Equality of Opportunity Roemer’s Synthesis Simon Halliday July 22, 2008 Abstract Equality of opportunity, as a theory, has been the locus for a substantial amount of intellectual inquiry and debate in political philosophy and economics over the past century. I assess the contribution proposed by John E. Roemer in his book Equality of Opportunity. I discuss the relevant concepts in turn, definining the pertinent ideas and assessing the arguments surrounding the propositions that Roemer makes in respect of equality of opportunity as it should be implemented in policy. In particular, the relationship of ambition and endowment sensitivity, responsibility relative to accountability, merit and desert are discussed. Once these topics are covered, the extent and scope of Roemer’s proposed model are delineated, resting finally on the type of theory of distributive justice that society chooses to adopt as its own.

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Contents 1 Introduction

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2 Nondiscrimination and Levelling

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3 Sensitivity: Ambitions or Endowments?

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4 Responsibility and Accountability

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5 Merit and Desert

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6 Scope and Extent

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7 Theories of Distributive Justice

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8 Conclusion

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9 References

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Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens. Justinian, Institutes 1.1 (533)

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Introduction

Equality of Opportunity as an egalitarian ideal has a long and tortured history. From the battles for gender and race equality in the workplace and in education, to its understanding as a necessary condition for equality of all, to its proposal as a retributive and rectificatory policy to correct for historic disadvantage and injustice it has long been the topic of ardent debate. Two main views on equality of opportunity have been proposed: the ‘nondiscrimination principle’ and the ‘leveling-the-playing-field principle’. I focus on the idea of leveling-the-playing-field. Inherent in this conception of equality of opportunity are debates on the ambition sensitivity and endowment sensitivity of policies. Moreover, trying to disentangle how we understand, as economists and scholars of philosophy, desert and merit as conflicting justifications for reward will be central to our understanding of equality of opportunity. I assess the application of the ‘leveling-the-playing-field’ principle in economic policy. I discuss the delicate matter of whether reward should be allocated on the basis of merit, or whether it should, instead, be given on the basis of desert. This will require, furthermore, a brief address of the different possible interpretations of the policy contingent on one’s beliefs about the effects of the environment against the effects of one’s genetics (or in-born characteristics) on specific policy-targeted outcomes. Thus I need to unravel the literature on responsibility of individuals, comparing defences of individual agency with the literature on behaviour attributable to circumstance. When it comes to implementing equality of opportunity policies, it is necessary to understand the extent and the scope of the policy. Grappling with scope and extent requires me to discuss the pertinent equilizandum for the theory of equality of opportunity.1 To gauge the relevant equilizandum requires a theory of distributive justice. I try to remain neutral throughout and discuss how different theories of distributive justice would apply equality of opportunity policies in different manners.

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Nondiscrimination and Levelling

The nondiscrimination principle should be seen against the backdrop of the liberation movements for both gender and race equality: from the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., to the work of authors and activists defending the rights of women since the advent of the rights discourse.2 Nondiscrimination was promoted so that previously disadvantaged and historically oppressed peoples should be understood, finally, as the equals of the hegemonic group, i.e. white males.3 Thus the proposal of nondiscrimination was realised as a way for 1 cf.

Dworkin (1981a,b); Cohen (1989); Wolff (1998); Kymlicka (1990) Kymlicka (1990, pp. 238-292), Miller (2003, pp. 92-111) and Wolff (2006, pp. 177-199) for discussions of this transition. 3 Kymlicka (1990) and Miller (2003) discussing racial discrimination point out the history in which more and more groups were accepted into the ‘white’ racial category, who had 2 cf.

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individuals to gain access to equality of opportunity, to be able to realise flourishing lives without bigotry, racism and misogyny affecting access to education or employment. The moral basis for nondiscrimination is that race, gender and class should have no bearing on the merit of the individual. Miller (2003, 76) states that “Justice is a matter of each individual person being treated equally...a central aspect of justice is that people must be treated in a non-arbitrary way: there must be consistency in how one person is treated over time and there must be consistency between people.” A meritocratic society should, therefore, encourage nondiscrimination both so that society could benefit from the talents of all citizens and thus operate more efficiently, and because such discrimination was - and is - inherently immoral. Such discussions of nondiscrimination are based on the idea of commutative justice; the dea that obligations between persons require equality in all dealings between persons, hence in dealing with individuals the law should not acknowledge trivial differences between them, but only take note of pertinent responsibility and accountability to administer justice.4 As Miller asserts, “People should be treated equally unless there are relevant differences between them.”(Miller, 2003, 81) Economists, in particular, are in favour of judging individuals solely on productive capacity. If an individual can produce and maintain a high marginal product then the other characteristics of that individual, such as gender, race, and class should not affect the likelihood that they will be employed. This would result in interior non-Pareto optimal solutions. The problem empirically is that there have been many barriers to the realisation of advantage by previously disdvantaged individuals. Empirical work in the United States assesses the positions of minorities. Data for a number of countries on gender discrimination indicates gender imbalances in power and resource access.5 Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles and Steven Durlauf (2000) set out in their book Meritocracy and Economic Inequality to delineate some of these issues. They were searching for the determinants of inequality, particularly in the United States, and the role that has been played by factors such as race and IQ. More recently, Bowles et al. (2005) look at similar phenomena in their book Unequal Chances. The evidence for persistent inequality is strong.6 It is not attributable to discrimination between individuals, but rather because of factors such as integenerational inertia, poor education quality and social networks.7 What then is the solution? John E. Roemer (1998) proposes that we should investigate the role of ‘leveling the playing field’. What does this mean? Leveling-the-playing-field, which, following Roemer, I call the EOp Principle, requires that we do not implement the nondiscrimination principle for some aspects of individual interactions. We investigate, instead, methods to control for factors that affect individuals and over which they have no control, while leaving space for responsibility in terms not originally been so accepted, such as Irish catholics and immigrant Italians and eastern Europeans in the United States. 4 We could also consider the different views on ’equal consideration’ such as discussed by Hare (1982, 1984) and arguments for ’a fair go’ proposed by Mackie (1984) 5 See for example Deaton (2004); Himmelweit (1998); Goldstein and Udry (2002); Duflo and Udry (2003); Duflo (2004); Ashraf (2004). 6 For a recent cross-country analysis of educational inequality see, Hertz et al. (2008) 7 cf. Blume and Durlauf (2001); Durlauf (2003); Loury (1989, 1999)

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of effort expenditure in realising individual goals.8 Circumstances affect the realisation of talent. Even if individuals have high in-born talent, the likelihood that they will be able to realise the benefits of that talent in terms of admission to university or access to employment has been shown to be affected by social conditions (Roemer, 1996, 1998, 2000; Bowles et al., 2005). This issue has been at the centre of egalitarian theory, and is at the centre of Rawls (2005) A Theory of Justice. Libertarians and classical liberals have laid a charge against egalitarians that holding circumstances as a central premiss for individual behaviour has resulted in the dismissal of individual choice and thus individual responsibility.9 This is the gap into which Roemer writes. Where egalitarian theory has been criticised for “coddling individuals from cradle to grave” (Arneson, 2000, 10) and treating the poor as “helpless victims” (ibid.), Roemer incorporates individual choice, while maintaining a role for circumstance. His theory accounts both for situations in which an individual finds herself and for the capability of individuals to be make responsible choices. His writing is in the mode of recent egalitarian theories proposing that individuals should have some responsibility, but should not be held accountable for factors that remain out of their control.10

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Sensitivity: Ambitions or Endowments?

In order to achieve a model that is sensitive to exerted effort, but insensitive to the individual’s circumstances, Roemer proposes a model in which we divide populations into separate types. These types are based upon vectors of characteristics decided by a political process, thus the theory underlying them need not concern us here. Possible vectors of characteristics could include race, gender, age, education of one’s parents, and so forth (Roemer, 1998, 2000). Once we have defined our type sets, we can set about partitioning individuals into these types. We then observe the effort levels of individuals in each type. We assume, what Roemer (1998, 15) calls the assumption of charity, which he defines as follows, “within any type, that distribution would be the same, were we able to factor out the (different) circumstances which define different types.” Risse (2002, 728) clarifies this, arguing that a better label would be the ‘NoVariance rule’ in which there is a Gaussian normal distribution of effort within all types. As (Roemer, 1998, 6) argues, “equalizing opportunity for educationl achievement requires redistributing educational resources in such a way that the differential abilities of children to turn resource into education achievements are compensated for, where those abilities are detemined by circumstance beyond the control fo the individual.” The No-Variance assumption allows us to compare individuals across types. 8 It should be noted that this theory was nascent in Roemer (1995a,b) in the debate facilitated by The Boston Review, and established further in his book Theories of Distributive Justice (Roemer, 1996). 9 cf. Nozick (1974); Kymlicka (1990); Anderson (1999); Westen (1982); Lucas (1965, 1977); Frankfurt (1987). 10 Dworkin (1981b) proposes equality of ‘resources’, Cohen (1989) proposes equality of ‘access to advantage’, Arneson (1989) argues for equality of ‘opportunities for welfare’, note that Arneson has recanted this position in Arneson (1999). One could also include Sen (1979)’s capabilities approach as some kind of equilizandum, but I do not broach here the arguments for a capabilities approach.

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The method for this is as follows. We cannot justifiably use level of effort as the pertinent comparison variable because, by definition, an individual’s circumstances will affect their effort levels. Therefore, we contrast degree of effort within a type. This means that we take account of an individual’s circumstances, while giving them leeway to choose their effort level autonomously. For example, consider Lee of our first type ‘Asian, female, educated parents’, and Jackson, of a second type ‘African-American, male, uneducated parents‘. If the effort range for Asian females with educated parents is 10-20 hours per week, and Lee exerts 18 hours per week of effort, and the range for African-American males with uneducated parents is 0 to 10 hours per week and Jackson exerts 8 hours of effort, both Jackson and Lee fall into the top 20th percentile of their types. We can compare them one-to-one using their centile levels, the degrees of their effort relative to their types. We cannot do this for effort levels. As Risse (2002, 727) summarizes, “It would be inappropriate to blame or praise a student for his amount of effort (since then we would unduly disregard the impact of his circumstances), but it does make sense to blame or praise him for his degree of effort (since then we pass such judgment based only on his performance in comparison with his peers)”. I believe that Roemer’s arguments mirror the ideas of ambition sensitivity and endowment sensitivity proposed by Dworkin (1981b).11 Dworkin argues that individuals should be able to make decisions that are sensitive to their ambitions and that they should not be penalized for such decisions, for example to save money and therefore have more capital at later stages of their lives. However, he makes the point that in no instance should the distribution of resources be endowment-sensitive. Dworkin (1981b, 311) explicates it perfectly: On the one hand we must, on pain of violating equality, allow the distribution of resources at any particular moment to be (as we might say) ambition-sensitive. It must, that is, reflect the cost or benefit to others of the choices people make so that, for example, those who choose to invest rather than consume, or to consume less expensively rather than more, or to work in more rather than less profitable ways, must be permitted to retain the gains that flow from these decisions in an equal auction followed by free trade. But on the other hand, we must not allow the distribution of resources at any moment to be endowment-sensitive, that is, to be affected by differences in ability of the sort that produce income differences in a laissez- faire economy among people with the same ambitions. What Dworkin does not clarify, but what Roemer definitively does, is that ambitions must translate into effort. If an individual makes an effort to save money, i.e. had the ambition and acted upon it, then we can say that reaping the benefits from that decision (other things equal) is just. Roemer’s proposal is similar to Cohen’s (1989): individuals should have access to advantage, but what they elect to do with this access is their concern. We cannot force individuals to exert effort. This reiterates the similarities I described above in the literature of egalitarian thought in recent times: championing individual choice, while providing leeway for circumstance. 11 Roemer discusses in the preface to Equality of Opportunity the theoretical debt he owes to individual such as Dworkin, so the similarity is unsurprising.

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Another assumption that holds for most of the modeling that Roemer proposes is that of a fixed population. However, he notices that if the EOp principle holds and we have individuals crossing types then there could be intergenerational mobility across types. Consider Jackson the African-American individual in my example above. His parents were uneducated. If, as a consequence of being in the top twentieth percentile of his type, Jackson becomes educated then Jackson’s children would be in the type ‘African-American, educated parent(s)’, whereas he was of the type ‘African-American, uneducated parents’. For the understanding of types we could have several implications, such as whether individuals with similar abilities, or urges to exert effort, would then pool together, or whether disparities across types would be exaggerated. We cannot predict, however, without data and without a model that explicitly describes such processes. The question thus is whether ambition sensitivity, or making our model sensitive to the degree of effort that individuals choose to expend, will create, in effect, an egalitarian society, on the premiss that we have adopted a theory of distributive justice consonant with egalitarianism.

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Responsibility and Accountability

Roemer realises that to have a coherent theory of equality of opportunity we must understand the difference between responsibility and accountability. Thomas Scanlon (1988, 176) provides an appropriate definition to apprehend the nuances of moral responsibility: [W]hat is required for moral appraisal on the view I am presenting is the freedom, whatever it may be, which is required by critically reflective, rational self-governance. But this is less appropriately thought of as a kind of freedom than as a kind of intrapersonal responsiveness. What is required is that what we do be importantly dependent on our process of critical reflection, that that process itself be sensitive to reasons, and that later stages of the process be importantly dependent on conclusions reached at earlier stages. But there is no reason, as far as I can see, to require that this process itself not be a causal product of antecedent events and conditions. Roemer interprets Scanlon as saying that “a person can be held morally responsible for a behavior even when it is determined by, inter alia, his circumstances” (Roemer, 1998, 17). This idea of moral responsibility is contrasted with the idea of accountability. Roemer (ibid.) informs us that, “to hold a person accountable for an action will mean that he should pay for it - he should, perhaps, compensate others who were harmed by the action, or be penalized by society for it”. The crucial point here is that often we will hold individuals accountable for actions for which they are responsible. The converse circumstance is that which interests Roemer: a situation in which holding an individual responsible does not always mean holding them accountable. Arneson (2000, 12) elaborates usefully, “one is responsible for a choice (that affects only oneself) when one is allowed to absorb its costs and benefits for oneself without compensation.” Roemer argues that we can hold individuals responsible for their degree of effort (as discussed earlier) but we cannot do so for their level of effort.

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An example here will serve to clarify. Consider Lee and Jackson once more. Assume that, instead of being diligent as they were previously, they are now delinquents. Having educated parents, and, say, growing up in wealthier circumstances we would hold Lee accountable to a greater degree than we would Jackson. The reason being that we should consider how a reasonable individual would have acted in the same circumstances as either Lee or Jackson. If it would be reasonable for a child in Jackson’s situation, say how the median or average child behaves, to cut school and hang out on street corner, but unreasonable for a child in Lee’s situation to do so, then we would hold Lee accountable and Jackson not. Jackson would be given additional chances to go back to school, and Lee would not.

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Merit and Desert

Justinian, in the epigraph, states “Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to every man his due.” Understanding what he meant by ‘due’ is the subject of our question “Should we prioritize merit or desert?” Both merit and desert have been argued to be just measures for the provision of remuneration to individuals. Merit and desert are directly linked to the arguments about whether it is moral to provide reward for benefits that are not under the control of the individual (talent) rather than providing benefits to individuals for aspects of their lives that are under their control (effort). Rewarding talent requires a meritbased system. Rewarding effort requires a desert-based system. Admittedly, this separation is starker than in real life. Even when individuals are talented, in order to receive benefits for their talent they are often required to exert effort. However, when contrasting such outcomes with individuals who have lower levels of talent who must work harder in order to achieve the same outcome in the capitalist economy, we notice that there is an inconsistency. We are arbitrarily rewarding individuals whose circumstances have provided them with a benefit that is not under their control. Problems result when there are non-linear interactions between effort and circumstance. If we assume that effort and circumstance are separable then our problem is clearly defined, when they are not then we manifest a problem. We will have three pertinent variables to interpret: effort, circumstances and the interaction of circumstances and effort. For example, consider Lee the Asian child. If Lee realises the benefits of studying hard, as a consequence of the circumstance of having educated parents, and begins to work harder, she then influences the circumstances of others around her in her social network. They observe her working hard and obtaining achievements. These individuals may choose then to imitate her. Doing so they obtain positive outcomes and thus Lee’s circumstances are positively affected. Now, Lee may no longer be simply of the type ‘Asian, female and educated parents’, but of the type ‘Asian, female, educated parents and hard-working peers’.12 Such positive feedbacks are easily comprehended. On the contrary, trying to construct a thought experiment for negative-feedback is less feasible. Let us consider Jackson. He chooses now to exert a lower level of effort, and therefore alters his degree of effort relative to 12 Here we are relating circumstances to lock-in and path dependence of outcomes, see Durlauf (2003); Bowles (2006); Bowles et al. (2006)

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Lee. Individuals in his social network observe this and observe too that he does not receive rewards. They are unlikely, therefore, to replicate his behaviour.13 Disregarding this complication for now, let us assume that effort and circumstance are additive and separable. Roemer (1998, 15) proposes that, “An equalopportunity view is, in my interpretation, a desert-based view, in which reward is due to persons according to their propensity to expend effort.” However, commenting on equal opportunity-type policies David Miller contends that, “Positive discrimination is only just when it is a matter of ensuring real fairness between individuals - unearthing genuine merit” (Miller, 2003, 111). For Miller, the argument is that we should have policies that follow a nondiscrimination rule and allow us to uncover ‘genuine merit’. But merit is, to a large extent, a consequence of circumstance, a result of the education that one’s parents have received, as well as possible heritable traits that influence talent.14 The debates about desert and merit are tied to the premises we set forth as to whether ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’ determines human outcomes. The path that Roemer (and many egalitarians today) proposes is one that recognizes both. Nature plays a role in determining the resources to which we have access, as does the nurturing that we receive. Roemer believes that we can equalize opportunities by providing access for individuals contingent on their individual effort. Thus, the argument has an implicit belief that an individual is self-determining (has free will), a traditionally libertarian assumption. However, he also makes traditionally egalitarian assumptions about the individual being constrained by the resources to which they have access: their circumstances both genetic and social, natural and nurturing. Here, then, we enter into the discussion of compatibilism and incompatibilism. Risse (2002) argues that Roemer’s model has methodological flaws on account of Roemer’s attempts to mediate libertarian and egalitarian thinking and therefore to conflate incompatibilism and compatibilism. Arneson (2000) comes to Roemer’s defence, he avers that the distinctions are not as stark as we traditionally believe. I would concur with Arneson; specifically if we use economic thinking, it is feasible that circumstances could constrain the choice set available to the individual, while the actual choice that the individual makes is up to them (which Roemer proposes). Admitting circumstance and agency, rather than holding absolutely to one or the other provides a role for government intervention and the equalizing of opportunities.

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Scope and Extent

Deciding to implement equality of opportunity in a specific sectors, say in employment policy, is a decision on the policy’s scope. Choosing the circumstances that are relevant to the decision-making process, and the resources to be used in implementing the policy, are a question of extent. It is clear, therefore, that these will be dependent on the relevant theory of distributive justice, as such a theory will define how much we are permitted to expend on redistributive 13 On

the obvious premiss that individuals adopt payoff-based imitation rules. it should be noted that in both Arrow et al. (2000) and Bowles et al. (2005) the heritability estimates for, say, IQ are low, if they are at all significant. See specifically the chapters by Flynn (2000) and Feldman et al. (2000). See also Bowles and Gintis (2002); Bj¨ orklund et al. (2005); Loehlin (2005). For a basis in past philosophy see Block and Dworkin (1973, 1974), and for related economic roots Bowles and Gintis (1973); Bowles and Nelson (1974). 14 Though

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policies, the levels of taxes that are required, and the necessary areas in which policies should be implemented. Traditionally, equality of opportunity policy has been implemented in the spheres of education and employment. The argument is that race, gender and parental background are salient characteristics for understanding an individual’s circumstances. Therefore they should enter into the decisions that society makes for equalizing opportunities. In other words, when attempting to understand the relevent desert or merit of an individual we should take these into consideration. Roemer argues that there is a rule of thumb that society could implement, “I propose that the EOp principle be applied when the advantage in question is the acquisition of an attribute required to compete for a position (a job or career). But I propose that the nondiscrimination principle be applied in the competition for specific positions in society” (Roemer, 1998, 87). Hence he posits that individual characteristics should serve to identify individuals for equalizing opportunities at the first stage, using desert to allocate achievement, but at the second stage individuals should be judge by their merit and society should reward them as a consequence of educational outcomes that they have already achieved. Consider Jackson and Lee from our previous examples. Let us say that they both exerted high degrees of effort at high school and society must adjudicate their admission to university. As they both have the same high degree of effort, regardless of underlying skills or abilities (assuming these can actually be measured), we could admit them both to, say, medical school: we are applying the EOp principle. If, having gone to medical school, Lee passes the medical board exams but Jackson does not, then we would not allow Jackson to practise as a surgeon: we are applying the nondiscrimination principle. Similar processes could be deduced from the areas that Roemer discusses, such as singing, or playing basketball. As much as a particularly short person exerts an incredible degree of effort to play basketball, realising their ambitions to play NBA basketball through exerting this effort is unlikely to (and should not Roemer would argue) result in their playing in the NBA. Thus, we have a typical exemplar of the efficiency-equality trade-off, the dynamics of which I discuss below.15 When contemplating our example of Jackson and Lee, we detect the vulnerability to attacks from the left and from the right of the political spectrum. Demagogues on the right could argue that this rule of thumb promotes a scope for the policy that is too broad: university admissions should depend on merit alone, which should have been revealed to us by the time individuals have reached the end of their high school careers. We should, they could argue, use only individual effort levels to award achievement. Conversely, apparatchiks on the left could argue that Roemer’s rule is not progressive enough, it’s scope is too narrow. They could argue that society should allow Jackson to become a surgeon, and that society should, moreover, bear the cost of having surgeons who are less qualified as a consequence. The differences in the two positions amount to differences in beliefs over the burden that society should bear in respect of, a) taxes to implement equalizing policies, and b) the non-tax costs that society should incur in terms of consumption goods. The beliefs about these two factors will influence the extent 15 For

discussion of this trade-off generally see Kymlicka (1990); Miller (2003); Wolff (2006) and specifically Roemer (1998, 89), Roemer (1996, 2000), Footnote 9 and specifically Lucas (1995).

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and scope of the policy, as will beliefs about the relevance of nature rather than nurture in individual realisation of talent. With respect to taxes, libertarians would argue that any tax used to implement an equalizing policy is an infringement on individual rights to possession of the fruit of labour.16 They would also contest that consumers should not bear the brunt of any lack of merit in production of outputs, such as the production of a surgery, which is a consumption good. The libertarian argument is that the production of such a good should be subject solely to market forces and that the most successful surgeons with the best ability - revealed through merit-should be those who produce surgeries for consumption. Contrastingly, those on the left would argue, firstly, that society should be prepared to bear costs to promote equality. Secondly, that egalitarianism should allow us to incur the costs, as a society, of the consumption of lower quality consumer goods in order to achieve such equality. Moreover, voices on the left often argue for a ‘role model effect’ by which individuals who have shared types require individuals of their own type to ascend to some position in order for them to believe that they can too. This is, I believe, a flawed argument and is contingent on the construction of the index of type sets. If we propose that an individual who achieves that which individuals in his type set normally do not achieve, then yes that is marvellous, but we should not believe a priori that the only individuals whom children and others wish to have as role models should be individuals of their own type. For this we need a coherent theory of social distance. Individuals could model themselves on individuals of types close to their own, rather than others solely of their own type. For example, Jackson might not model himself on his parents, but might instead model someone of the type ‘African-American, male, educated parents’. I do not believe that regulating society to reproduce successful individuals from each type set, such that every type is represented in every position in society should be the goal. Noting which, Arneson, in his critique of Roemer, argues that Roemer has the incorrect equalizandum. Arneson proposes that equalising opportunities is the incorrect path; we should, instead, argue for the equalization of “opportunities for the genuinely good life.”Arneson (2000, 13) I believe that inherent in this is a theory of distributive justice, the pertinence of which I discuss later. It suffices to say, I believe, that Arneson should have based his critique on the relevant arguments that Roemer made, rather than using it as an opportunity to promote a different distributive justice agenda.

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Theories of Distributive Justice

Roemer discusses two main theories of distributive justice in the context of which his theory could be compared. The first is utilitarianism and the second a Rawlsianism. He argues that the weightings that we provide for various factors can influence his EOp mechanism toward either utilitarianism or Rawlsianism. Roemer does not comment on perfectionist theories, or theories in which the good is something other than opportunities or access to welfare or resources. Contemporary theories of justice all ascribe to commutative justice, Rawls does this in his second principle stating that there should be “conditions of fair equality of 16 Understanding that Nozick allows for rectification redistribution to occur (Nozick, 1974, 152-153).

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opportunity”(Rawls, 2005).17 Nozick argues that self-ownership is predicated on equal treatment of individual liberty (Nozick, 1974; Cohen, 1995). Dworkin (1981a,b); Sen (1979) and other egalitarians assume that commutative justice is a pre-condition for justice to hold, and that at the least nondiscrimination should hold. That is not the area on which this debate focuses. I focus on the relevant equilizandum and the the differences that exist across theories. Roemer declares, concordant with his assertions on scope and extent, that his EOp policy creates a distribution that is between the Rawlsian and Utilitarian distributions. He states this outright, “Equality of opportunity lies between the extremes of Rawlsianism and utilitarianism.” (Roemer, 1998, 31) Roemer emphasizes that if we lived in a world of only one type of individual then the EOp principle would devolve to the utilitarian case: all individuals are of the same type, their choices to exert effort result in the relevant award, there is no disambiguation required on the basis of different types and different degrees of effort. In contrast, Rawlsian thinking leads us to a situation in which individuals are responsible for none of their own behaviour. In fact, the Rawlsian characterisation “treats all factors as morally arbitrary.”(Roemer, 1998, 30). In fact, “The Rawlsian policy is that which maximizes the minimum level of advantage across all individuals regardless of type” (ibid ). This links to Rawls’s definitions of primary goods, and the required equalisation of these behind the veil of ignorance (Rawls, 2005). As utilitarianism is centred on welfare rather than primary goods, the outcomes could have different dynamics. Roemer recognizes this problem in comparison. Acknowledging the relationship to theories of distributive justice, we should recognise that Roemer does not give too much coverage to Nozickian style libertarianism or to arguments for perfectionist policies with some form of ’objective list’ ` a la Sen (1979) and Arneson (2000) in his critique of Roemer. Firstly, Roemer aggregates the positions on the right of the political field, i.e. utilitarians and libertarians are aggregated. Although this may seem plausible in some cases, many libertarians might object. Though there may be similarities, the philosophical underpinnings are quite different. Libertarian self-ownership would not give us the right to tax individuals, to take away the fruit of their labour, in order to redistribute it.18 Though the theory of self-ownership has come under attack, it is unlikely that this would detract from the strength of their assertions (Cohen, 1995) . Roemer’s views could be affiliated to the left. specifically to thinking that to lead flourishing lives individuals need ‘access to advantage’ as Cohen (1989) asserts (Roemer, 1998, 24). Roemer (ibid.) says that, “What a society owes its members, under and equal-oportunity policy, is equal access; but the individual is responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of effort.” That this is, in fact, devoid of a theory of distributive justice could be debatable. Fortunately for Roemer, Cohen’s theoretical basis for such an assertion is sound (Cohen, 1989). Critics of a perfectionistic bent would contend that the equilizandum that Roemer targets is incorrect. He should instead be attempting to redistribute capabilities (Sen, 1979), ‘opportunities for welfare’ (Arneson, 1989, 1999) or 17 (Rawls,

2005) covers what he means by ’equality of opportunity’ comprehensively in §14 of A Theory of Justice. 18 Except of course for the maintenance of the ultra minimal state Nozick (1974).

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‘opportunities for a good life’ (Arneson, 2000) or simply to understand what is required for indivdual autonomy (Raz, 1988). This could require us to have some ‘objective list’ of characteristics and to have consensus on what should and should not be on that list in order to justify capabilities, the good life and autonomy. This topic is beyond outside the express intentions of this essay. Suffice to say that Roemer could have allocated an assessment of equality of opportunity in the context of these theories, given that other theories of egalitarianism and libertarianism entered into his discussions.

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Conclusion

It would take another essay in its entirety to discuss each of the concerns raised by individual theories of distributive justice. Roemer does not discuss whether each and every theory is pertinent to his considerations of equality of opportunity. He does, however, assert that the theory he proposes is pluralistic. Roemer’s theory should be seen as a framework for interpreting distinct views in political philosophy: if one individual is a Rawlsian, the other a utilitarian then they will have a lens through which they can assess their differences with respect to equality of opportunity policies. I have assessed the various factors that are relevant to considering Roemer’s theory of equality of opportunity, focusing, as it does, on leveling-the-playingfield. He proposes that we account for circumstances of the individual, in addition to giving them the freedom to have their own ambitions. I interpreted the role of ambition sensitivity and endowment sensitivity of his theory, emphasizing particularly the roles of desert and merit, responsibility and accountability. Although this gives us a basic lattice around which to build our theory of equality of opportunity, it is important to understand that the specific theory of distributive justice that a society elects, in a democractic manner, to adopt will result in different realisations of the theory of equality of opportunity in different democratic states. Ultimately, making decisions about individuals such as my exemplars, Lee and Jackson, requires us to understand the circumstances into which they have been born and the role of their own particular decision-making capabilities. That their parents, their genetics and their social networks affect them is evidenced strongly by recent research. That individual agency, furthermore, plays a part in eventual achievement is unmistakable. The crux of the issue, therefore, is not that either circumstance or effort affect individual achievement outcomes, but that both effort and circumstances affect outcomes. Synthesising historically opposed theories is a crucial step forward for egalitarians and champions of liberty. Selecting the correct synthesis, however, is the project with which we are now - and will continue to be - deeply engaged as our research advances.

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References Elizabeth S. Anderson. What is the point of equality? Ethics, 109(2):287–337, 1999. Richard Arneson. Economic analysis meets distributive justice. Social Theory and Practice, 26(2), 2000. Richard Arneson. Equality and equality of opportunity for welfare. Philosophical Studies, 56:77–93, 1989. Richard Arneson. Equality of opportunity for welfare defended and recanted. Journal of Political Philosophy, 7:276–286, 1999. Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles, and Steven N. Durlauf, editors. Meritocracy and Economic Inequality. Princeton University Press, 2000. Nava Ashraf. Spousal control and intrahousehold decision making: An experimental study in the Phillippines. Harvard University, 2004. Anders Bj¨ orklund, Markus J¨ annti, and Gary Solon. Influences of nature and nuture on earnings variation: A repot on a study of various sibling types in Sweden. In Samuel Bowles, Herbet Gintis, and Melissa Osborne-Groves, editors, Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success. Princeton University Press and The Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2005. N. J. Block and Gerald Dworkin. IQ, heritability and inequality: Part 1. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 3(4):331–409, 1973. N. J. Block and Gerald Dworkin. IQ, heritability and inequality: Part 2. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 4(1):40–99, 1974. Lawrence E. Blume and Steven N. Durlauf. Social Dynamics, chapter The Interactions-Based Approach to Socioeconomic Behaviour. Brookings Institution Press, Washinton D.C., 2001. Samuel Bowles. Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions and Evolution. Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press, New York, 2006. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis. The inheritance of inequality. University of Massachusetts, 2002. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis. IQ in the US class structure. Social Policy, pages 65–96, January 1973. Samuel Bowles and Valerie I. Nelson. The inheritance of IQ and the intergenerational reproduction of economic inequality. Review of Economics and Statistics, 56(1):39–51, 1974. Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne-Groves, editors. Unequal Chance: Family Background and Economic Success. Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press, New York, 2005. Samuel Bowles, Steven N. Durlauf, and Karla Hoff, editors. Poverty Traps. Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press, New York, 2006. 14

G. A. Cohen. On the currency of egalitarian justice. Ethics, 99(4):906–944, 1989. G.A. Cohen. Self-ownership, Freedom and Equality. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Angus Deaton. Letter from america: Unequal treatment, unequal incomes, and race. Royal Economic Society Newsletter, October 2004. Esther Duflo. Women as policy makers: Evidence from a randomised policy experiment in rural India. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2004. Esther Duflo and Chris Udry. Intra-household resource allocations in Cˆote dIvoire: Social norms, separate accounts and consumption choices. Economic Growth Center, 2003. Steven N. Durlauf. Groups, social influences and inequality: A memberships theory on poverty traps. Santa F´e Institute Working Paper No. 03-03020, 2003. Ronald Dworkin. What is equality? part 1: Equality of welfare. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10(3):185–246, 1981a. Ronald Dworkin. What is equality? part 2: Equality of resources. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10(4):283–345, 1981b. Marcus W. Feldman, Sarah P. Otto, and Freddy B. Christiansen. IQ trends over time: Intelligence, race and meritocracy. In Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles, and Steven N. Durlauf, editors, Meritocracy and Economic Inequality. Princeton University Press, New York, 2000. James R. Flynn. IQ trends over time: Intelligence, race and meritocracy. In Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles, and Steven N. Durlauf, editors, Meritocracy and Economic Inequality. Princeton University Press, New York, 2000. Harry Frankfurt. Equality as a moral ideal. Ethics, 98(1):21–43, 1987. Markus Goldstein and Christopher Udry. Gender, land rights and agriculture in ghana. Yale University, 2002. R. M. Hare. Ethical theory and utilitarianism. In A. Sen and B. Williams, editors, Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1982. R. M. Hare. Rights, utility and universalization: Reply to J. L. Mackie. In R. Frey, editor, Utility and Rights. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1984. Tom Hertz, Tamara Jayasundera, Patrizio Piraino, Sibel Selcuk, Nicole Smith, and Alina Verashchagina. The inheritnace of education inequality: International comparisons and fifty-year trends. The Berkeley Electronic Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 7(2), 2008.

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John E. Roemer. Equality of Opportunity. Harvard University Press, New York, 1998. Thomas Scanlon. The significance of choice. Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Lecture 1, 1988. Amartya K. Sen. Equality of what. Tanner Lecture, Stanford University, 1979. Peter Westen. The empty idea of equality. Harvard Law Review, 95(2):537–696, 1982. Jonathan Wolff. An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2006. Jonathan Wolff. Fairness, respect and the egalitarian ethos. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 27(2):97–122, 1998.

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