Question

Explain the egalitarian position on equality of opportunity.

Answer 1

This is a problem for luck egalitarians, because they need to specify a starting gate conception of equality. It is also a pressing issue for the other conceptions of equality.Dworkin argues that inequalities can be historically justified when persons made their choices from an equivalent set of options. This commits luck egalitarianism to robust equality of opportunity. However, his standard is difficult to interpret, since citizens can never have a strictly equivalent set of options, unless that set is so restricted that the society is dystopian. There must be some standard to define when their options are fungible or equivalent enough. However, this is a massive problem for egalitarian theory, and it seems luck egalitarianism’s values of choice and responsibility alone cannot solve it.