeking some good).

There are two immediate implications of this conception of opportunity that are

worth pointing out. First, having an opportunity is a matter of degree, though one

can entirely lack an opportunity (if none of my possible futures involve obtaining X,

then I have no opportunity for X). Second, since an opportunity is ultimately

understood in terms of possible futures and the future is relative to a point in time,

opportunity is indexed to a point in time. There is an individual’s current

9 Arneson (1989, p. 85).10 This is what Douglas Rae calls ‘‘prospect-regarding’’ equality of opportunity (Rae 1981, chap. 4).

The limits of fair equality of opportunity 325

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opportunity to get X, the opportunity she had 10 min ago, and the opportunity she

will have 3 years from now; but there is no sense to be made of her opportunity to

get X, full stop. I take it that these implications are intuitively plausible and thus

count in favor of the suggested definition of opportunity. We will have additional

chances as we go on to ascertain whether this definition accurately depicts what, on

reflection, we take opportunity to be.

I said earlier that FEO1 is a mere template. This is because it leaves two variables

unassigned. Inserting blank spaces where the variables need to be filled in, we get

FEO2: Opportunity for ________ should be equal at ________ among the equally

talented.11

The first variable is that of currency. No principle of fair equality of opportunity is

complete until it identifies which opportunity is to be distributed equally, whether

the opportunity for welfare, jobs, or something else. This opportunity is the

currency. The second variable is the time at which the distribution should be equal,

whether all the time, just once, or something else. This is the variable of timing.

I want to discuss how we ought to fill in these two variables, beginning with timing.

3 Timing

First, we’ll stipulate that our currency is opportunity for X. Now suppose that at t0every member of some population of equally-talented people has an equal

opportunity to obtain X. Then at t1 one member of this population uses some of the

resources at her disposal in order to change the possible outcomes of some of her

future choices, such that a higher proportion of her possible futures involve

obtaining X. Call this sort of behavior investment. Exactly what actions count as

investment will depend on what X is, but let’s suppose for now that X is a desirable

job. We might imagine, then, that this person uses her money to enroll in night

school at a local college in order to work toward a master’s degree in school

administration. This action results in her becoming a more appealing candidate for a

position as a school principal. Therefore, among the various choices she might make

in the future, such as applying for the principal position at School 1, applying for the

principal position at School 2, etc., more of the possible outcomes of those choices

involve becoming a principal. This means that a higher proportion of her possible

future lifetimes involve becoming a school principal. According to the definition of

opportunity, she now has a better opportunity to become a school principal. This

being the case, we will find at t2 that the opportunity sets of the members of the

population are no longer equal (unless everyone else has been busy enhancing their

opportunity to become a principal as well).

What this example is intended to show is that equality of opportunity is not self-

perpetuating. Since people really do invest, no pattern of opportunity-distribution is

11 FEO2 presumes the correctness of Rawls’s claim that the groups of people within which equality of

opportunity ought to obtain are groups of equally talented individuals. This should not be taken as an

insistence that Rawls’s claim is unassailable. It’s just that I have nothing to say about it here.

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naturally stable.12 This is why timing is a variable. If equalizing opportunity among

a population at t0 entailed equalizing opportunity among that population for the rest

of time, then there would be no variable. We would either equalize or we wouldn’t.

But this isn’t how things work. If we equalize opportunity among a population and

then stand aside, the distribution of opportunity will soon become unequal.13

Maintaining an equal distribution of opportunity requires intervention.

Should we intervene? There are three possible answers to this question. The first

answer is yes, we should perpetually intervene so as to ensure that the distribution

always remains equal. The second answer is yes, we should intermittently intervene

so that the distribution is intermittently equal. The third answer is no. These three

answers correspond to three versions of the principle of fair equality of opportunity,

which differ by how their timing variable is assigned:

Perpetual FEO: Opportunity should be equal at all times among the equally

talented.

Intermittent FEO: Opportunity should be equal intermittently among the equally

talented.

One-Time FEO: Opportunity should be equal at one time among the equally

talented.

We need to know which of these versions of the principle of fair equality of

opportunity is the most plausible. Unfortunately, it has not been widely recognized

that timing is a variable. Of course, it is possible to read off an implicit answer to the

question from some theorists’ work. David Miller, for instance, pretty clearly

prefers One-Time FEO,14 as do Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott.15 But we should

want more; we should want an argument for a particular interpretation. In the

remainder of this section I argue that One-Time FEO is the most plausible

interpretation of FEO. I begin by offering an objection to Perpetual FEO.16

My objection to Perpetual FEO is that insofar as we favor maintaining an equal

distribution of opportunity for X perpetually we must to that extent oppose

investment. Yet there seems to be no reason to oppose investment; rather, it seems

like the kind of activity that we should encourage. We should, for instance,

encourage people to use their money to enroll in master’s programs in school

12 Investment is not the only cause of instability. By definition, anything that alters the distribution of

opportunity is a cause of instability. So, for instance, when people engage in the opposite of investment—

when they waste an opportunity—the distribution is disrupted. And luck, certainly, can rearrange the

distribution of opportunity. The reason I focus on investment will become clear later in this section.13 Clare Chambers has devised an eloquent phrase for this problem, and it is the title of Chambers (2009).

See also Rae (1981, p. 75).14 Miller (2002, p. 47).15 Ackerman and Alstott (2010). In this book Ackerman and Alstott advocate, on the basis of equality of

opportunity, a policy of giving every high school graduate a one-time US $80,000 cash payment.16 One might suggest that Perpetual FEO can be easily dismissed on account of its being impossible to

literally make everyone’s opportunity level at all times. But I reject the claim that unachievable principles

of justice cannot be true principles of justice. Here I follow Cohen (2008, chap. 6), Mason (2004), and

Swift (2008).


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administration. But Perpetual FEO tells us to do just the opposite.17 This implication

of Perpetual FEO emerges as even more objectionable once we acknowledge the

obvious fact that there are other things one can do with one’s resources besides

invest them. Earlier I defined ‘‘investment’’ as any use of one’s resources to increase

the proportion of one’s possible futures that involve obtaining X. Let’s now define

‘‘consumption’’ as the use of one’s resources in ways that do not alter that

proportion. By the definition of opportunity, consumption has no effect on the

distribution of opportunity. Therefore, equality of opportunity does not support

restrictions on consumption. This on its own is not counterintuitive, but the

conjunction of support for this policy and support for a total ban on investment is.

It’s a strange principle of distributive justice that welcomes the purchase of

expensive European vacations yet condemns enrollment in continuing education

courses.

That Perpetual FEO supports a ban on investment follows straightforwardly from

my definitions of investment and opportunity. However, now that it’s clear how

much trouble this fact makes for Perpetual FEO, one might be inclined to challenge

the definitions. Of course, my definition of ‘investment’ is pure stipulation, and as

such cannot be challenged. But my definition of ‘opportunity’ was supposed to

capture what the word actually means, and so might be inaccurate.

What definition of opportunity would allow us to avoid the conclusion that

maintaining equality of opportunity perpetually is incompatible with allowing

people to invest? Since investment, by definition, alters the likelihood of obtaining

X if one seeks it, we need a definition of opportunity that implies that such

alterations do not always constitute changes in one’s opportunity.

We might borrow a solution from Ronald Dworkin. Dworkin was intent on

defending the principle of equality of resources, and needed to find a way to say that

changes in the distribution of (for instance) wealth do not necessarily count as

changes in the distribution of resources. That way he could defend the idea that

resources should be distributed equally without committing himself to prohibiting

people from taking gambles that result in gain or loss of wealth. What he ended up

saying was that any gain or loss in a person’s wealth brought about via a gamble

(i.e., an informed choice) would be calculated not according to the amount lost or

gained, but rather according to the expected value of the gamble. So, for instance, if

I get 1:1 odds on the toss of a coin, wager US $100 on heads and the toss comes up

heads, my resource holding is to be calculated at US $100 (the expected value of the

gamble), rather than US $200, which is what I now have. In this way, people who

had the same alternatives open to them can be said to have the same set of resources

17 It has been suggested to me that we can finesse this problem by advocating perpetual equality of

opportunity to invest alongside whatever other version of perpetual equality of opportunity we want to

advance. But this will not work, for two reasons. First, equality can be achieved at any level, so equality

of opportunity to invest, on its own, favors an unconstrained freedom to invest no more than it favors an

exceptionless prohibition on investment. Second, equality of opportunity to invest, like all other versions

of equality of opportunity, cannot perpetuate itself. Therefore, perpetual equality of opportunity to invest

requires a ban on activities that augment one’s opportunity to invest—what we might call ‘‘meta-

investments.’’ Yet meta-investing, like investing, seems like a good thing.

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even when, after a series of gambles, they no longer have equal wealth.18 Similarly,

it is open to us to say that from a baseline of equally likely chances of obtaining X,

opportunity level is not to be recalculated every time an individual experiences an

increase or decrease in her likelihood, but rather according to the expected value of

the choice situation the individual faced immediately preceding the increase or

decrease (when the choice is informed). In this way, equality of opportunity may

continue to hold even when equality of likelihood no longer does.

Whatever the merits of this account, its construal of opportunity is implausible.

When one person makes a choice that leads to her having a likelier chance of

obtaining X, while another person in the same situation makes a choice that leads to

her having a less likely chance, we customarily say that the former has improved

and the latter has squandered an opportunity to obtain X. But if we calculate

opportunity according to the value of the choice situation faced, we can no longer

say this.

To rob this objection of its force it is open to us to say that we are using ‘equality

of opportunity’ metaphorically—that we never intended to insist that the distribu-

tion of opportunity, given what the distribution of opportunity actually is, be equal

among equally talented people. But this seems like a hasty surrender. We do not yet

have an argument on the table that fair equality of opportunity, understood literally,

is an implausible ideal. All we have is one objection to one version of fair (literal)

equality of opportunity—Perpetual FEO.

Perhaps anticipating that an analogous objection might be raised against his

equality of resources account, Ronald Dworkin insists that equality of resources is

equal distribution of resources over a lifetime. One’s ‘lifetime resources’ are just

that level of resources that one can be expected, ex ante (i.e., before one’s informed

resource-affecting choices, such as decisions to invest, are made), to enjoy over the

course of one’s lifetime. Similarly, we could say that equality of opportunity is an

ex ante equal distribution of opportunity over a lifetime. This way, changes in

likelihood ex post do not count as changes in opportunity level. But this is not a

defense of Perpetual FEO; this is a retreat to One-Time FEO with the ‘‘one time’’

being the time at which the ex ante assessment is made.

We will have a chance to consider the merits of One-Time FEO soon, but having

laid out an objection to Perpetual FEO I now want to raise an objection to

Intermittent FEO. That principle speaks in favor of limiting, but not eliminating, the

effects of opportunity-affecting decisions made after the ‘‘one time.’’ Intermittent

FEO tells us to periodically nullify the effects of previous opportunity-affecting

decisions such that equality of opportunity is re-established. My objection is that

this position is unmotivated. The periodic nullification policy that Intermittent FEO

supports seems like the result of a compromise between principles, as opposed to a

policy that can be directly supported by a principle.

It might be argued, however, that despite initial appearances periodic nullifica-

tion does admit of a defense based on a principle: the principle of background

fairness. The idea, familiar from Rawls, is that we should allow people to compete

for power, wealth, and other goods only so long as this competition takes place

18 Dworkin (2000, pp. 74–76).


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against a backdrop of fair conditions. Conditions are unfair, according to Rawls,

when there are vast accumulations of wealth and power concentrated in the hands of

the few, even when this results only from transactions that in and of themselves are

unobjectionable.19 One might think that the answer to this problem is to intervene

periodically after the ‘‘one time’’ in order to prevent things from getting too out of

hand. This doesn’t seem to be Rawls’s answer,20 and more importantly it is no

defense of Intermittent FEO. Rather, assuming that a concern about the distribution

of opportunity is the reason for our periodic intervention—which of course it might

not be—it would appear that perpetual approximate equality of opportunity is what

we’re after. There is a very important difference, which we should not overlook,

between saying that things should never be allowed to get too unequal and saying

that things should intermittently be equal.

It also might be suggested, alternatively, that periodic nullification is a way of

ensuring that the effect of a choice not be disproportionate to the significance of the

choice itself. More colloquially, the idea would be that the punishment should fit the

crime (and the reward should fit the good deed). It does not appear, however, that

the periodic nullification of the effects of opportunity-affecting choices, which is

what Intermittent FEO advocates, would serve this end. The size of an effect is a

function of many variables, only one of which is how much time it lasts. Yet

periodic nullification would attend only to the variable of time. Thus, periodic

nullification cannot be expected to secure the goal of proportionality between the

significance of a choice and the size of its effect.

This completes the case against Intermittent FEO. To set the stage for a defense

of One-Time FEO, I want to illustrate, first, why that principle is not subject to the

objections that doomed Perpetual and Intermittent FEO.

The objection levied against Perpetual FEO was based on that principle’s support

for a ban on investment. Perpetual FEO yields that troublesome result because it is a

patterned principle of justice—a principle that requires the distribution of the

currency to conform to a pattern. One-Time FEO avoids the objection to which

Perpetual FEO is vulnerable because although it is a patterned principle of justice, it

is not patterned in the wrong way. In his classic objection to patterned principles of

justice, Robert Nozick invites us to imagine that whatever patterned principle of

justice we support is realized at some point in time and that after that point in time

people engage in voluntary transactions that disrupt the pattern. Assuming, for the

sake of argument, that the currency of our patterned theory of justice is money,

Nozick asks us to suppose that a group of people spend some of their money on

tickets to see Wilt Chamberlain play basketball. These transactions result in a

different distribution of money—namely one in which Chamberlain has much more

19 Rawls (1993, p. 267; 2001, pp. 44, 53).20 Rawls recommends fixing this problem through educational policy and laws governing inheritance and

bequest (see Rawls 2001, p. 53). (Rawls also makes reference to the use of ‘‘taxes’’ (p. 51), but this

doesn’t tell us much since we don’t know what kinds of tax are being recommended.) Such policies do

nothing to combat inequalities arising after the ‘‘one time’’; in fact they do nothing at all to limit how

much wealth and power a person can accumulate over a lifetime. This suggests that the only accumulation

Rawls considers a threat to background justice is intergenerational accumulation.

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than he did before and all of his fans have a bit less.21 Nozick expects us to have the

intuition that we should allow this new distribution to take hold. If we have this

intuition, then this puts pressure on us to abandon our commitment to the patterned

principle of justice that we hitherto supported. However, if the patterned principle

we support is a one-time principle, then having this intuition does not require any

such abandonment. This, of course, is because one-time principles themselves allow

for equal distributions to be disrupted. Thus, one-time principles avoid Nozick’s

objection.

One-Time FEO also avoids the objection to which Intermittent FEO was found

vulnerable, which is that the way it treats opportunity-affecting decisions after the

‘‘one time’’ is unprincipled. One-Time FEO treats all such decisions the same way;

it leaves them be. A defense of this policy can be grounded in the liberal ideal—the

notion that people should be free to make choices that determine the shape of their

lives except in cases in which there is a strong justification to the contrary.

One might worry, however, that it is not enough to show that One-Time FEO has

a principled way of dealing with opportunity-affecting decisions made after the

‘‘one time.’’ What we need is a principled way of dealing with opportunity-affecting

decisions full stop. One-Time FEO allows one’s choices to affect one’s opportunity

level only some of the time, and thus appears unstable in a worrisome way. This

objection comes from Dworkin. His intended target was what he called ‘starting-

gate’ theories of fairness, of which One-Time FEO may well be a species:

The starting-gate theory holds that justice requires equal initial resources. But

it also holds that justice requires laissez-faire thereafter…. But these two

principles cannot live comfortably together. Equality can have no greater force

in justifying equal initial holdings…than later in justifying redistributions

when wealth becomes unequal because people’s productive talents are

different.22

The particular starting-gate theory with which Dworkin is concerned is a certain

version of the principle of equality of resources, hence his concern with the

distribution of wealth. But an analogue of Dworkin’s concern applies to the case of

equality of opportunity. The concern is that if there is a moral case to be made in

favor of allowing the distribution of opportunity at certain points in time to be

determined by choices, then that same argument will support allowing the

distribution to be determined by choices at all times. It would appear, in other

words, that there is no principled defense of One-Time FEO’s wedding of

egalitarianism at the start and liberalism thereafter.

It turns out, however, that the liberal ideal does not support allowing the

distribution to be determined by choices at all times. That ideal must be grounded in

a conception of the person on which it is right or fitting that people should

experience the effects of the choices they make. But no such conception of

personhood, if it is to be plausible, could apply to the person at all stages of life.

21 Nozick (1974, pp. 160–164). Thanks to Alan Wertheimer for reminding me of the relevance of

Nozick’s example.22 Dworkin (2000, pp. 87–88).


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In early stages of life it is significantly less right or fitting that a person should

experience the effects of the choices she makes. So there is a natural limit to the

scope of the liberal ideal.23

Dworkin’s objection, however, has a second prong. He also doubts that it could

be the case that the argument favoring an equal initial distribution could fail to

justify an equal distribution thereafter. Clare Chambers raises this objection as well.

She is skeptical of the idea that the considerations favoring redistributing

opportunity before the ‘‘one time’’ do not also favor redistributing afterward. We

might respond with a promissory note, claiming that once we make our case for

liberalism, we will find that the case for equality (and thus redistribution) is partially

overridden by the case for liberalism (and thus refraining from redistribution). But

Dworkin anticipates this response and rejoins that if the case for liberalism ends up

being stronger than the case for equality, then the case for equality should never get

off the ground in the first place. At this point, however, we may fall back on what

we have already demonstrated, which is that the liberal ideal is naturally

circumscribed. The ideal is strong—stronger than the egalitarian ideal, we are

assuming—when applied to people at later stages of life, but impotent when applied

to people at earlier stages of life because children are not properly held responsible

for their choices.24

In the end, therefore, my argument for One-Time FEO is an argument by proxy.

My main concern has been to demonstrate that One-Time FEO escapes certain

objections to which Perpetual FEO and Intermittent FEO are vulnerable. Complet-

ing the argument for One-Time FEO will require actually laying out the arguments

for liberalism and for egalitarianism; I have merely gestured in the general direction

of such arguments. But since I am concerned to establish only that if we accept FEO

then we should accept One-Time FEO, this is good enough.

It bears emphasizing that nothing I have said so far purports to show that all

versions of One-Time FEO are plausible. Versions of One-Time FEO will vary

depending on how the currency variable is assigned, and some should be rejected.

This concession does nothing to undermine my general point that One-Time FEO is

per se the most plausible version of FEO. What would undermine this point would

be a counterexample that shows that if we assign the currency in a specific way,

One-Time FEO emerges as less acceptable than some other version of FEO.

Suppose, for instance, that the currency is the opportunity to not starve to death or to

be educated. Given these currencies, shouldn’t we accept Perpetual FEO instead of

23 In fairness to Dworkin, he was assuming for simplicity that the people among whom goods were to be

distributed were all adults. What he objected to was one-time equality of resources among adults.24 Chambers anticipates this move, however, and argues that if we say that the egalitarian ideal is

overridden in the case of adults then we must refuse to indemnify adults against the choices they made as

children whose effects emerge only after the passage of time (Chambers 2009, p. 395). (Chambers offers

the example of the choices secondary school students make about which foreign languages to learn.) But

this is not the case. If in our actual world we cannot achieve the goal of One-Time FEO without

redistributing after the ‘‘one time,’’ One-Time FEO itself recommends intervening after the one time.

Chambers also has a second response, which is that the boundary between the stage of life during

which one is properly held responsible for one’s choices and the stage of life when one isn’t is vague (pp.

394–395). This is true but doesn’t undermine the case for One-Time FEO. The distinction on which One-

Time FEO relies remains intact, though now we know that that distinction is vague.

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One-Time FEO? Shouldn’t we want these opportunities to be distributed evenly at

all times, as opposed to just once?

The correct answer, surprisingly, is no. We shouldn’t care at all about equalizing

opportunity to not starve and to be educated, whether one time, intermittently or

perpetually. All versions of FEO are implausible when conjoined with currencies

such as these. What we should care about is that everyone be able to not starve and

be educated. Everyone can have as likely of a chance for these things as they could

possibly want, and so aiming to merely equalize the distribution of these

opportunities is much too weak of a goal. Ironically, then, the lesson we learn by

considering the plausibility of principles such as fair equality of opportunity to not

starve to death or fair equality of opportunity to be literate is not that we need to be

careful about how we assign the timing variable, but rather that we need to be

careful about how we assign the currency variable.25 We will have occasion to

incorporate this lesson into our later discussion of currency.

This completes my case for One-Time FEO. It remains for us now to determine

what that one time should be. The answer, I think, is clear: the one time should be

the time in people’s lives when it becomes right or fitting that they should make

choices that affect their opportunity level.26 It is generally thought that this time in a

person’s life is the age of majority—the time when she emerges from childhood. In

fact, for the sake of moving the discussion forward, I will simply assume that it is

definitive of childhood that it is the time in a person’s life when it is not right or

fitting that her decisions should affect her opportunity level.27 This being the case,

we finally have our answer to how we ought to assign the timing variable.

With the timing variable assigned and the currency variable still unassigned, our

principle is now:

FEO3: Opportunity should be equal at the age of majority among the equally

talented.28

25 Alternatively, if we are firmly committed to the idea that there must be some principle regulating the

distribution of opportunities for X, we need to be careful not to assume that that principle should be an

egalitarian one. Suppose, for instance, that we believe that the distribution of opportunity for education is

a matter of justice. We shouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that what we support is equality of

opportunity for education. For instance, Alexander Brown argues that it is unjust that people should have

just one chance to get an education (i.e., the chance they have as children to attend school at public

expense). What justice requires, Brown argues, is that everyone’s chance for an education should be

lifelong. Brown says that this is an argument for equality of opportunity for education. But it is actually an

argument for sufficiency of opportunity for education. (See Brown 2006).26 Perhaps expressing support for this idea, Rawls says that ‘‘those who have the same level of talent and

ability and the same willingness to use these gifts should have the same prospects of success regardless of

their social class of origin, the class into which they are born and develop until the age of reason,’’ (2001,

p. 44, italics mine).27 I set aside cases in which an adult, because of illness or accident, becomes the kind of individual for

whom it is not fitting that her choices should affect her opportunity level.28 One additional question remains: whether to require fair equality of opportunity among those entering

majority at any time, or just among people entering majority at the same time. That is, should we require

that the opportunity level of today’s cohort of young adults be equivalent to that of the cohort of young

adults 20 years ago? How we ought to answer this question depends in part on how we assign the

currency variable, but here’s a preliminary impression. People entering majority today are in competition

for many of the same positions as people who entered majority 20 years ago, and it does not seem fair that


123

This principle is indifferent to the distribution of opportunity after majority. What

this means is that on its most plausible interpretation the principle of fair equality ofopportunity says nothing about how opportunity should be distributed among adultsafter their first moment of adulthood.

The implications for social policy of this limitation on FEO are easy to see, but it

might be worthwhile to discuss some examples anyway. Take, for instance,

continuing education and job training programs. Insofar as these programs are

targeted at altering the distribution of opportunity among adults, FEO3 cannot be

invoked in their defense. While FEO3 may well favor the equalization of

opportunity for good jobs (depending on how the currency variable is assigned),

it would instruct us to achieve this goal by devoting more resources toward primary

and secondary education so that employment prospects are already equalized by the

time people reach majority.

It may be objected that if this is what FEO3 requires, then the principle is simply

unrealistic. What a person entering adulthood is capable of doing is strongly

influenced by factors outside society’s control, most notably the way she was

raised.29 And even the factors that are under societal control are not under its perfectcontrol. The world envisioned by FEO3, where equally talented people entering

majority face equivalent prospects, is an unattainable dream world. It would appear,

then, that by rejecting any version of FEO that sanctions social policies targeted at

adults we eliminate the justification for the state’s later effort to mitigate the

consequences of its inevitable failure to equalize opportunity among people entering

majority.

Yet FEO3 can be used to justify these measures, albeit as matters of

compensatory justice. Insofar as the state fails to secure equality of opportunity

among people entering majority, there is a case to be made based on compensatory

justice for job training, continuing education and other programs that help those

individuals whose opportunity set was never brought up to the target level.

Something similar might be said about unemployment benefits and affirmative

action in hiring. In a world where FEO3 was in force, no such policies would be

necessary for achieving fair equality of opportunity. This, however, does not entail

that in our actual world workplace affirmative action is unjustifiable by reference to

fair equality of opportunity. FEO3 simply has the implication that the choice

between equalizing opportunity before majority by sinking resources into public

education and equalizing opportunity after majority by setting up job training and

perhaps workplace affirmative action programs is not a toss-up. Doing the former is

Footnote 28 continued

those entering majority today should, through no effort of their own, have a better (or worse) opportunity

to obtain those positions than those who entered majority 20 years ago. Consequently, I’m inclined to

interpret the principle as requiring equality of opportunity for those entering majority at any time. But I

also think that this is one of the cases where equality of opportunity has to be balanced against other

ideals. In particular, we want to allow society to progress, and this includes the opening up of new ways

of life. When new ways of life become available in a society, the pool of opportunities expands and thus

inter-cohort equality of opportunity becomes unachievable.29 Hence Rawls’s comment about the family being a barrier to the realization of fair equality of

opportunity. (1971, p. 511).

334 B. Sachs

123

what fair equality of opportunity requires; doing the latter is second-best. It also has

implications for who should be eligible to benefit from such programs—namely,

people who had less-than-equal opportunity upon entering majority. So while FEO3

is indeed unachievable, it has important implications nonetheless.30

Having reached our answer regarding how to assign the timing variable, and

having investigated the implications of this fact, we turn now to the question of how

to assign the currency variable.

4 Currency

In this section I give an answer, albeit a vague one, to that question. I arrive at that

answer by considering how a proponent of equality of opportunity might respond to

the leveling down objection. This discussion is premised on a very important

assumption: the leveling down objection has force against equality of opportunity.

I will not argue for this assumption; I will simply show that the objection applies in

the exact same way to equality of opportunity as it does to other egalitarian

principles, such as equality of welfare or equality of resources. Therefore, if the

objection has force in general, it has force against equality of opportunity. I am

aware that some theorists deny that the objection has force in general. Again,

however, I simply assume that they are wrong.

4.1 The leveling down objection to equality of opportunity

In discussing how to assign the currency variable, we are deciding which

opportunity we want to equalize. Suppose we want to equally distribute opportunity

for welfare. By use of a thought experiment, it can be shown that this view is

vulnerable to an objection. First, assume that one determinant of an individual’s

opportunity for welfare is the leisure time at her disposal.31 Now imagine that in

World 1 at present, everyone has either 5 hours or 3 hours of leisure time every day.

The former people constitute Group A and the latter Group B. This distribution of

opportunity is depicted on the left side of Fig. 1. Now suppose that through the

enactment of social policies we could bring about World 2 in which everyone had

2 hours of leisure time. This distribution of opportunity is depicted on the right side

of Fig. 1.

If Fig. 1 represents our range of options, then equality of opportunity for welfare

would suggest that we should bring about World 2, because only that world is more

conducive, all else being equal, to an equal distribution of opportunity for welfare.

But this is counterintuitive because everyone is worse off, opportunity-wise, in

30 There are, it should be pointed out, certain social policies targeting adults that are justified by FEO3

directly (as opposed to indirectly via compensatory justice): to ensure that at a given moment in time a

group of equally-talented individuals have equal opportunity it is necessary to ensure that no identifiable

subset of that group faces future discrimination.31 Leisure time might itself be an element of welfare, but this is compatible with its being a determinant

of opportunity for welfare. We can say both that simply having free time is good in itself and that having

free time gives one the opportunity to engage in activities that are conducive to welfare.


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World 2. It appears that the principle of equality of opportunity for welfare has an

unacceptable implication.

This is an instance of the well-known leveling down objection to egalitarianism,

so-named because it points out that in certain situations, such as the one depicted in

Fig. 1, egalitarian ideals require forcing everyone down to a lower level. This, of

course, does not imply that every theorist who endorses an egalitarian principle

must, on pain of inconsistency, accept this implication. Egalitarians can be pluralists

and believe that in cases like these, egalitarian principles are overridden. They are

forced only to accept that there is a reason to level down. But this, too, seems

wrong.

4.2 A first response to the leveling down objection

It is worth considering how someone who advocates FEO might respond to the

objection. Such a theorist might chalk it up to a misunderstanding of what equality

of opportunity is. This response is invited by a passage from Norman Daniels’s JustHealth in which he claims of fair equality of opportunity that

[t]he fair equality of opportunity account does not require us to level all

differences among persons in their share of the normal opportunity range.

Rather, opportunity is equal for the purposes of the account when certain

impediments to opportunity are eliminated for all persons…32

Daniels seems to suggest that ‘‘equality of opportunity’’ is a metaphorical way of

talking about the removal of various barriers to opportunity.33 It is even possible

that Rawls himself intended the same thing by equality of opportunity. After all,

when Rawls first introduces FEO, he characterizes it the following way:

World 1 World 2

A B A B

Fig. 1 Two possible distributions of leisure time

32 2008, p. 60.33 It is also open to Daniels to say that one’s level of opportunity for X just is the extent to which there

are barriers in the way of one’s pursuit of X. Alan Goldman, for instance, seems to want to say this

(Goldman 1987). But such a view is implausible; certainly one’s level of opportunity to obtain X depends

not only on barriers but also on one’s capabilities.

336 B. Sachs

123

The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be

affected by their social class.34

If one reads this sentence in its context in A Theory of Justice, one gets the

impression that for Rawls the absence of barriers is not an entailment of fair equality

of opportunity but rather is fair equality of opportunity.

If, as these passages suggest, fair equality of opportunity is to be spelled out as a

requirement that certain barriers to opportunity be removed, then the leveling down

objection is avoided. If nothing is supposed to be equalized, then there is no

argument in favor of moving from World 1 to World 2. This strategy, however,

comes at the cost of undermining FEO’s usefulness as a theoretical basis for social

policies. What makes FEO an appealing premise from which to build arguments for

social policies is that it seems to reflect two ideals that a variety of people—all

liberals, in the wide sense—are committed to: liberalism and egalitarianism. (See

Sect. 3 for an explanation of how those ideals can be combined to yield a version of

FEO.) If, starting from a commitment to a version of FEO that reflects those two

ideals, we could infer, say, that educational barriers should be removed, and next

conclude, perhaps, that there should be universal publicly-sponsored primary and

secondary education, then we would have made an argument worth making. But in

order to ensure that the first step is not a mere tautology, we cannot define equality

of opportunity as a requirement to remove certain barriers to the attainment of

opportunity.35

4.3 A second response to the leveling down objection

Alternatively, we might attempt to undermine the intuition that drives the leveling

down objection, by showing that there sometimes is a reason to level down. One

way to do this is to argue that that inequality is intrinsically bad under certain

circumstances. Larry Temkin, for instance, constructs a diagram like the one in

Fig. 1 and asks us to suppose that the members of Group A are Sinners and the

members of Group B are Saints, and the height of each column represents well-

being. World 1 is supposed to represent a situation of undeserved inequality; the

Sinners, who by definition do not deserve to be well-off, are better-off than the

Saints. Temkin expects his audience to have the intuition that World 2 is better in

some respect than World 1 despite the fact that World 2 is a leveled down world.

What he takes this to show is that sometimes inequality is bad (or that we are

committed to thinking that it is). To be precise, it is bad when it is undeserved.36

This, of course, makes inequality’s badness contingent on the presence of

34 (1971, p. 73).35 One might argue that Rawls did not start from a commitment to FEO. One might believe that for

Rawls FEO is a true principle of justice because it would be selected in the original position. I have no

argument against this interpretation of Rawls. Notice, however, that this interpretation of Rawls strips

FEO of its independent moral force. If the parties to the original position would choose FEO, then they

would also choose whatever social policies follow from FEO, if only they had the information necessary

to figure that out. Ultimately, then, those policies would be justified by whatever justifies the original

position.36 Temkin (1993, chap. 9; 2002).


123

proportional injustice. So when there is inequality but no proportional injustice,

inequality is not bad. But Temkin accepts this implication.37

Temkin is just one example; there are also egalitarians who don’t hold that

inequality is bad but nevertheless argue that there is sometimes a reason to avoid

it.38 The details of the various arguments are not important, however, since all of

these egalitarians are egalitarians about welfare or resources. What we need to know

is whether there might sometimes be a reason to avoid inequality of opportunity.

Well, why is it that various theorists advocate of equality of opportunity? For the

most part, they claim to be moved by the ideal of a level playing field—a situation in

which everyone has a fair chance to obtain certain goods.39 I’m moved by it too; in fact,

I think that the ideal of a level playing field perfectly describes the balance between

liberalism and egalitarianism that FEO3 is supposed to embody (see Sect. 3).

However, there appear to be some goods for which there is no playing field—

goods for which there is no competition. This being the case, the level playing field

ideal only sometimes favors equalization of opportunity. For instance, some of the

components of welfare, such as, perhaps, happiness and knowledge, are such that

one person can under certain circumstances gain more of it without thereby

depriving someone else of it. This aspect of welfare reveals why in our earlier

thought experiment we did not see any reason to equalize opportunity for welfare.

Similarly, in Sect. 3 we rejected the notion that we should equalize opportunity to

not starve and to be literate. These, too, are goods for which there need not be any

competition. By contrast, there does seem to be a reason to equalize opportunity for

jobs and offices. There is competition for these things, and so fairness appears to

favor leveling the playing field on which they are pursued, even if that means

leveling down. Thus, we have a successful partial response to the leveling down

objection to FEO. Yes, FEO requires leveling down, but in some cases there really

is a reason to level down the distribution of opportunity.

4.4 Implications of the successful partial response to the leveling

down objection

We have found a reason favoring equalizing the distribution of opportunity for

competitive goods, but found no reason favoring equalizing the distribution of

opportunity for non-competitive goods. Since FEO requires leveling down, we

should restrict its currency to opportunities whose distribution there is a reason to

level down. This suggests that the currency of FEO should be ‘‘opportunity for

certain competitive goods.’’ However, there is a different term we might use that

would help to situate our discussion within the broader debate about egalitarianism.

I suggest that we say instead that the currency is certain positional opportunities,

where ‘positional opportunity’ is defined as an opportunity whose likelihood for one

37 Temkin (2003, p. 767). For other defenses of the idea that inequality is sometimes bad, see Lippert-

Rasmussen (2007), Mason (2001, pp. 248–249).38 Such egalitarians include: Wolff (2001), Norman (1998, p. 51), Scanlon (2002, pp. 42–47), Christiano

(2007, Persson 2007), Miller (1998).39 Rawls (1971, p. 73), Jacobs (2004, esp. p. 14), Goldman (1987, p. 88), Roemer (2000, pp. 1–2),

Fishkin (1983), Mason (2006).

338 B. Sachs

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person cannot be altered without the likelihood of that same opportunity for another

person being simultaneously altered in the other direction (in other words, it’s an

opportunity you can’t make more of; all you can do is put yourself in a better

position with respect to the opportunity that’s already there).40 Necessarily, among

opportunities all and only those opportunities that are for competitive goods have

this quality. If A is in competition for some good, A’s success in securing a better

opportunity to obtain that good necessarily comes at the expense of reducing

someone else’s opportunity to obtain the good. To use a classic example, a high

school student’s success in obtaining a high S.A.T. score gives him a better

opportunity to obtain a desirable place in college only to the extent that other

students in his cohort get a worse score and thereby suffer a reduced opportunity to

obtain a desirable place. On the other hand, when the good in question is

noncompetitive an individual can augment her opportunity to obtain the good while

everyone else’s opportunity level remains static.

Before affirming that we have correctly answered the currency question, we

should ensure that our answer avoids the leveling down objection. Refer back to

Fig. 1. Originally, we assumed that the height of the columns represented leisure

time. The objection was that while fair equality of opportunity for welfare favored

leveling down from World 1 to World 2, there did not seem to be any reason at all to

do so. Now assume that the height of the columns represents access to S.A.T. prep

classes. This being the case, fair equality of opportunity for jobs and offices, which

is FEO with a positional currency, favors leveling down from World 1 to World 2.

This implication is intuitively acceptable. Many of us believe that there is a reason

to equalize access to S.A.T. prep classes, even if this means reducing everyone’s

access by banning such classes.

Not surprisingly, the response to the leveling down objection at which we have

arrived in defense of fair equality of opportunity is the same as a well-known

response to the leveling down objection employed by proponents of equality of

welfare or equality of resources. This response, brought to prominence by Harry

Brighouse and Adam Swift, is the claim that the currency of egalitarian justice is

positional goods.41 So I am merely pointing out that what is true of equality of

welfare or resources is true of fair equality of opportunity: the leveling down

objection applies,42 and evading it requires adopting a positional currency. This is

an important point, because accounts of fair equality of opportunity that have a non-

positional currency are still currently popular.

I have argued in this section that to avoid the leveling down objection, FEO must

have certain positional opportunity(ies) as its currency. There are two problems with

this conclusion. First, it is incomplete; it does not specify which positional

opportunities are to be distributed equally. However, since my overall goal is simply

to demonstrate that a plausible version of FEO must be narrow in certain specifiable

40 My answer to the currency question is the same as the answer at which Lesley Jacobs arrives (without

ever considering the leveling down objection). Jacobs contends that we ought to equalize the distribution

of competitive opportunities (2004, pp. 21–29), where ‘competitive opportunity’ is defined the same way

I have defined ‘positional opportunity.’41 Brighouse and Swift (2006).42 As noted in Richards (1998, p. 70).


123

ways, I will not go on to discuss just which positional opportunity(ies) should be

distributed equally. The narrowness thesis is advanced enough merely in showing

that there are a wide range of opportunities that a plausible version of FEO tells us

nothing about how to distribute.

The second problem is that among those opportunities whose distribution may be

properly subjected to social control there might not be any that are positional.

Consider, for instance, opportunity for desirable jobs and offices. There are ways to

augment everyone’s opportunity for desirable jobs and offices; for instance, we can

enact policies that promote economic growth. (Of course, it remains true that there

are other policies we could enact that would augment such opportunity for some

people while reducing it for others. For example, we could prohibit private

schooling.) Thus, opportunity for desirable jobs and offices is not positional (though

it has positional aspects).

This suggests that the scope of fair equality of opportunity is even narrower than

I have thus far made it out to be. I have argued that the principle regulates only the

distribution of positional opportunities, but it turns out that there might not be any—

or, at least, any that that are appropriate objects of social policy.

There is more to the story, however. Even if a certain opportunity is not

positional, it may yet be positional-for-practical-purposes. For instance, we may

believe that we should try to increase everyone’s opportunity for jobs and offices. If

we do, then we will enact policies that promote this goal, such as policies promoting

economic growth. There may come a point, however, where we have done all we

can along these lines. At this point, opportunity for jobs and offices becomes

positional-for-practical-purposes, in that everything we can actually do to alter the

distribution of such opportunity, such as enacting a ban on private schooling, will be

zero-sum. I would suggest that if an opportunity is positional-for-practical-purposes,

then it is just as much an appropriate object of an egalitarian principle as positional

opportunities are.

4.5 Implications of a positional currency

Now that we have verified our answer to the currency question, we are ready to

issue a revised FEO3 with the currency variable filled in:

FEO4: Certain positional opportunity(ies) should be equal at the age of majority

among the equally talented.

The fact that the most plausible version of FEO is targeted specifically at positional

opportunities has profound implications for the usefulness of fair equality of

opportunity for justifying social policies. Take, for instance, universal health care.

In his argument for universal health care, Daniels departs from Rawls, who

advocated a version of FEO that was concerned with the opportunity for (desirable)

jobs and offices.43 Daniels is well-aware of this departure, and defends it on the

43 It is worth noting, though, that while Rawls’s official position on FEO is that we ought to equalize

opportunity for (desirable) jobs and offices, he often speaks as if the currency is much broader. On page

73 of A Theory of Justice, for instance, he portrays FEO as concerning ‘‘life chances,’’ ‘‘prospects of

success’’ and ‘‘prospects for culture and achievement.’’

340 B. Sachs

123

grounds that it is necessary in order to avoid a major problem. If our concern is just

the maintenance of each individual’s opportunity to obtain (desirable) jobs and

offices then we have no reason to provide health care to those whose productive

years are behind them and those who cannot be brought to productive capacity.44 So

instead of universal health care, we get health care for everyone except, most likely,

the elderly and the severely disabled. Daniels avoids this problem by employing a

version of FEO on which we are directed to equalize the distribution of opportunity

for the achievement of a plan of life (among the equally talented and motivated).45

But if we insist, as I have argued we should, that FEO address only the distribution

of positional opportunities, then this move cannot be made, since many elements of

a plan of life, such as parenthood, are not competitive goods (and thus the

opportunities for them are non-positional).46 Daniels, of course, might be able to

find a currency that both abides by the positionality requirement and grounds health

care for the elderly and severely disabled. Until he does so, however, his argument

for universal health care is on shaky ground.47

5 Conclusion

I have argued in this article that the best interpretation of fair equality of opportunity

is

FEO4: Certain positional opportunity(ies) should be equal at the age of majority

among the equally talented.

This principle can be used to justify only those social policies that seek to

equalize positional opportunities among people entering majority. This is why, as I

claimed at the outset, FEO will ground only those social policies that are similar, in

specifiable ways, to the policies for which Rawls used FEO: universal public

education and a tax on inheritance. Both policies target children, and both education

and inheritances are things the possession of which can augment a young adult’s

opportunity to obtain certain competitive goods, most notably positions in elite

colleges and universities.48

44 (2008, p. 60).45 Daniels does not make his principle of fair equality of opportunity explicit. My interpretation is based

on his latest work, Just Health, and I defend it in Sachs (2010).46 A criticism along these lines was first made in Segall (2007).47 I go into more detail about this in Sachs (2010).48 Did Rawls recognize the limits of FEO, or was it mere coincidence that the two social policies he

advocated on the basis of FEO conform to those limits? Surprisingly, the latter appears to be the case.

Consider again that key passage from A Theory of Justice in which he first introduces FEO.

[T]hose who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same willingness to use them,

should have the same prospects of success regardless of their initial place in the social system, that

is, irrespective of the income class into which they are born….The expectations of those with the

same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class. (1971, p. 73)


123

Consequently, if we are interested in justifying other social policies, such as

unemployment benefits, adult education/job training programs and certain kinds of

affirmative action program, then we need a new strategy. One strategy would be to

defend these policies as a matter of compensatory justice for our failure to secure

FEO. This defense would be limited, however, as it would imply that the only

proper beneficiaries of such policies are those adults whose opportunity set was

smaller at the age of majority. A more ambitious strategy would be to appeal to

some other principle(s) of justice. Since some of these social policies, including the

last two of the three on the above list, seem to have as their goal the redistribution of

opportunities, we should search specifically for opportunity-based principles. In

general, two of the main alternatives to egalitarianism are prioritarianism and

sufficientarianism, so I suggest that we consider the defensibility of opportunity-

based versions of these principles.49

Acknowledgments This research was supported by an intramural postdoctoral fellowship in the

Department of Bioethics at the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health. The

ideas contained in this article were presented before audiences there and also at Texas Tech University

and Queen’s University. I would like to thank Joe Millum, Alan Wertheimer and Ori Lev for helpful

conversation on the topic and for reading previous drafts of the article.

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Footnote 48 continued

Here, Rawls says first that individuals’ opportunity should be equal ‘‘regardless of their initial place in the

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