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Authors: Richards, Janet Radcliffe



Janet Radcliffe Richards (1997). Equality of Opportunity. Ratio 10 (3):253–279

Area: Social and Political Philosophy
Kw: Equality and Opportunity, equal, opportunity, ethics, opportunity, Schaar, Singer Suitability

Attempts to achieve or even define equality of opportunity typically encounter a familiar slide which seems to show, paradoxically, that nothing short of equality of outcome can be true equality of opportunity. But this is an illusion: at each stage of the apparently smooth descent there is a major change of subject. The slide itself generates the appearance of a single issue and turns most discussions of equal opportunity into extended fallacies of equivocation. As long as the term is allowed to do any moral work, several substantive moral issues will remain in a state of confusion.


Thanks to the Australasian Association of Philosophy and Macquarie University.