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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Equal Opportunity and Just Deserts: Better Late than Before

Author : Joseph de la Torre Dwyer

Published in: Chance, Merit, and Economic Inequality

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

At first, equality of opportunity seems to require a process of “leveling the playing field.” I argue in this chapter that the Just Deserts proposal, by using an agnostic and ex post procedure, will more simply, accurately, and coherently equalize opportunity. This chapter defines opportunity, robust equality of opportunity, and its difference from probability. Turning toward a discussion of policies, this chapter then discusses five weaknesses of ex ante interventions to realize equality of opportunity and clarifies the benefits of ex post interventions such as those based on desert.

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previous chapter Autonomy and Desert

next chapter Efficiency and Just Deserts: Economists’ Big Trade-Off

I assess desert not as the right nor the good, nor in satisfaction of principles of solidarity, for example, Roemer (2012), 112; or democratic relationships, for example, Anderson (1999), but as a principle of distributive justice.

Rawls (1999 (1971)), 274.

Lamont and Favor (2014).

For sophisticated discussions of non-instrumental equality as a first-order principle of distributive justice, cf. Nagel (2000); Temkin (2000).

Clearly, feminist critiques of the dominant principles of distributive justice are too theoretically varied to be crudely categorized in this way as consequentialist and further they often reject the central focus on distribution as opposed to recognition, representation, or liberation from oppression. Nonetheless, I take it to be the case that a central element of most such critiques is that other distributive justice principles do not realize just distributive consequences with respect to women.

Rawls (1999 (1971)), 52–53, 266.

With respect to the specified reward where “worst off” is defined by circumstances of chance with respect to the observed outcome of interest.

Mason (2006).

While equality of opportunity and desert may seem at first an unlikely match, note that Olsaretti proposes that desert have a “fair opportunity requirement.” Olsaretti (2003a), 202; Olsaretti (2004), 24.

Harding et al. (2005), 134; Fishkin names these the “fair contest” and “fair life chances” principles. Fishkin (2014), 25–40.

By this phrase I demarcate that I am not speaking about what Rawls names “formal equality of opportunity” and Atkinson names “competitive equality of opportunity,” which simply allow all players access to the “biased” playing field. Rawls (1999 (1971)), 62; Atkinson (2015), 10–11.

More formally, we could write, Opportunity for Outcome Y is P(Y = y|CC = CC_i) where y = f(CC_i, α𝜖_i), V ar(P(Y = y|CC = CC_i)) > 0.

Circumstances of chance and autonomous effort jointly produce observed outcomes of interest and, if represented as a directed acyclic graph, these three elements form a simple collider. Pearl (2016), sec. 2.3.

By this I want to set aside Cohen’s distinction between opportunity and access (as opportunity implies access) and Segall’s distinction between opportunity and outcome (as opportunity implies outcome) pace Segall (2013), 8, 35, once we recognize that opportunity for Outcome Y is, nothing more and nothing less than, the empirical distribution of Outcome Y conditional upon circumstances of chance where Outcome Y jointly depends upon circumstances of chance and autonomous effort and the distribution’s variance is positive. Stated differently, a lottery is not an opportunity. Pace Segall (2013), 99, 138, 182–183.

Harding et al. (2005), 133.

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Rawls (1999 (1971)).

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Assuming there is a true non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment.

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For example, Quantum Opportunity Program and National Guard ChalleNGe Program.

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If this type of countermove with respect to job security behaves similarly to minimum wage ripple effects—in which changes to the wages at the bottom of the wage distribution lead to changes in the wages of those above them—we would see labor market participants taking responsive counteraction to maintain their job rank up to 20 percentile points higher on the wage distribution. Wicks-Lim (2008).

One may consider the self-segregation of wealthy white flight an example of the latter. Sjoquist (2000).

Cf. the recommendations here, Bourguignon et al. (2007).

Freeman and Reich (1999).

In fact, the 1999 federal evaluation of the Head Start program did not even use a control group (remedied in 2010 with a control group of Head Start-eligible disadvantaged children, but again without an understanding of the distribution of the full population or the long-term effects of the intervention). Zill et al. (1999); Puma et al. (2010).

Anderson says the same about “compassion,” with which I agree, but mistakenly argues that luck-egalitarianism expresses an attitude of “pity” which must be wrong as pity, too, fails to demand equal opportunity. Anderson (1999), 307.

BEA—Bureau of Economic Analysis (2015).

Stemming from Dworkin, some scholars seek an “envy-free” ex ante solution. As may be seen immediately, if the social planner with all the information cannot accurately measure ex ante opportunity in a dynamic economy, it hardly seems fair to trust the individuals’ feelings as a better guide when they presumably lack even more information and, by definition, exhibit various information asymmetries dependent upon circumstances of chance. Dworkin (1981a,b).

Bredgaard and Daemmrich (2012).

Heckman (2014).

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Segall (2013); Mason (2006).

Following a principle of equal opportunity, one might ban private education and childcare, radically desegregate schools, and pay teachers to focus on equalizing children in mandatory universal childcare from ages 0–18. Just Deserts, on the other hand, simply rewards adults according to merit and lets them invest in their children as they wish. I believe the second option will be eminently more palatable to a far greater number of contemporary Americans than the first.

This allows us to ignore the difficult ethical debates about legitimate and illegitimate public restrictions on the intergenerationally preservative behaviors of high-advantage parents, for example, Swift (2005).

Having said this, I would still expect ex ante policies to outperform our current distribution policy in terms of inequality, poverty, and economic mobility, pace Anderson (1999), 300.

“For example, any attempt to steer a ship to its final destination by setting the course at the point of departure and hoping that it will hit its mark using only that information—what engineers call feedforward—will fail.” Molander (2016), 82.

Temkin (1993), 13.

Given that there is only one mathematical distribution of autonomous effort for all moral agents in the universe, as long as there are no probabilistic lotteries between the time of an ex ante intervention and an ex post intervention, identically informed ex ante equal opportunity and ex post desert realize identical outcomes. Ramos and Van de Gaer (2012).

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Title: Equal Opportunity and Just Deserts: Better Late than Before
Author: Joseph de la Torre Dwyer
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Chance, Merit, and Economic Inequality
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-21125-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-21126-4

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21126-4_4