Description

These days almost everyone seems to think it obvious that equality of opportunity is at least part of what constitutes a fair society. At the same time they are so vague about what equality of opportunity actually amounts to that it can begin to look like an empty term, a convenient shorthand for the way jobs (or for that matter university places, or positions of power, or merely places on the local sports team) should be allocated, whatever that happens to be.
Matt Cavanagh offers a highly provocative and original new view, suggesting that the way we think about equality and opportunity should be radically changed.

Features

• highly controversial
• written in a non-jargon, accessible style, for a broad readership
• short, snappy, and provocative arguments; very clear
• relevant to real life as well as academic debates

Reviews

"This is a well-argued, insightful, highly nuanced book, well worth close study by anyone who is concerned to make sense of the concept of equal opportunity. It is a model of close, rigorous, analytic thinking about moral matters."--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"Although it does not completely succeed in its ambitious goal of undermining both meritocracy and equality as criteria for equal opportunity, this is a well-argued, insightful, highly nuanced book, well worth close study by anyone who is concerned to make sense of the concept of equal opportunity. It is a model of close, rigorous, analytic thinking about moral matters. It challenges received orthodoxies at several points, and forces all of us to reevaluate our commitment to meritocracy and equality."--Louis Pojman, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Product Details

232 pages; ISBN13: 978-0-19-924343-3ISBN10: 0-19-924343-3

About the Author(s)