Education, Justice and the Human Good

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Education, Justice and
the Human Good
The education system is faced with many demands for justice. What these
demands imply and how they are justified is, however, disputed. In this book,
international contributors present cutting edge research to discuss the relationship
between educational justice and the value of education.
By combining reflections on educational justice with reflections on the human
good and the aims of education, the book reveals that it is not enough to assess
certain patterns of distribution; the value of what is to be distributed must also be
clarified. In this respect, deliberations about the value of education have to play
an integral part in giving an account of educational justice.
Questions addressed in the volume include:
•
•
•
In what sense should justice, fairness and equality be realised in the education
system?
How is educational equality related to equality of opportunity?
Is the main concern that everyone should be educated equally well – or just
well enough?
Education, Justice and the Human Good discusses the positional value of education and its relation to educational justice, emphasising that education is valuable
not only for competitive reasons but in its contribution to human flourishing.
The book will appeal to those from the field of the philosophy of education as
well as applied political philosophy, from undergraduates to professional
academics.
Kirsten Meyer is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy,
Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
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Routledge International Studies in the
Philosophy of Education
1. Education and Work in Great
Britain, Germany and Italy
Edited by Annette Jobert, Catherine
Marry, Helen Rainbird and Lucie
Tanguy
2. Education, Autonomy and
Democratic Citizenship
Philosophy in a Changing World
Edited by David Bridges
3. The Philosophy of Human
Learning
Christopher Winch
9. Lyotard
Just Education
Edited by Pradeep A. Dhillon and
Paul Standish
10. Derrida & Education
Edited by Gert J. J. Biesta and
Denise Egéa-Kuehne
11. Education, Work and Social Capital
Towards a New Conception of
Vocational Education
Christopher Winch
4. Education, Knowledge and Truth
Beyond the Postmodern Impasse
Edited by David Carr
12. Philosophical Discussion
in Moral Education
The Community of Ethical Inquiry
Tim Sprod
5. Virtue Ethics and Moral
Education
Edited by David Carr and Jan
Steutel
13. Methods in the Philosophy of
Education
Frieda Heyting, Dieter Lenzen and
John White
6. Durkheim and Modern
Education
Edited by Geoffrey Walford and
W. S. F. Pickering
14. Life, Work and Learning
Practice in Postmoderniity
David Beckett and Paul Hager
7. The Aims of Education
Edited by Roger Marples
15. Education, Autonomy and
Critical Thinking
Christopher Winch
8. Education in Morality
J. Mark Halstead and Terence
H. McLaughlin
16. Anarchism and Education
A Philosophical Perspective
Judith Suissa
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17. Cultural Diversity,
Liberal Pluralism
and Schools
Isaiah Berlin and Education
Neil Burtonwood
26. Education, Professionalism and
the Quest for Accountability
Hitting the Target but
Missing the Point
Jane Green
18. Levinas and Education
At the Intersection of Faith and
Reason
Edited by Denise Egéa-Kuehne
27. Geometry as Objective Science in
Elementary School Classrooms
Mathematics in the Flesh
Wolff-Michael Roth
19. Moral Responsibility,
Authenticity, and Education
Ishtiyaque Haji and Stefaan
E. Cuypers
28. The Global Reception
of John Dewey’s Thought
Multiple Refractions
Through Time and Space
Edited by Rosa Bruno-Jofré and
Jürgen Schriewer
20. Education, Science and Truth
Rasoul Nejadmehr
21. Philosophy of Education in the
Era of Globalization
Edited by Yvonne Raley and
Gerhard Preyer
22. Habermas, Critical Theory and
Education
Edited by Mark Murphy and
Ted Fleming
23. The New Significance
of Learning
Imagination’s Heartwork
Pádraig Hogan
24. Beauty and Education
Joe Winston
25. Education, Professionalization
and Social Representations
On the Transformation of Social
Knowledge
Edited by Mohamed Chaib,
Berth Danermark and Staffan
Selander
29. Social Reconstruction Learning
Dualism, Dewey and Philosophy in
Schools
Jennifer Bleazby
30. Higher Education in Liquid
Modernity
Marvin Oxenham
31. Education and the
Common Good
Essays in Honor of Robin Barrow
Edited by John Gingell
32. Systems of Reason and the
Politics of Schooling
School Reform and Sciences of
Education in the Tradition of
Thomas S. Popkewitz
Edited by Miguel A. Pereyra &
Barry M. Franklin
33. Education, Justice and the
Human Good
Fairness and equality in the
education system
Edited by Kirsten Meyer
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Education, Justice and
the Human Good
Fairness and equality in
the education system
Edited by Kirsten Meyer
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
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© 2014 K. Meyer
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Education, justice and the human good : fairness and equality
in the education system / edited by Kirsten Meyer.
pages cm — (Routledge international studies in the philosophy
of education)
1. Educational equalization. 2. Social justice—Study and
teaching. 3. Education—Philosophy. I. Meyer, Kirsten.
LC213.2.E393 2014
379.2ʹ6—dc23
2013050501
ISBN: 978-0-415-71480-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88240-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
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Contents
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
viii
x
1
KIRSTEN MEYER
1
The place of educational equality in educational justice
14
HARRY BRIGHOUSE AND ADAM SWIFT
2
Unequal chances: Race, class and schooling
34
DEBRA SATZ
3
Non-comparative justice in education
51
THOMAS SCHRAMME
4
Educational justice and the justification of education
65
JOHANNES GIESINGER
5
A neo-Aristotelian account of education,
justice, and the human good
80
RANDALL CURREN
6
What does equality in education mean?
100
STEFAN GOSEPATH
7
Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice
113
CONSTANTIN STROOP
8
Educational justice and talent advancement
133
KIRSTEN MEYER
Index
151
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Contributors
Harry Brighouse is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of
Educational Policy Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Senior
Program Advisor to the Spencer Foundation. He is author of several books,
including School Choice and Social Justice (Oxford, 2000), On Education
(Routledge, 2006) and, with Adam Swift, Family Values (Princeton,
forthcoming 2014).
Randall Curren is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of
Rochester, New York, Chair of Moral and Virtue Education in the Jubilee
Centre for Character and Values at the University of Birmingham, England,
and Professor in the Royal Institute of Philosophy, London.
Johannes Giesinger, PhD, teaches philosophy at the Kantonsschule (Gymnasium)
of Sargans/Switzerland. He is affiliated to the Ethics Research Centre of the
University of Zurich. His research interests lie in the philosophy of education
and the ethics of childhood.
Stefan Gosepath is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Free University
Berlin, Germany. He is also director of the Centre for Advanced Studies ‘Justitia
Amplificata: Rethinking Justice: Applied and Global’. His books include
Aufgeklärtes Eigeninteresse. Eine Theorie theoretischer und praktischer
Rationalität (Suhrkamp, 1992) and Gleiche Gerechtigkeit. Grundlagen eines
liberalen Egalitarismus (Suhrkamp, 2004).
Kirsten Meyer is Professor of Philosophy at Humboldt University, Berlin. Her
research interests are in the philosophy of education, ethics, applied ethics and
political philosophy. She is the author of Bildung (de Gruyter 2011) and leads
a DFG project on elite funding and equality of opportunity.
Debra Satz is the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, Professor
of Philosophy and Senior Associate Dean for the Humanities and Arts at
Stanford University, California. Among her recent publications are Why Some
Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Limits of Markets (Oxford University Press,
2010) and co-editor of Occupy the Future (MIT Press, 2012).
List of contributors ix
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Thomas Schramme is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg,
Germany. His main research interests are in political philosophy, ethics and the
philosophy of medicine. He has published in journals such as Ethical Theory
and Moral Practice, Environmental Politics, and Bioethics.
Constantin Stroop is a research assistant in the Philosophy Department of
Humboldt University, Berlin. He is currently working on educational justice
and the promotion of gifted students. Among his other research interests are
questions on normative ethics, political philosophy and the philosophy of
religion.
Adam Swift is Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and
International Studies at the University of Warwick. His books include How
Not To Be A Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent (Routledge
2003), Political Philosophy: A Beginners’ Guide for Student and Politicians
(Third edition, Polity, 2013) and, with Harry Brighouse, Family Values
(Princeton, forthcoming 2014).
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Acknowledgements
The following articles, or parts of them, have been reproduced with the kind
permission of the respective journals:
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2008) ‘Putting Educational Equality in Its Place’,
Education Finance and Policy, 3(4): 444–466.
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2009) ‘Educational Equality versus Educational
Adequacy: A Critique of Anderson and Satz’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26(2):
117–128.
Curren, R. (2013) ‘A neo-Aristotelian Account of Education, Justice, and the Human
Good’, Theory and Research in Education, 11(3): 231–249.
Satz, D. (2012) ‘Unequal Chances: Race, Class and Schooling’, Theory and Research
in Education, 10(2): 155–170.
Introduction
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Kirsten Meyer
Due to the enormous influence education has on individual prospects for a
flourishing life, education is one of the core demands for justice. Thus the justice
of an education system is a key indicator of the justice in a society. The main
reason why education systems are often criticised as unjust are the disparities in
the educational resources for, and educational attainments of, rich and poor
children and children from different social backgrounds. While in some countries
the criticism focuses on private schooling, in other countries it rather concentrates
on the relevance of influences of social background within the system of public
schooling. Despite these differences, the relevance of considerations of educational
justice is rarely disputed and a lack of justice very frequently deplored.
The education system must ensure several demands of justice, one of them
being the quest for equality of opportunity. What these demands exactly imply
and how they are justified is, however, disputed. Should a society aim at everyone
being educated equally well? Should it try to maximise the educational level of
the worst off? Should all children face equal prospects for educational achievement regardless of their social background? How is caring about educational
equality related to the reason for caring about equality of opportunity in general?
Suppose it were possible to improve the conditions of society in a way that
benefits the worst off by allowing unequal prospects for educational achievement. Does this conflict with the demand for equality of opportunity? What does
equality of opportunity imply in this context: equal prospects for educational
achievement or equal prospects for a good life? Or should education mainly
enable everyone to whatever capabilities are necessary to avoid entanglement in
oppressive social relationships and to develop capacities for functioning as an
equal citizen? How are the different aims of education connected to different
considerations concerning educational justice?
In order to answer these questions, one must clarify the role that considerations
of fairness should play for educational justice and whether educational resources,
opportunities or outcomes have to be equal in order to meet the demands of
justice. In addition, a reference to the value of education is needed, for example
with regard to the role that education plays for socially produced rewards, such
as income, status and positions in the occupational structure. Moreover, education
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2 Kirsten Meyer
goes along with opportunities for self-exploration and fulfilment, which are
attached to these positions, but which are also more directly connected to
education. Being educated is thus of instrumental value for various reasons, but
may also be of value in itself or directly contribute to individual well-being. These
considerations concerning the value of education are important from different
perspectives regarding educational justice. If, for example, the call for equality of
opportunity can be interpreted as a call for equal prospects for a good life, one
would still have to clarify the role that education has to play regarding these
prospects. If, on the other hand, one does not concentrate on equality of
opportunity but rather demands that everyone be educated well enough so as to
meet all others as equals in the public domain, the role of education for being
able to do so must also be clarified.
The philosophy of education has a long tradition. Aristotle and Plato both
believed that justice and the good life require targeted educational efforts, to
which the political institutions should contribute significantly. In addition, both
of them explicitly refer to human flourishing as the aim of education. In contrast
to these ancient considerations, the current debate focuses more strongly on
educational justice and less on questions of the human good. The aim of the
present volume is to take up these latter questions and to reveal the relevance of
considerations about the value of education for questions of educational justice.
This volume is based on the assumption that it is not enough to determine certain
patterns of distribution; the value of what is to be distributed must also be
clarified. For this reason, deliberations about the value of education have to play
an integral part in giving an account of educational justice. Thereby, the reflections
on the value of education might lead us to rather general questions of human
flourishing.
Although the reader will see traces of ancient considerations in this volume,
it also departs from this in many respects. Modern philosophy has largely withdrawn from the attempts to determine the content of a good or flourishing
human life. Thereby it has also lost sight of reflections on the value of education.
Several ancient thoughts on the content and scope of the public education
appear to be misguided from today’s perspective. However, we should not
abandon the necessary thoughts on the connection between education and
issues of the good life for this reason. The aim of this volume, therefore, is to go
back to the connections between educational justice and the reflection on
questions of the good life. Thereby, however, it is not implicitly suggested
that an adequate conception of the good life should be formulated along
perfectionist lines. Randall Curren, for example, explicitly mentions that his
aim is to develop an Aristotelian approach ‘that overcomes charges of elitism
and illiberal perfectionism’ (Curren, this volume: Ch. 5, p. 88). Thus the
contributions to this anthology do not depart from Rawl’s reference to a
reasonable pluralism amongst different conceptions of the good. They do,
however, address fundamental questions concerning the connections between
education and a good or flourishing life.
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Introduction 3
Moreover, despite the attention on the value of education, educational justice
is still the main focus of this book. The current debate on educational
justice draws, amongst others, on contributions by Harry Brighouse, Adam
Swift and Debra Satz (see, for example Brighouse 2003; Brighouse and Swift
2006, 2009; Satz 2007). They rely on other works in contemporary political
philosophy, most importantly Rawls (1999), as well as on works within political
philosophy, which focus more strongly on the topic of education, such as Amy
Gutmann (1987). This volume contributes to this ongoing discussion. Questions
addressed in this volume include: In what sense should justice and equality be
realised in the educational system? What does the concept of equality of
opportunity demand? Should we ensure that all children have equal educational
resources, opportunities, or should we rather concentrate on outcomes? Or is the
main concern that everyone be educated well enough so that they would meet all
others as equals in the public domain? Is equality or adequacy the core
consideration of educational justice? Is adequacy even all there is to educational
justice?
The current philosophical debate on educational justice primarily focuses
on the status and role of comparative considerations within a just distribution of
educational benefits. Two variants of the demands of justice have been distinguished in the contemporary discussion. According to the egalitarian perspective,
the education system should ensure that each individual has equally good
educational opportunities. Egalitarians argue that an unequal distribution of
education is unjust because it leads to an unfair competition for social advantages.
In contrast, from the perspective of an adequacy account of educational justice,
the education system should be set up in a way that ensures an adequate education
for all. Versions of the adequacy principle differ in their specification of an
adequate education. For example, Gutmann (1987) ties adequacy to the capacity
to participate as an equal in political life, whereas Anderson (2007) and Satz
(2007) tie adequacy to the capabilities that are needed to be able to function as a
peer in public social interactions. Despite these differences, however, advocates of
an adequacy approach argue for the provision of a certain level of education for
all individuals. They do not consider educational inequalities above this level as
problematic.
Nevertheless, both perspectives overlap in many concrete proposals for educational reforms. A lack of equality in the education system is criticised from both
perspectives, since proponents of an adequacy approach also point to the value
that certain forms of equality have for meeting standards of adequacy. For
example, Satz stresses that her account has comparative, egalitarian, and relational
elements (Satz 2007: 625). Proponents of an explicitly egalitarian approach, on
the other side, do not refer to the intrinsic value of equality either, but rather
justify the importance of educational equality by emphasising that education is a
positional good (Brighouse and Swift 2006). Satz acknowledges this and points
out that to the extent that education is positional, adequacy converges with
equality of opportunity views (Satz 2007: 644). Thus the aim of this volume is
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4 Kirsten Meyer
also to spell out the alleged differences between the conflicting approaches in
more detail.
Several contributors to this volume focus on the demand for equality of
opportunity. The reference to equality of opportunity in the education system
can be found in almost all accounts of educational justice, and it is also common
in the public sphere. It is, however, not at all clear what exactly this demand
amounts to. First of all, it is helpful to distinguish between a demand for equal
opportunities through education and a demand for equal opportunities for
education. The former places education as a means to the end of reaching different goods (for instance vocational perspectives or monetary goods). The latter
is expressed with regard to accomplishing a certain educational qualification
independent of one’s social background. Bad prospects of achieving these
educational aims can be traced back to certain obstacles which impede reaching
these aims. Hence, there is a multitude of obstacles between particular individuals
and their educational goals. Examples of this are the direct discrimination of
certain societal groups and the charging of school fees which hinders children
from lower-income families to access certain educational institutions. However, it
is not all about monetary goods. The relatively low level of the parent’s education
can also stand in the way or at least impede reaching certain educational goals.
The more one tries to grasp the potential limitations of equal opportunities,
the more futile seems the attempt to fully eliminate the inequalities caused by it.
Here, classic conflicts arise between individual freedoms and the demand for
justice. Moreover, it remains questionable whether the state may intervene in the
educational opportunities parents offer their children based on reasons of justice.
In this context it has been emphasised that the parental endeavours in favour of
their children’s well-being have high value for both sides. This could be taken
account of if no educational opportunities are cut back but instead offered to
those who would not be able to use them without support by the state. But then
the problem is that this cannot be accomplished in its entirety. Every time when
parents offer additional private educational opportunities to their children, the
state would need to do the same for all the other children as well. This way,
however, the education system would become a money sink and it is highly
questionable whether one should spend that many resources in the educational
sector which are then missing elsewhere (for instance in health care).
This is why it is debatable if one can indeed grant all children the same
opportunities for an equally good education. This notwithstanding, more could
be done to come closer to the ideal of equality of opportunity in the education
system. Moreover, even if it has to be admitted that the ideal of equal opportunity
is in conflict with other values, this does not mean that the ideal must be
abandoned. Within a pluralist approach, it could be weighed against other
norms and values. Therefore it is worth clarifying the demand for equal
opportunities and to thoroughly investigate the reasons for this demand.
First of all the question arises why we talk of equal opportunities for education
instead of equal educational resources or results. Against the demand of equal
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Introduction 5
resources it is put forward that children need different amounts of resources
for their education according to their abilities. Thus, instead of equal amounts
of resources, equally good educational opportunities are demanded. On the
other hand, for a variety of reasons, the adjustment of educational results is no
adequate aim either. Firstly, given the different abilities and talents, the equalisation of educational results is not attainable without depriving those who could
accomplish more. Secondly, individual efforts also play a role in one’s education.
An individual does contribute to her own education, and the demand for equal
educational results runs contrary to the idea of an at least partially autonomous
educational process. This is captured in the talk of educational opportunities.
But in how far are educational opportunities or educational possibilities supposed
to be equal ?
An egalitarian could emphasise that it is unfair when some get more of the
good of education than others. In support of this requirement it could be pointed
out that within a society all relevant goods should be equally distributed. In
addition, one could refer to the effects of an unequal distribution of certain
goods, as has been done by Brighouse and Swift. They refer to the fact that education is a positional good whose value depends on how that good is distributed.
Some children have fewer opportunities in the labour market because other
children received a better education. As Brighouse and Swift point out, this
undermines a fair competition (Brighouse and Swift 2006: 476). Access to the
labour market is competitive in a way that better chances for one group (for
instance those who attended a distinguished private school) entail worse chances
for another group (for instance those who only attended a qualitatively worse
public school). Therefore, the demand of fairness is put forward at this point.
Societal institutions should ensure fair competition conditions, which especially
applies to the educational sector.
Yet, some educational opportunities do not have any obvious effects on chances
in the labour market and also no effects on the lives of those who do not
profit from those additional opportunities. One could think of school subjects
such as art and music, or all those aspects in education which are at least partly
valuable for their own sake. What is important then are those facets of education
which contribute directly to the good life and whose value does not derive first
and foremost from the competitive possibilities in the labour market.
Here, an egalitarian approach could bring into play a comprehensive demand
for equal opportunities, for instance equal opportunities for well-being.
Then one would consider the value of education and its contribution to the
individual good life in the context of a general demand for equally good prospects
of life. In general, it could be argued that the potential differences between
the demand for equally good educational opportunities and equally good
prospects for life should be decided in favour of the latter (cf. Brighouse and
Swift 2006). Yet, egalitarians such as Brighouse and Swift nevertheless emphasise
the fundamental importance of equal educational opportunities on the grounds
of fairness.
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6 Kirsten Meyer
In stressing the importance of equal opportunities, egalitarians do not necessarily differ from those who argue from a perspective that is oriented towards
educational adequacy. The latter agree that equal educational opportunities
should be offered (cf., e.g., Anderson 1999, 2007; Satz 2007). Their justification,
however, is a different one. Elizabeth Anderson stresses that within the education system certain abilities should be promoted that are necessary for being
considered as an equal citizen in a democratic state. In her account, equality is
understood as a social relation, not a distributional structure. This is why abilities
should be promoted that are necessary to oppose all forms of repression in social
relationships and to grant all citizens the status of equals in a civil society
(Anderson 1999: 316). These abilities should belong to all persons in equal
measure. For example, everyone should have the opportunity of learning how
to read and write. According to Anderson, some other abilities taught in school
do not fall in this category. An example of this could be the acquisition of foreign
languages, at least in an US-American context (ibid.: 319).
At this point it becomes apparent that there are indeed differences in the
scope of demands for educational equality which can be traced back to different
theoretical perspectives. Following Anderson’s approach, the fact that some
parents support their children in learning a foreign language through private
investments does not, in itself, pose a problem. But if one takes over the position
of Brighouse and Swift, it could be argued that these parents offer their children
unfair competitive advantages in the labour market. Here, the differences concerning the theoretical positions do make a difference in the attitude towards
private educational investments. But apart from these differences there are also
many similarities. To that effect, Satz (in this volume) argues from the perspective
of an adequacy approach in favour of the value of equal opportunity. According
to her, the principle of fair equality of opportunity is intertwined with the idea
that the state owes full social inclusion to its citizens. Therefore, the principle is
crucial for a democratic society amongst equals.
Why exactly should chances be equal though, and what are the chances targeted at? Which conception of the human good is implied in approaches to
educational adequacy? Are there, for example, any links between classical demands
claiming that education should foster individual autonomy and the idea that it
should foster citizenship? Reflections on justice in education need to deal with
questions of the value of education, regardless of whether one takes over an
egalitarian or non-egalitarian perspective. It might even turn out that some of the
rifts between the different approaches to educational justice are rooted in different
accentuations of the value of education and different aspects of the good life that
are connected to it. For example, giving priority to equality of opportunity (with
regard to educational achievement) could be driven by the assumption that the
highest development of our individual talents is a condition for a flourishing life.
However, at least when understood along perfectionists’ lines, this is in no way
uncontroversial and requires general considerations concerning subjective versus
objective conceptions of the good life. This volume, therefore, seeks to investigate
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Introduction 7
the potential systematic import of appeals which connect different accounts of
educational justice with different accounts of the human good. Let me now turn
briefly to the content of each of the chapters.
In Chapter 1, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift defend an ideal of educational equality. They provide an argument for that ideal and elaborate on the
rather demanding consequences which follow from it. Their argument for
educational equality rests on the assumption that in order to be legitimate,
inequalities should result from fair procedures. Education is a crucial gateway to
socially produced goods, such as income, positions in the occupational structure
and the opportunities for fulfilment that come with them. These rewards are
distributed unequally. It is unfair if some get a worse education than others,
because this puts them at a disadvantage in the competition for these unequally
distributed goods. Brighouse and Swift make a case for a meritocratic principle of
educational equality, which demands equal educational opportunities. They hold
this to be very demanding, since, for example, it requires that considerably more
resources shall be spent on children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than
on children from more advantaged backgrounds. Moreover, Brighouse and Swift
indicate that there are reasons to support an even more radical principle of
educational equality, which holds that an individual’s prospects for educational
achievement should neither be influenced by her social class background nor her
level of talent.
However, the authors point to two constraints to the principle that must be
made: it matters less than maintaining the value of the family, and we should
be willing to sacrifice meritocratic principles where it is necessary to benefit the
less advantaged, all things considered. Brighouse and Swift take into account that
the opportunities of the less advantaged for rewarding and flourishing lives could
be enhanced by distributing education in ways that violate the meritocratic
conception of educational equality. In this respect they state that a concern for
benefitting the less advantaged should trump the meritocratic principle of
educational equality. However, they also point out that the mechanism whereby
an equalising reform is put into practice making things worse for the less
advantaged has to be specified. For example, whether permitting parents to pay
for private schooling actually benefits the less advantaged is not at all clear. In
general, Brighouse and Swift ask us to carefully investigate the often rather illconceived assumption that an increased production of economically valuable
goods can be readily transformed into increased human flourishing and turned to
the benefit of the less advantaged.
Contrary to Brighouse and Swift, Debra Satz does not start from an egalitarian
approach in Chapter 2. Instead, her approach focuses on educational adequacy,
stressing the concept of equal citizenship as the aim of education. Starting with
some sobering facts about the differences in the life chances of black and white
Americans, Satz emphasises that one rubric often used to capture what is
troublesome about these disparities in children’s lives is equality of opportunity.
In earlier papers, Satz argued for an adequate education, but in these papers she
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8 Kirsten Meyer
already pointed out that the most plausible interpretation of an adequate
education has comparative and egalitarian dimensions. In her contribution to this
volume, Satz emphasises that her approach does not question the importance of
fair equality of opportunity. Her contribution rather defends fair equality of
opportunity against criticisms. In fact, Satz argues that it needs to be explicitly
anchored in a theory of equal citizenship. Equal citizenship does not require
substantively equal educational opportunities among all individuals but it does
require that inequality in these opportunities be bounded. In general, Satz points
out that in evaluating opportunity principles, we need to decide what we want
opportunities for.
According to Satz, the idea of fair equality of opportunity is closely tied to
the idea of being treated as equal. It serves as a manifestation of the regard and
respect all members of the society are entitled to. Furthermore, it limits socially
generated inequalities to an extent up to which they undermine the ability of
individuals to effectively compete for social advantages. Satz points out that the
principle of fair equality of opportunity should be understood as a critical tool
that is aimed at identifiable injustices in the ways that people are treated. She
suggests that socialisation influences are problematic when they confine people to
choices within less than a decent set of options or when they make someone
subservient to others. Thus, from the perspective of justice, we shall ask whether
each person has a reasonable chance for a decent life. In general, Satz suggests
that the idea of equal citizenship helps to define the scope of fair equality of
opportunity. It directs us to thinking about the opportunities that matter if
people are to be treated as equals, and thereby reveals that we should not just
focus on employment and career.
In Chapter 3, Thomas Schramme explicitly departs from egalitarian accounts
of educational justice. Although he also focuses on the notion of equality of
opportunity, he argues for a non-comparative reading of this principle. According
to Schramme, a non-comparative reading of this principle, as applied to higher
education, asserts that everyone should have a real opportunity to achieve a
university degree. This raises the question of which obstacles that individual
persons face in pursuing this aim are normatively significant. Schramme points
out that this question cannot be answered by merely stating statistical differences
between academic achievements of ‘advantaged’ and ‘disadvantaged’ groups.
Moreover, Schramme emphasises that today’s education has become a place of
competition, and education, especially in so-called higher education, has taken
over many aspects of training. The Humboldtian ideal of Bildung has more or
less disappeared from universities. It also does not play an important role
in considerations of educational justice. Against this, Schramme argues that we
should remember this traditional notion of education when thinking about
justice in education. He points out that several aspects of institutionalised education contain practices that are considered to be ends in themselves, e.g. gaining
knowledge, expressing oneself or experiencing cultural products. According to
Schramme, these aspects of education make education a non-competitive good
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Introduction 9
and call for non-comparative justice. Moreover, Schramme points out that
university education is not an end in itself for everyone. He acknowledges that
the decision against university education is determined by one’s social environment, by parental education, peer influence, or other circumstances. However, he
also points out that many highly ambitious students have likewise been pressurised into their habits and decisions by their parents. The majority view of
philosophers working on justice in education seems to attribute the ‘right’ values
to the ambitious students. Schramme, however, thinks that this view is trading
on academic prejudices as well as on a questionable interpretation of higher
education as a merely competitive economic resource.
Continuing in Chapter 4, Johannes Giesinger also claims that an account of
educational justice must answer the question: Which types of education are
worthwhile? He holds the issue of distributive educational justice to be deeply
related to the problem of the justification of education. Thus he points out that
considerations about the value of education as well as certain educational aims
should be seen as an integral part of an account of educational justice. For
example, the meritocratic idea of equality of educational opportunity demands
enabling students to develop those abilities or types of knowledge which are
relevant for the competition for social positions. However, despite this
instrumental value of education for being successful in the labour market,
Giesinger also focuses on other aims of education. Giesinger endorses a type of
justification for education which is based on the idea of equal citizenship. He
points out that the civic account promoted by Debra Satz does not presuppose a
particular and contested conception of the good. For this reason, Giesinger takes
it to be a promising basis for the justification of education.
He follows Satz in stating that citizenship requires a threshold level of
knowledge and competence for exercising its associated rights and freedoms. In
addition, Giesinger points out that to participate in politics, a person needs the
capacity to critically reflect upon public issues. In this respect civic education
requires more than training for the competition for social positions. Does this
account, however, also involve the introduction of students into practices such as
literature and art? In what sense does it address the capacity for autonomy in
personal matters, which the term Bildung is often associated with?
Giesinger denies the view that these educational aims can only be justified in
perfectionist terms. Instead, he argues that there is room to enrich the civic
conception of education. In this context he claims that one reason for introducing
students into cultural practices such as literature or art is that future citizens
should be enabled to feel at home in the cultural world in which they live.
Giesinger holds this to be a precondition for conceiving of oneself as a fullyfledged member of the political community. Giesinger also argues that personal
autonomy is constitutive for equal citizenship. According to Giesinger, an
education that undermines the development of autonomy is likely to keep
children in a subordinate state. Children will then be unable to become
independent citizens. Thus he takes it that autonomy with regards to personal
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10 Kirsten Meyer
matters is constitutive for equal citizenship and should therefore be promoted in
the education system.
The appropriate justification of education is also the subject of Chapter 5.
Like Satz and Giesinger, Randall Curren defends a threshold approach of
educational adequacy. However, in contrast to Satz and Giesinger, he does not
focus on civic education, but more generally on human flourishing as the aim of
education. With regard to the value of education his account is inspired by
Aristotle’s work. Curren argues for a neo-Aristotelian conception of a just public
provision of the educational basis for human flourishing or living well. An
important feature of this defence is that it appeals to developments in eudemonistic psychology in affirming the Aristotelian thesis that there is a robust
convergence between what is humanly admirable and what people experience as
satisfying over the course of their lives.
Curren points out that educational institutions promote such development
conducive to living well by initiating learners into a variety of practices that
express human flourishing. In this context he emphasises that flourishing pertains
to activity. We find meaning and direction in life through the activities shaped by
practices that develop our capabilities, perception, understanding, and attachment
to goods. With regard to learning, it is in such activities that students find rewards
that sustain their interest and effort to learn. Therefore, the practices into which
students are initiated in schools should be of a kind through which they can fulfil
diverse human potentials.
Curren assumes that education essentially involves initiation into a plurality of
practices. There should be no pressure to adopt, abandon, or revise any specific
conception of the good within the reasonable plurality of such conceptions.
Nevertheless, Curren argues that his account identifies a robust role for schools
in promoting human flourishing. They shall expand and deepen students’ understanding of what is valuable and enable them to relate to things of value in ways
that give their life meaning. Curren points out that the work of schools is thereby
focused on direct contributions to living well – though this is compatible with
schools also making instrumental contributions to the functionality of a society in
which everyone is enabled to live well.
In contrast to those contributors who defend a threshold approach of
educational adequacy, Stefan Gosepath explicitly argues for an egalitarian
approach in Chapter 6. He emphasises, however, that a theory of equality should
not be monistic. It should rather recognise the complexity of life and the
plurality of criteria of justice. Thus, in his contribution Gosepath suggests
that we should distinguish between three levels of education based on different
purposes and levels of the school system: a basic education for all; the cultivation of individual talents and capacities; and the selection for higher education
and the job market. On each level, egalitarians should demand a different kind of
equality: some basic education for all, equal access to the cultivation of talents,
and equality of opportunity concerning the selection to higher learning and
better positions.
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Introduction 11
According to Gosepath, the most important task of the school system is to
provide a basic education. In this respect egalitarians do not depart from a
threshold approach. Gosepath points out that the kind of equality that should be
demanded at this level is equality of outcome. Thereby the focus lies on basic
capacities or capabilities such as literacy, numeracy, and basic knowledge of the
natural sciences and humanities. Secondly, society should offer a range of
educational opportunities that give everyone the chance to develop his or her
talents to at least some extent. One justification for this is individual autonomy.
In addition, Gosepath points out that society should cultivate a wide range of
worthy human talents, because these may turn out to be socially or economically
useful. On a third level, Gosepath views secondary education as a playing field on
which competition for higher learning, better jobs, higher income, and superior
positions in the social hierarchy takes place. Gosepath assumes that the strictly
equal distribution of positions and offices would undermine the efficient social
organisation of division of labour. In order to take into account this fact and to
further include arguments based on civil rights, Gosepath points out that this
third level should be regarded as the proper domain of equality of opportunity.
In this context, Gosepath introduces the principle of fair social equality
of opportunity as a compromise between the ideal of substantive equality of
opportunity and certain prudential considerations.
Constantin Stroop’s aim in Chapter 7 is also to explore how the principle of
fair equality of opportunity is to be properly understood. Stroop asks whether
the good of education should indeed be distributed in the currency of fair opportunities of education, as the widespread talk of educational opportunities appears
to indicate. He points out that the idea of equality of opportunity marks a point
of intersection between the competing approaches to educational justice, for
example Brighouse and Swift’s egalitarian account, and Satz’s focus on educational adequacy. Moreover, the overlapping formulations appear to indicate some
substantial agreement. By emphasising the importance of equal opportunities,
both approaches aim at a remedy for social inequality and, correspondingly, consider equality of opportunity as a genuinely egalitarian idea. Additionally, both
explicitly refer to Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity.
Thus Stroop aims at answering the following questions: What does educational
justice have to do with equality of opportunity? In which currency is the good of
education to be distributed: as educational resources, educational opportunities,
or educational attainments? Stroop argues that the main idea of Satz’s approach
seems to motivate an outcome-based account of educational justice and that her
reference to Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity cannot be harmonised with her approach. Since the relation between educational justice and fair
equality of opportunity poses these problems for an adequacy approach, Stroop
turns his attention to Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift’s meritocratic conception
of educational equality. Again, however, Stroop argues that weighty objections
can be raised against the idea of a fair chance to education, which is inherent in
the meritocratic conception.
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12 Kirsten Meyer
Finally, Stroop suggests modifying Satz’s approach in such a way that it can
provide a promising answer to the main question of his article. Building on this,
he defends the thesis that the principle of fair equality of opportunity gives us no
reason to prefer opportunities over attainments as the relevant currency of
educational justice. Moreover, the modified version of Satz’s account seems to
offer a convincing justification for concentrating on educational attainments. The
intuitive appeal and plausibility of the notion of an opportunity for education,
as Stroop finally suggests, is most likely motivated by other considerations than
those of justice.
In Chapter 8, Kirsten Meyer finally applies this volume’s considerations to
one particular question: Can the demand to extend educational opportunities
to the talented be justified by referring to considerations of educational justice?
Meyer considers different arguments in favour of supporting the talented. Her
thoughts are meant to challenge the popular call for the promotion of the
talented. As she argues, a disproportionally high promotion of the talented can
neither be justified from an egalitarian perspective nor from the perspective of
an adequacy account that focuses on equal citizenship. Not even a neo-Aristotelian
perfectionist should be strongly in favour of supporting the talented.
According to Meyer, proponents of an adequacy approach should express reservations against the demand to promote the talented, because promoting the
talented can prevent those who have not received enough in the past from getting
enough in the future. For example, Satz points out that education has to ensure
full social participation, and Meyer fears that the promotion of those who are
already privileged tends to widen the social gap. Furthermore, Meyer argues that
proponents of an adequacy approach should also remain sceptical concerning
demands of fair equality of opportunity, because these demands are often based
on the assumption that those who are more talented should enjoy greater prospects for advantageous positions. In addition, a proponent of an adequacy
approach should criticise the reference to the concept of (supposedly) natural
talents, since this often fosters the false belief that the social gap is unchangeable,
independent of how the school system is organised.
Meyer also emphasises that egalitarians should be sceptical about demands to
further promote the talented. In this context she takes it to be important to
realise that education is valuable not only for competitive reasons. In fact,
education has the potential to independently improve individuals’ lives by
enabling them to develop their capacities and to engage in valuable pursuits.
However, Meyer argues that the direct value of education for those who are said
to be more talented does not justify the provision of additional educational
resources for them. Moreover, Meyer argues that the meritocratic conception
should be extended. Considerations of fairness also apply to those who are said
to be less talented. In addition, there are various reasons to question the notion
of ‘natural talents’. Thus egalitarians and non-egalitarians alike should be sceptical
about the call for an increased promotion of the talented. In general, Meyer’s
considerations at the end of this volume reveal once more what has been common
Introduction 13
ground in the different chapters: a closer look at the different ways in which
education enriches the personal and social life is central for all considerations of
educational justice.
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References
Anderson, E. S. (1999) ‘What Is the Point of Equality?’, Ethics, 109(2): 287–337.
——— (2007) ‘Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective’,
Ethics, 117(4): 595–622.
Brighouse, H. (2003) ‘Educational Equality and Justice’ in R. Curren (ed.) A
Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Blackwell.
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2006) ‘Equality, Priority, and Positional Goods’, Ethics,
116(3): 471–497.
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2009) ‘Educational Equality versus Educational
Adequacy: A Critique of Anderson and Satz’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26(2):
117–128.
Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999) A Theory of Justice. Revised Edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Satz, D. (2007) ‘Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship’, Ethics, 117(4):
623–648.
Chapter 1
The place of educational
equality in educational justice 1
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Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
1. Introduction
A society has to decide how to influence the distribution of education within
its population. Should it leave that distribution to market mechanisms alone?
Should it aim for everyone to be educated equally well? Should it be concerned
simply to ensure that everyone’s education is good enough; if so, ‘good enough’
for what? Should it try to maximise the educational level of the worst off, or,
perhaps, to distribute education so as to help the worst off in some other way?
Whatever principles guide policymakers, to what lengths should they be willing
to go to achieve them?
This chapter explores the extent to which educational equality should guide
this decision. We argue that educational equality matters, and offer three different
interpretations of it. But we both acknowledge the limitations of these interpretations and recognise that other values have an important place in educational
justice.
We start by looking at the reasons for caring about educational equality, and
their implications for how we might understand what it involves. We go on to
present two standard objections: that it undermines parental liberty, and that it
harms the disadvantaged in the long term. Then we evaluate those objections,
finding that they have merit as objections to some, but not all, policies aimed
at producing educational equality, but are best understood as articulating
values that are, like educational equality, components of educational justice;
components that are often in conflict. We conclude by discussing what is widely
regarded as a superior rival to educational equality – educational adequacy – and
argue that it, too, is a component of, rather than, as some of its defenders assert,
the entirety of, educational justice, and one that may not always be more
important than equality.
2. The reason for caring about educational equality
The fundamental reason for caring about educational equality is closely related to
the reason for caring about equality of opportunity in general.2 Modern industrial
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 15
societies are structured so that socially produced rewards – income, wealth, status,
positions in the occupational structure and the opportunities for self-exploration
and fulfilment that come with them – are distributed unequally. Education is a
crucial gateway to these rewards; a person’s level and kind of educational
achievement typically has a major influence on where she will end up in the
distribution of those potentially life-enhancing goods. It is unfair, then, if some get
a worse education than others, because, through no fault of their own, this puts
them at a disadvantage in the competition for these unequally distributed goods.
So the intuitive case for educational equality is fairness-based; more specifically,
it depends on the idea that, in order to be legitimate, inequalities should result
from fair procedures, and fair procedures are those in which various characteristics
of a person are prevented from influencing their prospects. The idea is invoked by
people who think, for example, that it is wrong for racial characteristics to influence
outcomes, and therefore seek to ensure that schooling for racial minorities is as
good as schooling for whites; or who think that gender should not influence
outcomes so demand that boys and girls should have equally good schooling.
This concern with disadvantage in the competition for other goods is not the
only reason one might have to care about educational equality. On the one hand,
some aspects of education have intrinsic as well as instrumental value, so even if
education did not serve as a gateway to other rewards one might still object to its
unfair distribution. On the other hand, some conceptions of educational equality
can themselves have instrumental appeal, being valued as a means to goals other
than fairness. One view, for example, holds that an optimally productive society
will not waste the economic potential of any of its members. That potential is best
realised by ensuring that all have equal opportunity, first to acquire useful skills
and knowledge, and then to deploy them in the carrying out of appropriate
occupational tasks. Educational inequalities, from this perspective, distort not the
fair distribution of rewards to people, but the efficient allocation of people to
jobs.3 We put these alternative reasons aside here, because we want to focus on
what we take to be the most important one.4
One source of unequal influence over prospects that is widely regarded as
unfair is social class. Think of the call, in the US, to eliminate the achievement
gap which, if understood strictly, demands that there should be no difference
in achievement between children born into lower or higher socio-economic
classes.5 In the UK, which has a quite different education system from the US
but is similar in having a high degree of economic inequality relative to other
wealthy democracies, successive Secretaries of State for Education have called
more explicitly for the elimination of any influence of social class on educational achievement.6 The broad principle is what we shall dub the meritocratic
conception of educational equality.
The Meritocratic Conception: An individual’s prospects for educational
achievement may be a function of that individual’s talent and effort, but they
should not be influenced by her social class background.7
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16 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
This is very demanding. Given what we know about the influence of social
class on achievement, for example, it seems to require that considerably more
resources be spent on educating children from lower socio-economic backgrounds
than on children from more advantaged backgrounds, and that these resources
be spent effectively. It also strongly suggests that measures going beyond the
education system should be adopted. If it is not known how to educate large
numbers of children who are raised in relative poverty to the levels that can
be achieved by more advantaged children in the same society, for example, the
principle demands the elimination of child poverty.8
Standing alone, this conception permits, although it does not require, considerable inequality of both educational resources and educational achievement,
as long as those inequalities do not track social class. For example, it is consistent
with concentrating resources on those who have high levels of talent and
motivation, with the aim of producing very high levels of achievement for
them, while leaving those with lower levels of talent and motivation to fend
for themselves with, presumably, very low levels of achievement. Formally
speaking, it is just as consistent with this conception to concentrate resources on
those with very low levels of talent and motivation, in order to produce more
equal levels of achievement across the board. But we dub the conception
meritocratic, because it meshes well with the demands of supporters of meritocracy
to reward talent and effort but not class background. As a conception of
educational equality, it is closely connected to Rawls’s principle of fair equality of
opportunity.
But the meritocratic conception, as stated, is problematic in various ways.9
Although condemning inequalities of educational achievement that reflect
social class, it casts no doubt on the legitimacy of inequalities of achievement that
reflect talent. But ‘talent’ is ambiguous between ‘natural talent’ and ‘developed
talent’. There are problems on either reading.
One is that a child’s social class background may itself influence her level of
‘talent’. Suppose we have in mind what Rawls calls her ‘native endowments’.
Social class may enter the story in two ways. First, what a child is born with can
be influenced by in utero development, which, in turn, is influenced by maternal
health, which, is itself influenced by social class. Second, if talent in this sense is
heritable, and if parents in different social classes tend to be unequally talented
(as would be expected on the meritocratic view), then children born into families
from different classes will themselves tend to have different levels of talent. If by
talent we mean ‘developed talents’, then it should be obvious how a child’s social
class may influence those. That aspect of ‘merit’ is in large part endogenous.
Whatever a child is born with, as it were, her class background – the resources
(both material and cultural) at her parents’ disposal, the neighbourhood she
lives in, and many other class-related factors – will immediately start to impact on
its development.10
A further problem with the conception is even more fundamental: what
motivates it, which we take to be the concern that people not be disadvantaged
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 17
in competitions by characteristics for which they are not responsible, condemns
unequal achievements due to talent (whether natural or endogenously developed)
just as much as it condemns those due directly to social class. People are no
more responsible for having the talents or defects they were born with than for
the class background into which they are born, and no more responsible for the
class-based factors that impact on their development.11
None of these are reasons to welcome social class influencing unequal achievement. They are not, in other words, reasons for unease about educational equality
(though, as we shall see later, there may, indeed, be such reasons). Rather, they
are reasons for resisting the idea that inequalities of talent (natural or developed)
should influence educational achievement. If anything, they support a more
radical principle of educational equality:
The Radical Conception: An individual’s prospects for educational achievement may be a function of that individual’s effort, but it should not be
influenced by her social class background or her level of talent.12
The radical conception incorporates the meritocrat’s rejection of the influence of
social class, but also rejects the influence of talent. It allows, in principle, for
effort influencing outcomes, because effort is generally considered a genuine
marker of responsibility.
The fairness-based reason for educational equality impugns unequal educational prospects grounded either in social class or level on natural talent. But it
is worth registering suspicion that even effort is not a genuine marker of
responsibility. Both social class background and talent can influence the
development of the capacity and inclination to exert effort, in ways that seem
beyond the control of the agent. When a child faces setbacks, whether they are
nurtured and encouraged, given illustrations of efforts succeeding, and rewarded
for small successes, affects whether they continue to try. First, social class: parents
who have enjoyed success, and whose lives are less stressful, are more likely to be
able to maintain the level of attention and encouragement, and are more likely,
themselves, to instantiate illustrations of successful effort, than parents who are
under stress and whose efforts themselves are not well rewarded. Parents’ class
will impact on children’s effort levels through unconscious mechanisms, but also,
given beliefs about return to effort that are warranted by their experience, it may
just not be rational for lower class children to make the same effort as it is rational
for upper class children to make. Now talent: someone who has natural talent
with respect to some activity is more likely to experience the rewards of early
success and thus to have more incentive to continue to exert effort than someone
who is less talented. Threshold effects and path-dependency may result in small
differences in talent having large effects on the development of the capacity and
inclination to exert effort: the individual with just enough talent to experience
the pleasures of early success in reading may, as a result, feel much more
encouraged than the individual who has not quite enough talent to have that
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18 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
same experience, thus entering a different track. So inequalities in effort, and in
aspirations, may well be in part endogenous to social class processes.
What makes this problem especially troubling is not just that differences in
natural talent and class location influence the capacity and inclination to exert
effort, but that, because we are talking about children – people in formation – it
is quite implausible to think of them as genuinely responsible for the choices they
make in response to the set-backs or successes that they have in the circumstances.13
This problem is not, note, a reason to reject equality, but to be uneasy about yet
another source of inequality: the capacity and inclination to exert effort. An
extreme conception of educational equality, which we cannot find represented in
the philosophical literature, seems to be vindicated: that there is a reason of
fairness to attempt to eradicate inequalities of educational achievement whatever
their causes.
Before discussing the place of educational equality in educational justice it is
worth noting an objection to the intuitive argument from the importance of fair
competitions that will have occurred to many readers: that society is not a race
because there is not ‘one Grand Racetrack on which we are all bidden to run’
(Lomasky 1987: 180–181). Society is indeed not a race. But, as we shall show
later, it is relevantly like a race. The distribution of the benefits of social cooperation
is structured to reward those who do well and penalise those who do badly in
competitions they have no feasible alternative to participating in.
3. Two objections to educational equality
All we have seen so far is that fairness provides a prima facie reason to care about
educational equality. Even if there is good reason to value something, though,
that does not mean that we should implement it wholesale, only that we should
do so as far as possible without undermining other more important values. In this
section we shall present two purported objections to educational equality. In
the subsequent two sections we shall show what these objections tell us about the
place of educational equality in educational justice. Since the rest of the chapter
is devoted to considering objections to implementing educational equality that
are pressed against all three conceptions outlined, we are not going to choose
among them: people have different views about fairness, and what sources
of inequality it impugns, and endorse correspondingly different conceptions of
educational equality.
The harming the less advantaged objection
This objection observes that an unfair distribution of education can work
ultimately to the benefit of the less advantaged in society. Of course, they do not
get more competitive advantage than they would under an equal distribution of
education, but competitive advantage is not all that matters: what matters
ultimately are people’s opportunities to live rewarding and flourishing lives.
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 19
And these are not zero-sum. The opportunities of the less advantaged for
rewarding and flourishing lives can be enhanced by distributing education in
ways that violate educational equality. Perhaps wealthy parents could be permitted to buy unfairly unequal educational opportunity for their children, say by
paying for them to attend elite private schools, or by paying for extensive private
tuition. As a result, those children have a better chance of getting the college
places, jobs, and status, to which all are aspiring, than other (similarly talented
and hardworking) children do. But because parents can invest in their children
they do so, and so the total stock of human capital in society is enhanced; the
economy can then harness the productivity gains, due to that enhanced human
capital, to the benefit of the less advantaged. Similarly, perhaps the pool of developed talent in a society would be enhanced if schools identified children with
talents that are particularly valuable and scarce, and invested more educational
resources in those than in less talented children (rather than vice versa, as the
radical conception supports).
The parental liberty objection
The second objection is expressed by Nathan Glazer (Glazer 2005: 13) in his
review of Jonathan Kozol’s book (Kozol 2005):
To be sure, the case for both [racial] integration and equality of expenditure
is powerful. But the chief obstacle to achieving these goals does not seem to
be the indifference of whites and the non-poor to the education of white and
the poor. . . . Rather, other values, which are not simply shields for racism,
stand in the way: the value of the neighbourhood school; the value of local
control of education and, above all, the value of freedom from state
imposition when it affects matters so personal as the future of one’s children.
Parental liberty is important, and if it has priority over a conception of educational
equality then we should not do anything in pursuit of the latter (desegregate
public schools, abolish elite private schools, enforce neighbourhood diversity)
that interferes with it.14
4. Considering the objections
To respond to the objections we need to say a little more about the place that
we believe that educational equality should have in a more complete theory of
justice in the distribution of educational resources. In our view, educational
equality, though a value, is less weighty than at least two others, which should
constrain policymakers in their efforts to pursue educational equality. These
are, first, that, in the design of social arrangements, priority should be given
to improving the prospects for enjoying a flourishing life of those whose prospects are least,15 and, second, that parents and children should be able to enjoy
20 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
successful intimate relationships with one another. In current circumstances,
both set limits on what may be done in pursuit of educational equality. But this
does not mean that we should reject educational equality: rather we should reject
those measures to implement it that would undermine the prospects of the least
advantaged or successful family life.
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Harming the less advantaged
Let’s start with the harming the less advantaged objection. We shall not provide
an argument in any detail, but we believe that the medium-to-long-term prospects
for all-things-considered flourishing of those who flourish least in a society is the
most urgent consideration of justice, and the prospects for flourishing of the less
advantaged are more urgent than those of the more advantaged, even in wealthy
societies (Brighouse and Swift 2006a).
This principle, while happy to celebrate the development of human talents,
licenses their unequal development on condition that the benefits are likely to
redound to the benefit of the less advantaged. But whether this condition is met
is a contingent, empirical matter. Suppose that, in fact, social institutions have
been reformed as follows: civil servants and civic leaders conduct themselves
under an ethos of public service, which is understood by most to demand particular attention to the well-being of the less advantaged; the tax/benefit system
is designed efficiently so that increases in surplus production are concentrated in
the lowest third of the income distribution, and neighbourhoods and schools are
largely integrated by social class. In such an environment, it would be very plausible to conjecture that efforts by upper middle class parents to develop their
children’s talents beyond the level set by the median voter would end up benefiting the least advantaged. Imagine, instead, that the world is something more like
‘our currently unjust world’ for which Elizabeth Anderson says she is aiming to
construct ‘workable criteria of justice in educational opportunity’;16 one in which
increases in social wealth flow almost entirely to a small fraction of higher earners,
enabling them to separate themselves from the least advantaged, and one the
ethos of which emphasises the entitlement of the successful to the rewards that
the market offers them. These rewards are not merely financial, but include
advantage with respect to status, control over their work-life, and opportunities
to gain the intrinsic rewards from exercising the capacities and talents that they
have developed. In such an environment, the conjecture that the greater development of the talents of the already more socially advantaged will yield a flow of
benefits to the less advantaged is much less plausible; it is more likely that they
will, in fact, use their advantage to yield benefits to themselves, and in ways that
will disadvantage those who are already less advantaged. Think, for example, of
the way that wealthy Londoners buying second homes in rural Wales affect the
lives of those who live there full-time, driving up the cost of housing, which
makes it harder for local children to afford to remain in the communities in
which they were raised.
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 21
We are no less optimistic than Anderson that ‘more highly educated people are
better able to serve others in demanding jobs’ and not much less optimistic that
they are able to carry out ‘volunteer service positions’17 but we are rather doubtful
that they will actually do so, unless other features of the social environment change in the direction of justice. As long as they do not serve others,
justice demands that those others get a fair shot at the rewards from the
competition in which those from more fortunate backgrounds currently enjoy
an advantage.
Consider a specific reform proposal that would limit the influence of social
class on educational achievement: prohibiting private schooling in the UK.
Currently about 7% of UK children attend private schools, and most of those
have parents at the very high end of the income distribution, and there is evidence
that private schools enhance their pupils’ competitiveness for elite university
positions by increasing their exam results. Someone objecting to that reform
would have to specify the mechanism whereby it makes things worse for the less
advantaged. In the scenarios we have laid out, the mechanisms are the incentives
and motives (and hence actions) of the parents of advantaged children and the
subsequent actions of their children. Whether prohibiting parents from paying
for private schooling actually harms the less advantaged depends on several
factors. For example:
•
•
•
•
•
Whether the gain in human capital to the privileged children yielded by
private schooling exceeds the loss in human capital to those who attend
government schools caused by the absence of the advantaged children from
those schools and (a) the attendant detrimental impact on the quality of the
learning experience in the school and (b) the loss of lobbying power and
support for the schools from their parents.
How unequal the distribution is of income and other benefits attached to
competitive positions.
How the tax-transfer system is devised or, more broadly, the way that
the economy as a whole distributes the additional product between the
advantaged and the less advantaged.
How that additional product contributes to prospects for flourishing at
different places in the distribution.
The relative contribution of the competitive labour market and the noncompetitive non-labour market benefits of education to prospects for
flourishing.
Efficiency objections to prohibiting private schooling are more often presented in
terms of income and wealth, rather than flourishing, because enhancing the total
pool of human capital more directly increases the production of consumable
resources than the production of human flourishing. The assumption behind the
objection is that increased production can be readily transformed into increased
human flourishing and turned to the benefit of the less advantaged.
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22 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
There are complications about this assumption in wealthy economies structured like those of the capitalist countries in the OECD. In such economies,
education influences access to positions in the occupational structure that have
unequal status, income, and levels of control over work attached to them. Broadly
speaking, the better your education the better your prospects for income, status,
and high levels of control over your work. But inequality of status, income and
control over work (in societies likes ours) itself has a detrimental impact on
some people’s health, longevity, and subjective well-being. People with less status
and control over their work have worse health states and longevity than those
with more, and the direction of explanation seems to be from the lower status
and control to the lower health and longevity (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010;
Marmot 2004). Similarly, controlling for absolute level of income, those with
less income than others report lower levels of subjective well-being; again, the
direction of explanation seems to be from the income inequality to the lesser
well-being (Layard 2005). Subjective well-being has a non-linear relationship
to economic growth: in wealthy countries people seem to have continued
reporting increased well-being in line with economic growth up to a certain
point, after which economic growth continues but subjective well-being reaches
a plateau (Frank 2000; Lane 2000). Good health and longevity are both
components of flourishing, on any plausible account, and indicators of it and
subjective welfare reports are indicators of flourishing overall. We suspect that
they are quite good indicators of it, though there is certainly room for
disagreement about how good. On any account, though, relative position, and
not just absolute level of wealth, is an important determinant of how well people’s
lives go.
In any case, however, the challenge to the defender of particular mechanisms that violate educational equality is to show precisely why it is that they
are necessary for improving the all-things-considered prospects for flourishing of
the less advantaged. We suspect that, in most cases in wealthy industrial countries, it will be hard to make a plausible case against equalising measures such
as prohibiting private schooling on these grounds. It is better for people to
be more rather than less educated but that is not a reason for distributing
education unequally according to factors like parents’ ability to pay rather than
children’s ability to turn the extra investment into social benefit – which would
imply spending more on the able, or most useful, not on those who currently
get it. Even those who oppose levelling down can observe that a non-levelled
down distribution is unfair and ask why the extra good can only be obtained at
the cost of unfair inequality. In education, the reason we ‘have to’ tolerate the
inequality is the unwillingness of some people to yield resources for the sake of
educating other people’s children, rather than their own.18 Even where
the more advantaged do ‘serve others’, in the sense that their educational
advantage does yield some benefits to the less advantaged, there is still an
offence against fairness if they have enjoyed better educational opportunities.
Tolerating that offence may be justified, all things considered in the circumstances,
Place of educational equality in educational justice 23
but this does not mean that there is no moral taint, if, for example, it was
possible for the parents of the more advantaged children to produce the same
gain for the disadvantaged without also unfairly benefitting their own children,
as is often the case.
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Parental liberty
This takes us to the second objection: it would be a violation of individual
freedom to prevent people from spending their money on their children’s
education. Similarly, Glazer suggests, it would be a violation of their freedom to
prevent them from buying houses in neighbourhoods whose composition came
about as a result of the voluntary choices of individuals in the housing market. In
order to prevent segregation or inequality, policymakers would have to engage
in this kind of prevention. Blocking that kind of gift or choice inhibits freedom,
and it does so in an apparently peculiar way; it singles out for prohibition the
provision of something widely recognised to be of great value, while allowing
the provision of more frivolous, less valuable, goods (expensive cars are fine,
expensive educations are not).
Egalitarians might be tempted to respond by saying that there is no freedom
at stake here, but that seems a mistake. Freedom really is restricted; some action
or actions are specified which the parent is not free to take. The interesting
question is whether she has a right to perform the action that she is prevented
from taking. Many measures infringe freedom and are none the worse for that.
We are barred from bribing trial judges even on behalf of our own children;
candidates for political office in most countries are restricted as to how much of
their own money they can contribute to their own campaigns; taxation restricts
the individual’s freedom to reap the full value of their market interactions
with others.
Simply saying that some measure restricts someone’s freedom does not show
that it is wrong. The answer to the question ‘Why shouldn’t I be allowed to
spend my money on trying to save my child from being convicted of a crime she
committed?’ is that other values trump freedom: specifically, in this arena,
retributive justice and the rule of law are more important than freedom.
The answer to the question ‘Why shouldn’t I be allowed to spend my money
buying my child a superior education to that which others get?’ is that in order
for it to be fair the competition for socially licensed benefits must be similarly
insulated. The burden of proof is on the opponent of the measure supporting
equality. Mere demonstration that some measure inhibits freedom is insufficient
to impugn it.
The principle we have invoked says that what matters is that parents and children should be able to enjoy healthy familial relationships. In other words we
posit an interest in maintaining the value of the family, and consider whether
mechanisms designed to equalise or desegregate violate that interest. What animates Glazer’s parents is a partial concern for the well-being of their children,
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24 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
and it is legitimate for parents to be partial to their children to some extent and
in some ways. We need an account of what counts as legitimate partiality and
what does not – the boundary between where the state should respect parent–
child interactions that generate unfairness and where it need not. We think it is
justified, other things equal, in pursuing educational equality within the limits set
by that boundary.
A plausible account of the value of the family will allow parents to spend a
good deal of time with their children, and to express partiality toward their
children in a range of ways. We surely think that reading bedtime stories to one’s
own children (and not, if one does not want to, to other people’s) is something
one has a right to do, even at some cost to educational equality. Why? If we were
prevented from doing that sort of thing with our children we would be deprived
of the opportunity to create and maintain a valuable familial and loving relationship
with them. Similarly, we have argued elsewhere that parents must have distinctive
rights to share their values and enthusiasms with their children. They have the
right to take their child to their church, and to serve them food that reflects
their cultural background, as long as they are not thereby harming their children
(e.g. by indoctrinating or poisoning them), and no-one else has that right. Both
parent and child get something distinctively valuable from being able to share
themselves with each other, and for this the parent needs a space of prerogatives
with respect to their child.
In a short paper it is impossible to offer a full theory of the value of the family
of the kind that would answer all the difficult questions about which equalising
policies do and do not conflict with that value. Our own account focuses on the
specific value to parents and children of their enjoying an intimate relationship,
such that parents share their lives with their children on a day-to-day basis and
play a fiduciary role in their children’s lives. The idea of parents as fiduciaries is
not at all new, but we believe that parents have a non-fiduciary (self-regarding)
interest in acting as fiduciaries for their children. This does not support an interest
in being able to control every aspect of a child’s upbringing and education, but it
does rule out certain kinds of measure. It rules out measures that would prevent
parents and children engaging in activities essential for realising the ‘relationship
goods’ that the family is distinctively able to produce.19
So it would be wrong to force all children into daycare centres for 12 hours a
day, 6 days a week, 50 weeks of the year; doing so would simply prevent the
establishment of intimate parent–child relationships. Requiring parents to
live apart from their school-age children for 10 months of every school year
would be wrong, even if it facilitated equality. Whatever we do to promote
educational equality must leave sufficient space for the creation and maintenance
of valuable familial relationships. This does indeed rule out some strategies.
We believe, however, that it is possible to devise significantly equalising and
desegregating measures that are entirely consistent with leaving that space
available. Abolishing elite private schools, for example, normally leaves parents
with ample opportunity to create and maintain valuable relationships with their
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 25
children; just as people who now cannot afford to send their children to elite
private schools can have valuable family relationships, so typically would parents
who were prevented from spending their wealth that way. Measures forcing
schools, or giving them incentives, to find an intake with a socio-economic mix
that reflected the society by which they were surrounded would similarly leave
plenty of space. There is no reason why desegregating classrooms to harness
peer effects to the benefit of the less advantaged has to undermine valuable family
relationships.
In our discussion of the harming the less advantaged objection, we embraced
the value under consideration as more important than educational equality and
said that, nevertheless, educational equality matters, and might properly justify
measures that do not, in fact, harm the less advantaged. In this discussion we have
accepted that the liberty of parents is violated by some of the measures justified
by appeal to educational equality, but said that the liberty of parents is not a
fundamental value. The value at stake is that of healthy family life, and the
requirement on egalitarians is to leave ample space for its realisation. But many
measures designed to promote it, including those that are most in dispute in
public debate, can be adopted consistently with respecting family values. Family
values trump educational equality, in other words, but many measures promoting
educational equality do not jeopardise, threaten or undermine family values
properly understood.
Debra Satz has objected to our approach:
Some equal opportunity theorists try to drive a wedge between legitimate
parental partiality in shaping children’s potentials and excessive and unfair
partiality. Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift argue that only insofar as parents’
advantaging child-development activities realize the “relationship goods” of
the family can they legitimately engage in them. On their view, it is acceptable
to read your child bedtime stories, but not to pay for your child to have a
reading or mathematics tutor, even if these activities have the same net effect
on promoting the development of your children’s potentials. I do not think
we should accept their argument. Many parents want better education for
their children – including private lessons – because they believe that education
is intrinsically valuable, not because they want their children to be wealthier
or more advantaged than their peers. Their commitment to education does
not stem from the desire to help their children obtain competitive advantages
in the job market, but rather from their appreciation of the good of education
for personal development. Or maybe they just don’t want to see their
children bored and unhappy in school. The Swift/Brighouse argument
unacceptably constrains those families with conceptions of the good that
favour promoting the education of their child – but lack the time to do
the promoting themselves. Dual career families are likely to be especially
constrained by their approach.
(Satz 2007: 633–634)
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26 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
Even when nested within a principle of legitimate parental partiality which is
motivated by a theory of what is valuable about the family, educational equality
is mistaken because it wrongly restricts the ability of parents to give something
they believe to be intrinsically valuable to their child.
Our response is to concede that there can indeed be a kind of unfairness
involved in denying parents the opportunity to use their resources generally to
promote their children’s interests, given that some will, and some will not, regard
that promotion as part of their own conception of the good. But, in situations
where the effect of permitting that promotion is to create unfairness between
children, and when taken in the context of the Brighouse/Swift view as a whole,
constraining parents in the way proposed does indeed reflect the proper balance
of values. Note, to begin with, that the Brighouse/Swift principle allows parents
whose children are otherwise likely to have a less than equal education to use their
resources to compensate for that injustice, so the complaint can only arise with
regard to parents who value their children’s education in such a way that acting
on that evaluation would result in their children being unfairly advantaged
educationally.
We want to say three things about such parents. First, if what they value is
the intrinsic good of education, or personal development, they can help to
produce those without unfairly advantaging their children, by promoting them
equally for all children, or by helping those who will otherwise get less than
their fair share. What Satz’s parents really care about is that their children get
these intrinsic goods. Second, the Brighouse/Swift standard says that parents
have powerful reason to favour their children in the ways needed to realise
the relationship goods for which the family is uniquely valuable. It is possible that
conferring intrinsically valuable educational experiences up to some point, or
avoiding boredom or unhappiness at school, are indeed necessary for realising
those goods. Up to that point, educational equality is competing with a value
that is more important in the circumstances. Satz appears to think that even
past that point educational equality is competing with a more important value,
and, as we have said, we concede that there are circumstances in which it may
indeed compete with the value of fairness as between parents; some of them will,
and some of them will not, be permitted to act on their understanding of what is
a worthy use of their resources. But we believe that, in a context where their
children are at least enjoying equality of educational opportunity and may beyond
that be enjoying educational advantages justified as incidental benefits of the
goods provided by the familial relationship, children’s interests in enjoying
fair opportunity in education is more important than parents’ interests in being
free to act on their conception of the good in a way that unfairly advantages
their children.
The third thing is a comment about legitimate partiality in unjust
circumstances – the circumstances that actually obtain in our own social
environment. Many children who face unfairly superior educational prospects
have parents who are, themselves, beneficiaries of an unjust distribution of
Place of educational equality in educational justice 27
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resources; the resources at their disposal are not truly theirs. Using these
resources to promote their children’s interests is something they are typically
permitted to do in such circumstances, but it is not clear to us that they have any
justified claim to do so, nor that doing so is required, or even permitted, by the
idea of good parenting.20 Suppose that, in an otherwise just society, some large
packet of resources that you knew to be stolen fell into your hands, and you knew
that no-one would prevent you from doing whatever you wanted with them.
Would spending them on your children count as legitimate partiality?
5. Educational adequacy and educational equality
Many legal theorists and educational strategists (and, now, some theorists) in the
United States argue for educational adequacy – a principle that would ensure not
that children had equal educational resources, opportunities, or prospects, but
rather that everyone was educated well enough so that they would meet all others
as equals, or peers, in the public domain. There are several versions of the
principle, all of which have the following form:
Everyone should receive an education adequate for them to do or be X
Versions of the adequacy principle differ in their specification of X. James
Tooley, for example, demands education adequate to functioning in the economy;
in his case X is understood as ‘being able to get and hold down a job’
(Tooley 1995). Amy Gutmann (1989) ties adequacy to the developed capacity
to participate as an equal in political life, so in her case X = ‘being able to
function effectively in the political decision-making process’, whereas Elizabeth
Anderson (2007) and Debra Satz (2007) have both recently defended a view that
defines adequacy in terms of the education needed to develop the capabilities
required to be able to function as a peer in public social interactions.21 Although
Satz’s emphasis is on what adequacy requires for those who are, and will remain,
relatively disadvantaged, and Anderson’s is on what adequacy requires for those
who will spend their lives as members of the elites who influence the course of
social life, their basic conception of adequacy is the same. Arneson (1999) has
also endorsed a general principle of sufficiency as the core commitment of a
theory of social justice, which is in turn grounded in a very extensive critique of
equality as a general principle of justice.
We are, as should now be clear, pluralists not only about value, but about
educational justice. It is very urgent that all children have an education adequate
for X on all the values of X given above. Our disagreement with adequacy theorists
is not with their claim that adequacy is a principle of educational justice, but with
those (Anderson, Satz, and Tooley) who claim that it is all there is to educational
justice. In the rest of this section we explain why adequacy, even on Anderson’s
and Satz’s very demanding understanding of it, is not enough. We offer a case in
which, intuitively, justice should comment on the distribution of educational
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28 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
resources, but the principle of adequacy does not. We then offer a case in which
the principle of adequacy seems to demand the wrong outcome.
Suppose that all children have an adequate education, as Anderson and Satz
understand it, and that there is some leeway such that even the least well-educated
children are being educated better than adequacy demands. Suppose, now, that
a bounty of unexpected resources enters the system (perhaps because the country
in question has an unforeseen revenue source, or because it is enjoying a
peace dividend and has chosen to divert the freed up resources to education).
Wherever the resources are spent within the system, they will not undermine
adequacy. How should they be distributed? The principle of adequacy makes no
comment at all on this. Anderson says: ‘Sufficientarian principles do not constrain
inequalities in educational access above the sufficiency threshold’ (Anderson
2007: 615). So the government could legitimately concentrate the resources
on the highest achieving children, or concentrate them on Gifted and Talented
programs the effect of which is to give middle and upper middle class children
better opportunities than other children to attain elite university places. As long
as these children will be educated to be responsible members of the elites they
join, there is nothing unjust about enhancing their chances of securing a place in
those elites, even though their chances are already better than other children’s
chances. This seems counterintuitive. To be sure, we can think of justifications for
spending those resources on the more advantaged, or higher achieving, children,
rather than for trying to make educational prospects more equal. But we think
that there is a reason, albeit a defeasible reason – namely, fairness – for concentrating the new educational resources on those with prospects below the
median. The claim that the principle of adequacy is the only principle of justice
for the distribution of education does not even allow equalising prospects to
enter the discussion as a reason.
Now suppose instead that many children do not receive an education that is
adequate in Anderson and Satz’s senses. Imagine that there are only two feasible
reforms under consideration, both of which have excellent prospects for success
if adopted. Reform A will have the effect of making the children who are destined
for elite membership more responsive to the interests of those over whose lives
they have asymmetric power, and it will also increase the level of social mobility,
such that there will be a small increase in the percentage of children from
disadvantaged backgrounds joining the elites. It will, in other words, produce a
slight improvement in the level of adequacy.22 Reform B will make no improvement
in the level of adequacy, but it will improve the prospects for secure, if ill-paid,
employment for the lowest 10% of achievers, by improving their prospects
of acquiring the soft skills valued by low-wage employers before they drop out of
high school.23 Our intuition is that the improvement in the life-prospects of the
lowest achievers brought about by Reform B should get more weight in the
circumstances than the improvement in the level of adequacy wrought by Reform
A, and we retain that view even when we assume that Reform B, despite
appearances, has not in fact made it any easier to achieve higher levels of adequacy
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 29
in the future. But our intuition is not what is at stake here; to impugn the
idea that adequacy is the sole principle of justice in the distribution of education
we only need to claim that the improvements produced by Reform B provide
reasons of justice to choose it over Reform A, even if those reasons are outweighed
by the value of the greater adequacy achieved.
Is adequacy, in fact, being offered as just one among several principles of
justice concerning the distribution of education? Anderson sometimes tacitly
invokes further principles. Why, for example, do educational sufficientarians
object to levelling down?
Sufficientarian principles do not constrain inequalities in educational
access above the sufficiency threshold. Parents who want to provide their
children with more education than the minimum required to enable them
to successfully complete a serious four-year college degree are free to do
so, using their own private resources or by demanding that their public
schools provide more. The sufficientarian standard thus rejects “leveling
down” [sic, US spelling] educational opportunities to the lowest common
denominator in the name of equality.
(Anderson 2007: 615)
But the sufficientarian standard is quite consistent with levelling down as long
as the least educated are above the sufficiency threshold. The quoted passage
suggests that another principle is in play, doing the work of preventing the
levelling down; a principle of parental freedom, or one of human capital
optimisation, or, perhaps, something like the difference principle.24 The cases we
have given above are objections to the idea that adequacy is the sole principle of
justice in education, but do not work as objections to the more modest, but
still substantive, claim that adequacy is just one of the principles of educational justice.25 But, as we have seen, when objecting to educational equality
both Anderson and Satz rely on the assumption that the terrain is one in which
we are seeking a single principle of justice. If sufficientarians can be pluralist
about values, and invoke non-sufficientarian principles to avoid unpalatable
consequences, they should allow egalitarians to do the same. Sufficientarianism
is insufficient as a principle of educational justice, and Anderson makes this
implicit; but then there is no reason for educational egalitarians to wilt at the
observation that educational equality is also insufficient.
Finally, consider another case in which the demands of equality and adequacy
come apart in practice, and in which we think that policymakers would be justified
in pursuing equality as we understand it at the expense of adequacy as Anderson
and Satz understand it. Suppose that government schools are de facto segregated
by socio-economic class, and that the government judges that, even though
integration is a sine qua non for the full achievement of adequacy (for Anderson’s
reasons), efforts to integrate will have very limited success because they will result
in substantial defections from the public system by the children of advantaged
30 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
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parents. In contrast, it judges also that efforts to deploy newly available resources
in a way that targets the existing concentrations of disadvantaged children in
particular schools will meet with no opposition and will close the achievement
gap by enabling those schools to compete more effectively for higher quality
teachers and administrators, provide smaller classes where that would be useful,
and intervene more effectively in the home circumstances of some of the most
at-risk students. Which choice should the government make? We think it entirely
reasonable for it to do that latter.26
6. Concluding comment
A full theory of educational justice will recognise several values. It will acknowledge the importance of familial life, and embody appropriate concern for the
prospects of the less advantaged. It will accept the urgency of ensuring that all
have adequate educations in unjust circumstances. And it will attend to
other values that we have not even discussed here. But it will also incorporate a
principle of educational equality.
Notes
1 The current chapter is a substantially revised version of Brighouse and Swift
(2008) – sufficiently different in form and content to warrant a change of title.
The chapter also incorporates material from Brighouse and Swift (2009b). We are
grateful to both original publishers for the relevant permissions.
2 Hugh Lazenby helpfully distinguishes between ‘equality of opportunity for education’ and ‘equality of opportunity through education’ (Lazenby, unpublished).
3 Swift and Marshall (1997).
4 The efficiency case for equality is implicitly called into question by the second
objection considered below in any case.
5 We understand that ‘eliminating the achievement gap’ is not usually meant
literally. The provisions of No Child Left Behind require only that no children
achieve below a certain threshold, and allow for inequality of achievement above
that threshold – hence our invocation of the more explicit demands of British
Education Secretaries.
6 This is a central theme of, for example, Clarke (2003) and Miliband (2004).
7 See the definition of Weak Humane Justice in Jencks (1998).
8 See Berliner (2005) and Rothstein (2003) for nice accounts of ways in which
non-educational reforms might be crucial to improving schools and why
addressing child poverty might be especially important. For a rich account of the
unequal preparedness of children to deal with school, see Lee and Burkham
(2003).
9 For fuller discussion by one of the present authors, see Marshall et al. (1997:
Chapter 7). See also Saunders (1995) and Marshall and Swift (1996).
10 The endogeneity of ‘merit’ in this sense is rightly emphasised by Elizabeth
Anderson (2004) and acknowledged in Swift (2004). See also Anderson (2007)
and Satz (2007).
11 See Jencks (1998).
12 See the definition of Strong Humane Justice in Jencks (1998).
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 31
13 This is not to say that it is inappropriate for adults charged with children’s care to
act toward them as if they thought they were responsible for their choices, or even
to tell the children that they are responsible for their choices; both may sometimes
be appropriate or even required, because part of the charge of parent and educator
is to develop, within the child, the capacity and inclination to exert effort
productively.
14 For an early systematic exploration of this conflict, see Fishkin (1983).
15 To claim that this prioritarian principle should constrain the pursuit of educational
equality is in effect to dispute Rawls’s claim that his principle of fair equality of
opportunity should have lexical priority over the difference principle. On this, see
Arneson (1999) and Clayton (2001).
16 Anderson (2007: 621).
17 Anderson (2007: 615).
18 See Brighouse and Swift (2006b).
19 Brighouse and Swift (2006b, 2009a and 2014).
20 Swift (2004).
21 For other variants, see Curren (1994) and White (1994).
22 Whereas it is clear what the full achievement of adequacy means – everybody
actually having an adequate education – what counts as a slight improvement in
adequacy, when full adequacy is not the outcome, is not clear. Consider a choice
between (i) some people moving from below to above the adequacy threshold
and (ii) nobody moving above it but many (perhaps very many) people under it
moving closer (perhaps much closer) to it. Adequacy theorists have not developed
their theory in a way that enables us to know how it comments on such choices.
See Casal (2007) and Schouten and Brighouse (forthcoming).
23 There is some evidence that Chicago reforms have had this effect, and no
evidence or reason to believe that they have improved the level of adequacy.
See the studies from the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the
University of Chicago, especially Nagoa and Roderick (2004) and Jacob, Stone,
and Roderick (2004).
24 Sometimes Anderson appears to favour something like the difference principle (as
applied to the basic structure, rather than to education itself). But in the following
passage she suggests something weaker: ‘My brief is rather for comprehensive
group integration in all of a country’s institutions, and hence, for integration of
schools at all levels. Standards for fair educational opportunity must be determined
with this end in mind. I shall argue that if they are, and society lives up to such
standards, then the less advantaged will have no grounds for complaint’ (Anderson
2007: 598, our emphasis).
25 See Schouten (2012) for the articulation and defence of a principle of educational
justice that explicitly refers to the importance of benefitting the least advantaged
members of society, and thus attends to the considerations we have advanced in
response to the levelling down objection.
26 This example is not hypothetical. Our sense, drawn from observations of and conversations with people close to the action, is that New Labour policymakers in
the UK after 1997 saw things in precisely this way, and decided to use existing
levels of segregation better to pursue equality rather than to pursue integration,
as some of their left-wing critics argued they should. We are not convinced that
they were right about the feasible set available to them, but think that, if
the political constraints they perceived were real, they would have been justified in
their choices.
32 Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
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References
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Swift’s How not to be a Hypocrite’, Theory and Research in Education, 2: 99–110.
———. (2007) ‘Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective’,
Ethics, 117: 595–622.
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93: 77–112.
Berliner, D. (2005) ‘Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform’, Teachers
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Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2006a) ‘Equality, Priority and Positional Goods’, Ethics,
116: 471–497.
——— (2006b) ‘Parents’ Rights and the Value of the Family’, Ethics, 117: 80–108.
——— (2008) ‘Putting Educational Equality in its Place’, Education Finance and
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——— (2009a) ‘Legitimate Parental Partiality’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 37:
43–80.
——— (2009b) ‘Educational Equality versus Educational Adequacy: A Critique of
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——— (2014) Family Values, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Lazenby, H., ‘What Is Equality of Opportunity in Education?’, unpublished.
Lee, V. E. and Burkham, D. (2003) Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Background
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Place of educational equality in educational justice 33
Lomasky, L. E. (1987) Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Marmot, M. (2004) ‘Status Syndrome’, Significance, 1: 150–154.
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Sociology, 30: 376–386.
Marshall, G., Swift, A. and Roberts, S. (1997) Against the Odds? Social Class and
Social Justice in Industrial Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miliband, D. (2004) Opportunity for All: Are We Nearly There Yet?, London: IPPR.
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Available from <http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/p70.pdf>.
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623–648.
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the Less Advantaged: A Problem for Principles of Educational Justice’, Social
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Chapter 2
Unequal chances
Race, class and schooling 1
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Debra Satz
1
Here are some sobering facts about the differences in the life chances of black and
white Americans:
1
2
3
Educational attainment: Black students are almost twice as likely as white
students to drop out of high school (Aud et al. 2011); while 28% of Americans
over 25 have at least a four-year college degree, the rate for black Americans
is 17% (US Census 2009); black children enter first grade with lower scores
than their white counterparts; and the gap widens with each additional year
of schooling (Freyer and Levitt 2004).
Poverty: In 2010, 27.4% of blacks and 26.6% of Hispanics were poor,
compared with 9.9% of non-Hispanic whites. Approximately one third of
black children are poor compared with 10% of white children (National
Poverty Center 2010). The median wealth of white families in 2009 was 20
times that of black families (Kochhar et al. 2011).
Incarceration: Inmates in American prisons are disproportionately black and
brown. Black men are imprisoned at 6.5 times the rate of white men. Of all
black male high school dropouts born in the late 1960s, 60% have been
imprisoned before their fortieth year. At the end of the 1990s more black
men were under the jurisdiction of the corrections system than were enrolled
in colleges or universities (Ziedenberg and Schiraldi 2002).
As these statistics attest, in the United States blacks differ from whites in terms of
their education, income and wealth, and rates of imprisonment. Arguably, all
of these differences in life prospects raise considerations of justice, but in this
article I will focus on differences in educational opportunities and outcomes.
Nonetheless, I highlight this wide range of disparities because I think they are
relevant to understanding the reasons behind educational disparities: social and
economic disadvantages predictably and systematically lower achievement.
Children who lack medical and dental care, who have asthma, who grow up
amidst environmental hazards, whose parents are frequently unemployed or
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Unequal chances 35
underemployed and experience great stress, who live in unsafe neighborhoods
isolated from adult role models with professional careers, who are hungry or
undernourished, and who are read to little if at all by their parents, are much less
likely to do well in a school than children who do not face these challenges
(Rothstein 2004). If this is correct, then it is a mistake to think we can fix the
problem of educational disparities by focusing on education alone.
The disparities in the educational resources for, and educational attainments
of, rich and poor children, disparities that also occur between black and white
children, seem to many people to be obviously problematic. Why should children
face very different life prospects simply because of their social class or skin color?
One rubric often used to capture what is troubling about such disparities in
children’s lives is equality of opportunity: all children should have the same
chances for success. Equality of opportunity is a value widely affirmed by
Americans and nowhere does this value seem more supported than in the
context of education: indeed, it has been referred to as education’s ‘holy grail’
(Heise 2001: 1135).
Americans, of course, disagree about the meaning of equality of opportunity.
Indeed, given its many meanings, some commentators have thought it might be
better to actually abandon this framework, despite its popularity. Christopher
Jencks, for example, suggested that the term means so many different things to
different people that perhaps it could not mean anything at all (Jencks 1988).2
And in their book Leveling the Playing Field (2004) Robert Fullinwider and
Judith Lichtenberg decline to frame their argument in terms of equal opportunity
because of the interminable controversies about its meaning. Instead, their focus
is on enhancing the educational opportunities for the least well off, which they
take as the especially pressing concern.
The fate of our society’s worst-off members is a pressing concern. Nonetheless,
I think giving up on the equality of opportunity framework is a mistake if it
means losing focus on the fact that inequality is at stake in our responses to the
troubling statistics with which I began this article. I don’t mean that inequality is
the only consideration at issue in those statistics: it is morally problematic that
many people are poor, uneducated, unhealthy, unjustly imprisoned, regardless
of the situation of others. There are many grounds on which a person can object
to these conditions (Scanlon 1996). But I believe that we should be troubled
by the differences in life prospects in each of the examples I began with. These
differences seem unfair; they carry the aroma of caste privilege, insofar as unequal
starting places and unequal outcomes systematically attach to different social
groups (in this case to blacks and whites and to rich and poor).
I also suspect that many find the statistics about unequal educational attainment
between black and white Americans troubling even though blacks in the United
States are better educated than millions of other people around the globe.
Imagine that black children receive an education that fits them for menial jobs
with decent wages in the economy while white children have an education that
equips them for the entire range of social positions: now ask yourself if this is
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36 Debra Satz
acceptable. To capture what I believe would be widespread discomfort with this
example, we need to attend to the way that schooling and educational attainment
is distributed across black and white children and rich and poor children in the
United States; we need to attend to comparative measures.
The unjustness of the unequal distribution of schooling was, of course, the
central contention of Brown v. Board of Education. In Brown, the Supreme
Court did not focus its pronouncement on the inadequacy of the schooling of
black Americans although it certainly took note of this. Its familiar and central
policy conclusion was the following:
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local
governments . . . In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably
be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.
Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right
which must be made available to all on equal terms.
This, of course, just pushes us back to the question of how to understand the idea
of equal terms: what does it mean to provide all children with equality of
opportunity for education? And we may still want to know why, exactly, inequality
in opportunity is important in this context.
In an earlier article, I argued that the most plausible interpretation of an
adequate education has comparative and egalitarian dimensions, and additionally
has some advantages over familiar interpretations of equality of opportunity
applied to education. I won’t rehearse my earlier arguments here (Satz 2007).
Instead, in this article, I want to sharpen my idea of an adequate education for
citizenship by comparing it with the closely related Rawlsian idea of fair equality
of opportunity. In what follows, I will explain Rawls’ idea, (briefly) examine three
important objections to it, and try to answer them. Although I believe that
some of these objections can be answered, some issues remain – in part because
there remains some lack of clarity in interpreting the scope of the Rawlsian idea
of fair equality of opportunity.
2
Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity emerges as a response to the inadequacies
in an interpretation of equality of opportunity that Rawls refers to as ‘careers
open to talent’. According to careers open to talent, preferences must not
be given to candidates on the basis of factors that are irrelevant to the qualifications
needed for the position to which they are applying. It rules out discrimination on
the basis of race, gender and social class as well as on grounds such as nepotism.3
The problem that Rawls and others (Williams 1962) have noted with this kind
of equality of opportunity is that, while it applies to selection against a given
group of candidates, it does not address the question of the background
circumstances which determine who gets to be a candidate in the first place.
Unequal chances 37
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If some children are too poor or disadvantaged to even acquire the skills needed
to become candidates, then this form of equality of opportunity will be of no
use to them; it abandons those in a highly unequal society to what are essentially
‘fixed and frozen’ roles.
Rawls develops and defends a more encompassing understanding of equality of
opportunity that he calls ‘fair equality of opportunity’:
Those who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same
willingness to use them, should have the same prospects of success regardless
of their initial place in the social system, that is, irrespective of the income
class into which they are born. In all sectors of society there should be
roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly
motivated and endowed.
(Rawls 1999: 63)
A few points are worth underscoring about Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity. First, it is important to understand that Rawls does not intend this as a
stand-alone principle of justice. It is embedded within his overall theory of justice.
In particular, it is subordinate to his first principle, which guarantees equal
basic liberties to all, where this is taken to contain a provision that the political
liberties are distributed in such a way that those who are similarly talented and
motivated have the same chance to influence the political process and run for
office. Fair equality of opportunity is also super-ordinate to Rawls’ difference
principle, which states that inequalities in primary goods (such as income and
wealth) are to be arranged so that they are to the benefit of the least well off. The
difference principle is needed to make the equal basic liberties substantively
available to all.
Second, fair equality of opportunity is narrowly defined with respect to income
class. Equality of opportunity as stated above is only violated when two children
who are similarly talented and motivated face unequal life prospects because of
the income class into which they were born. But there are other sources of social
inequality besides income that shape life chances: race, ethnicity, gender, and
family characteristics (Fishkin 1984; Miller 2010). I believe that Rawls could and
would expand his account to include social factors like race and, at least to some
extent, gender, but that expanding the list of factors to include the family creates
more difficulties for his approach. Indeed, he struggles with the issue of how to
treat the influence of the family on the development of a child’s talent and
motivation. I’ll return to this issue in Section 3 below.
Third, Rawls’ formulation importantly refers to equality of prospects for
‘culture and achievement’. Much of the literature on equality of opportunity
focuses on prospects for employment, and Rawls at times singles out ‘public
offices and social positions’ in the social structure that generate income, wealth
and power as the resource we want distributed by fair equality of opportunity.4
I think narrowing ‘culture and achievement’ in this way is a mistake for reasons
38 Debra Satz
that I will articulate when I discuss the idea of an education adequate for
citizenship in Section 4.
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3
Fair equality of opportunity is central to Rawls’ idea of a democratic society. In
such a society, individuals are not slotted into fixed roles at birth, and there are
no natural inferiors or superiors, no bowing and scraping of subordinates before
the higher born. Social origin, at least in terms of income and wealth, has no
place in determining one’s opportunities for advantageous social positions in a
democratic society. The people share benefits and jointly rule – not just those
born with silver spoons.
The idea of fair equality of opportunity is thus tied closely to the idea of being
treated as an equal: it is incompatible with discrimination based on the arbitrary
factor of one’s class origin. It serves as a manifestation of the regard and respect
all members of the society are entitled to. It is a marker of the fact that rich and
poor stand as equals in the society: no one is simply abandoned by society to the
accidents of their birth. Moreover, this principle serves as a limit on the extent of
socially generated inequalities: such inequalities cannot be of such an extent that
they undermine the ability of individuals to effectively compete for social
advantages.5
Despite its egalitarian pedigree, a group of egalitarian thinkers have recently
taken swing against the idea of fair equality of opportunity as articulated by
Rawls.6 This critique has largely proceeded on three grounds:
1
2
3
Fair equality of opportunity cannot deal with the problem of stunted
ambition.
Fair equality of opportunity can conflict with a person’s culture and with her
family relationships, concerns that are much more important to making her
life go well than having equal opportunities.
Fair equality of opportunity offers virtually nothing to those who lack talent.
Let me take up each of these criticisms in turn.
1. The problem of stunted ambition, briefly put, is the problem that the level
of motivation a person has is highly endogenous to her social circumstances. It is
practically impossible to say how much of a child’s motivation is chosen by
her and how much is influenced by her family, her peers, and other factors.
Rawls himself writes that ‘the internal life and culture of the family influence,
perhaps as much as anything else, a child’s motivation and his capacity to gain
from education . . .’ (Rawls 1999: 265). This problem thus returns us to the
question of the place of factors such as family environment in our understanding
of equality of opportunity.
Since the principle of fair equality of opportunity only applies to the case of
people who are similarly motivated and talented, it seems to provide little leverage
Unequal chances 39
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for a case where a person already has low ambition because of her social
background. Richard Arneson (1999) raises this as a central objection to Rawlsian
fair equality of opportunity. He claims that Rawls’ fair equality of opportunity
principle would provide no grounds for criticizing the stereotyping and
socialization practices that serve to reproduce gender inequality:
[Imagine] all individuals are socialized to accept an ideology which teaches
that it is inappropriate, unladylike, for women to aspire to many types of
positions of advantage, which are de facto reserved for men, since only men
come to aspire to them. Any man and woman with the same native talent and
ambition will have the same prospects for success in the society we are
imagining, but the rub is that individual’s ambitions are influenced unfairly
by socialization.
(Arneson 1999: 78)
Indeed, the example of gender arguably shows that the problems with Rawls’
principle go even deeper than motivation. Talent as well as motivation is
endogenous to social circumstances. The development of talent is affected by
many factors including early cognitive and emotional inputs, parental time, how
hard a child tries, path dependence, role models, genetics, physical environment,
and socialization. There is no pre-given level of inborn, native talent that can
form the baseline for applying the principle of fair equality of opportunity; at
best, we can try to appeal to the idea of a child’s ‘potential’, but even here we
face hard problems in determining what this is, independent of social and
environmental factors (Satz 2007).
Rawls grapples with the issues raised by stunted ambition. At one point in
Theory of Justice he states that, ‘. . . if there are variations among families in the
same sector in how they shape the child’s aspirations, then while fair equality of
opportunity may obtain between sectors, equal chances between individuals will
not’ (Rawls 1999: 265). This remark suggests that stunted ambitions due to nonclass factors such as differences in gender socialization are not part of the purview
of his opportunity principle since fair equality of opportunity ‘obtains’. But if we
simply bracket the influence of culture and socialization, fair equality of opportunity looks like a weak principle – certainly with respect to gender, but also with
respect to race and ethnicity where, as we shall see, stereotypes and stigma can
often play an important role in shaping motivation and talent development.
At another point in the same text, Rawls seems to admit that the existence of
unequal chances due to socialization is a limitation on fair equality of opportunity:
‘the principle of fair equality of opportunity can only be imperfectly carried out,
at least as long as the institution of the family exists’ (Rawls 1999: 64). But if we
include all of the effects of socialization on motivation as relevant, then fair
equality of opportunity looks like an extremely strong principle that would
require intrusive interventions into family and community life. In that event, the
principle comes close to advocating equality of outcome.
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40 Debra Satz
It is of no use in resolving the question of how to deal with stunted ambition
to appeal to the role of individual choice in justifying differences in motivation
and effort. In applying the principle of equality of opportunity to encompass the
issue of who becomes a qualified applicant for positions, we must deal with
children. While adults may choose what sacrifices to make with respect to pursuit
of careers, in the case of children’s socialization it is clear that children have
limited ability to shape their own socialization.
I do not believe that Rawls gives us a worked out answer to the question of
how to deal with the problem of stunted ambition. At the same time, I do think
that Rawlsian theory offers us some guidance as to how to approach this problem.
As I noted above, fair equality of opportunity is embedded in a theory of justice
for a democratic society, a society that does not allot people into different social
positions on the basis of their race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation or gender.
A democratic society stands in sharp opposition to a social order based on caste,
where roles and responsibilities are distributed according to one’s ascriptive identity at birth. It is hard to imagine how an education system would be able to
instantiate such a society without engaging in teaching that also combated the
stereotypes, stigma, and lack of due regard that produce significant differentiation of ambitions between female and male, rich and poor, and black and white
children. Stigma and stereotyping limit and shape social possibilities and make
these limits appear natural or rational. When a group is the recipient of stigmatizing attitudes, individuals in that group often internalize those demeaning a
ttitudes or at least adapt to them and level down their own expectations. Where
stigma and stereotyping have a hold, a robust educational effort at ‘counterstigmatization’ is necessary to enable individuals to realize their capacities
for self-respect and self-determination. In the presence of stigmatization and
stereotyping, it is not enough to appeal to formally equal chances for those
similarly talented and able (Loury 2002).
The important Rawlsian liberties of free choice of occupation and political
participation would also seem to require the abolition of many forms of gender
and racial stereotyping and stigmatization. To the extent that the social meaning
of race and gender leads blacks and women to participate less in the political
process, and to have effectively open to them a far narrower range of employment possibilities than are open to others, then justice requires removing those
obstacles.
To be sure, it is true that even in a just society without the pervasive
stigmatization of blacks and other groups there will be a variety of lives, and the
lives people choose will inevitably be influenced by their social and cultural
backgrounds. (Of course, sometimes the influence is in terms of reaction
formation, where children seek to sharply counter their backgrounds – e.g. a
child of a religious upbringing becomes an atheist, etc.) The response to this fact
is surely not that all such influences are problematic. Our cultural and social
backgrounds help make us who we are. Fair equality of opportunity cannot
reasonably be aimed at every difference in outcome between individuals, even
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Unequal chances 41
with respect to those differences in life prospects that are socially influenced.
Rather, it makes sense to conceive of fair equality of opportunity as a critical tool
that is aimed at identifiable injustices in the ways that people are treated. So we
need some criteria for identifying which socialization influences are problematic
from the standpoint of justice. Here is my suggestion: socialization influences are
problematic when (a) they are predicated on, or support, ideas of the unequal
worth of persons; or (b) they confine people to choices within less than decent
sets of options; or (c) they fail to equip people with the ability to ‘cope with the
preferences [our] upbringing leaves us with’ (Rawls 1996: 185); or (d) they make
some subservient to others on the basis of those influences. The real question has
to be whether, given socialization, each person has a reasonable chance at a
decent life in which they can relate to others on terms of equality.
2. The importance of the family and the relationships between family
members give rise to a second objection to Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity.
Harry Brighouse argues that for some children to have equality of opportunity for careers and positions in the workforce, they must alienate themselves
from their families and local cultures (Brighouse 2007). To many, such alienation
has costs: ‘. . . the mainstream (as it is represented) is essentially White, this means
you must give up many particulars of being Black – styles of speech and appearance,
value priorities, preferences – at least in a mainstream setting. This is asking a lot’
(Steele 1992).
Brighouse correctly points out that careers and the income and wealth that
attach to them are only one feature of a person’s life. Pursuit of careers may
require trade-offs with other valuable aspects of a life: connection to community,
identity, authenticity, and family relationships. Furthermore, the integration of
long-segregated groups carries psychological costs. These costs are not trivial.
Brighouse argues that when we are assessing such trade-offs and costs, the value
of equality of opportunity itself ‘is not fundamentally important’ (Brighouse
2007: 157). What is important is the overall quality of lives people lead and how
overall quality of life is distributed among different individuals. He argues that
whether those lives were secured through fair equality of opportunity or other
mechanisms is not – nor should be – primary to our assessment.7
It is undoubtedly true that integration into mainstream society imposes costs
on those whose culture and values lie at the periphery of that society. But it is
important also to keep in mind that achieving social justice will not be cost free
to the elite mainstream either. Many white middle-class kids will also have to
change if we are to achieve fair equality of opportunity. Race segregated patterns
of affiliation will have to be dismantled; there will need to be cognitive changes
in how members of non-majority groups are viewed; the capacity to deal
cooperatively and empathetically with heterogeneous others will have to be
developed; and so on. While what Orlando Patterson has called the ordeal of
integration undoubtedly has costs to those who have been historically excluded,
it has costs on others as well. Much as we would like, we cannot make those costs
go away: the question is whether the benefits are worthwhile.
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42 Debra Satz
In evaluating Brighouse’s criticism of equality of opportunity, it is important
to recognize that the achievement of fair equality of opportunity does not justify
the demand for assimilation in the context of our current job market. Indeed, fair
equality of opportunity does not by itself justify any set of social arrangements:
those arrangements have to be justified on other grounds. That is, the fact that
the employment structure or political structure may fulfill the conditions for
equality of opportunity does not by itself serve to justify them. Equality of opportunity does not justify arbitrary prohibitions on ethnocentric affiliations, or justify
careers predicated on the elimination of group differences or on a demeaning
cultural conformity. While habits of hard work, collaborative skills, and honesty
are desirable attributes in the workplace, clubby, insular patterns of behavior that
track those of current elites are not. Equality of opportunity cannot justify
unequal or disparaging relationships between people; it does not justify
exclusionary norms of dress, speech and hairstyle. Nor does it justify the current
configuration of careers – e.g. predicated on a caregiver at home – or the rewards
that attach to them.
Consider, for example, that some of the skills that some employers value in
terms of filling positions may be problematic. Employers sometimes value traits
such as having a high marginal utility of income or having very competitive
attitudes to fellow employees. But such traits can also be condemned on many
grounds; other dispositions – such as the ability to work effectively in groups, and
empathy – might well be socially preferred. The fact that everyone has the equal
opportunity to acquire the former competitive traits does not justify them.
Similarly, if everyone had equal opportunity to be a tyrant, that would not make
despotism acceptable.
This point is crucial. We cannot avoid grappling with the question of which
opportunities matter – which institutions, lives and social practices do we have
reason to value? In the context of debates about schooling, policy makers often
focus on the available measures of test scores and employment outcomes. This is
understandable because such measures are tractable but these measures narrow
the outcomes that individuals and societies have reason to care about.8
If the background social structure is itself problematic in various ways then this
structure must be the direct object of our attention. Moreover, employment –
particularly when viewed through the lens of income and wealth – is only one
important but limited index of how a person’s life is going.
To be clear, while I agree that the current costs and benefits that attach to
pursuing certain careers may not serve to make the pursuit of those careers
rational for everyone, I disagree that this tells against the value and importance of
equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity is a value that governs the
distribution of certain goods that the state provides; it does not tell us precisely
which goods the state should provide, the size of the rewards that should attach
to these goods, or what these goods should be like qualitatively. It does not tell
us which goods (and the opportunities to acquire them) matter – we need an
independent argument for that. Below I will argue that we need to think about
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Unequal chances 43
equality of opportunity as governing far more than the distribution of prestigious
careers, and we need to attend to the too-high stakes that attach in our current
world to having access to such careers.9
3. Fair equality of opportunity is meant to ensure that social origins play no
role in the distribution of social positions. However, it does allow talent to play a
role in the allotment of such positions. If two people compete for a job and one
is more talented than the other with respect to the skills that the job requires,
then fair equality of opportunity rewards the job to the more skilled person. It
might seem then to offer little to the person who turns out to have low skills – at
least low with respect to the kinds of skills a market economy values.
Nonetheless, in Rawls’ formulation it is a weighty value: it asserts that
maximizing the well-being of the least advantaged can be compromised for the
sake of distributing a particular good – opportunities for positions – equally
among those with similar talents and motivations. Rawls prioritizes this value
even though some unfair competitions, all things considered, might make the
least advantaged better off than they would be under fair competitions.
If we consider the perspective of the low-skilled person – a person who may wind
up with low talent through no fault of her own – then the priority that Rawls
accords his fair equality of opportunity principle over his difference principle
might appear to be unattractive. Critics argue that fairness considerations do not
seem very weighty when compared with other goods, especially in the non-ideal
world in which we live. The thrust of this third criticism of Rawls defends the
benefits of certain inequalities because they benefit the worst off – even when the
provision of those benefits violates fair equality of opportunity.
There are two forms that this criticism has taken. The first questions the
priority of fair equality of opportunity over improving the lives of the worst off
under non-ideal conditions. Consider the following example, adapted from one
given by Brighouse and Swift (2006). Suppose that a university decides to auction
off a place of entry for which wealthy parents whose children meet certain
qualifications can bid. The university will then use the fees collected to offer
scholarships to 100 additional needy and qualified students it would not have
been able to admit otherwise. This arguably constitutes a violation of fair equality
of opportunity: money, and not talent and motivation, is determining access to a
university position.10 But, under the circumstances, since the lives and
opportunities of 100 extra students will be improved and no student will be
denied entrance because of the additional admission of one wealthy parent’s
child, there is a case, at least in theory, for this kind of policy. Unfair competitions
may sometimes benefit the unfairly treated, at least when compared with the
status quo baseline.
The second form this objection has taken is to dispute the prioritizing of fair
equality even under ideal conditions. On this view, when fair equality comes
into conflict with whatever is necessary to improve the lives of the worst off,
improving those lives should have priority. Fair equality of opportunity gives too
much weight to the norm of merit, holding that those who are naturally more
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44 Debra Satz
talented and develop their talents should enjoy greater prospects for positions of
advantage. Proponents of this line of argument doubt that fair equality of opportunity has much value at all – at most perhaps we might want a formal opportunity
principle to preclude discrimination based on race or gender (Arneson 1999).
These objections raise serious issues. It is plausible to think that, in non-ideal
circumstances, there are indeed considerations concerning the lives of the worst
off that can trump the value of fair equality of opportunity. Perhaps the above
example is one of these. Similarly, it is plausible to doubt the strict lexical priority
that Rawls assigned his fair equality of opportunity principle in Theory of Justice
(Rawls 1996: 228ff). But I do not think we should assimilate fair equality of
opportunity to the Rawlsian difference principle which maximizes certain
resources of the least well off: fair equality of opportunity is independently
important. It is central to the idea of a democratic society of equals. Indeed, it is
difficult to see why people would insist upon equal basic liberties (Rawls’ first
principle) as a marker of their equal status, even at the price of fewer other primary
goods, and not insist on a more general and explicit protection of their equal
status by a prohibition on arbitrary discriminatory treatment.
The argument for fair equality of opportunity has many affinities with the
argument for Rawls’ equal basic liberty principle. The importance of the fair
equality of opportunity principle goes far beyond the idea that merit should
determine who gets access to employment opportunities. Because it is related to
the idea that the state owes all of its members the resources for full inclusion in
society, its violation strikes close to the core of a person’s sense of self-respect.
Fair equality of opportunity does not aim at equality of outcome. Nor does it
aim to redress naturally generated inequalities. Indeed, I have also argued that
the principle does not condemn all socially generated inequalities: some of these
inequalities are not sources of disadvantage; some of these socially generated
differences make us who we are.
Further, I believe that there is a case for the state itself sometimes providing
unequal opportunities to its citizens. On the one hand, there are benefits the
state must provide to all of its citizens, but on the other hand, there are benefits
it may provide that go beyond what it is obligated to provide to all. For example,
suppose that there is a level of advanced mathematical training which is not
something that the state could be reasonably said to owe to all its citizens.
Suppose, moreover, that investing in this training for some would have important
social benefits. Then, supposing other background conditions are in place,
I think there is an argument for permitting this kind of state investment so long
as it does not run afoul of anti-discrimination norms. Similarly, if very privileged
parents want to invest extra resources in their children’s education, no society will
have the resources to enable all children to keep up with them. We should object
to a conception of equality of opportunity that would level down what the
children of the privileged can achieve or would mandate an equally expensive
education for all simply on the grounds that there is a socially generated inequality
at issue. Instead, what is needed is a way of ensuring that the gap between the
Unequal chances 45
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least advantaged and the most advantaged is not so great that it undermines the
conditions for equal citizenship. There are a number of ways to do that: ensure
that the educational gap between the least advantaged and the middle range is
not too great – everyone must have a reasonably high proportion of what others
have; unbundle the high-stakes rewards from educational success – education
should not be the sole root to healthcare, a decent standard of living, meaningful
work, and flexible hours. All must have an adequate education for full citizenship
(Anderson 2007; Pogge 1989; Satz 2007).
4
I would like to bring these disparate thoughts together in the context of education, race and class.
Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity is an important principle, but I have
argued that to realize its promise as an anti-discrimination principle for a
democratic society it needs to be broadened beyond income class to accommodate
the disadvantages that currently attach to race and gender.
Relatedly, I have claimed that the opportunities that are to be secured by this
principle should not be narrowed to employment, especially when that is viewed
primarily in terms of income and wealth. Opportunities for ‘culture and
achievement’ have a potentially much larger domain than careers. We should not
simply apply our opportunity principle, whatever it is, to the current structure of
employment: we need to ask which opportunities matter and why.
It is here that I think that the idea of equal citizenship helps guide the scope of
fair equality of opportunity. Its enables us to broaden the purview of our
opportunity principle beyond income class without encompassing all socialization
differences between people and it directs us to think about the opportunities that
matter if people are to relate as equals, besides employment and career.
T.H. Marshall (1950) usefully identified three aspects of equality implicit in
the status of citizenship: political equality, civil equality, and social equality.
Political equality involves the equal right ‘to participate in the exercise of political
power, as a member of a body invested with political authority, or as an elector of
the members of such a body’. Civil equality involves an equality of ‘rights
necessary for individual freedom – liberty of the person, freedom of speech,
thought and faith, the right to property and to conclude valid contracts, and the
right to justice’. Social equality encompasses the right to ‘a modicum of economic
welfare and security’ and the right to ‘share to the full in the social heritage and
to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the
society’ (Marshall 1950: 10–11).
If we measure equality of opportunity in terms of the ‘opportunity to participate
fully in the political, civic and economic life of the community’ – to stand as a
citizen in a society of equals – then we will need to attend to other measures
besides access to careers: not everyone will want or be able to opt for a college
education or a high-flying career.
46 Debra Satz
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Education has long been recognized as a ‘foundation of good citizenship’, a
necessary condition for full membership in the political community. As the
Supreme Court wrote in its 1954 Brown decision, education is required for the
‘performance of our basic public responsibilities’ and its absence effectively shuts
out individuals from participation in society (Brown v. Board of Education 1954).
In broad outlines, the state owes to its citizens an education that:
(a) gives them a threshold of knowledge and competence for public responsibilities such as voting, serving on a jury and the meaningful exercise of civil
liberties such as freedom of speech;
(b) gives them sufficient knowledge for productive work and independence;
(c) develops their capacities for empathy, self-respect, imagination and reciprocity.
It is important to note that the list is about achievements, not opportunities.
Indeed, when thinking of children, opportunity is not the relevant metric: we
want children to learn to read, not to have the fair opportunity to learn to read.
But these achievements need to be evaluated bearing in mind what others have.
An education adequate for equal citizenship includes but goes beyond the
cultivation of a narrow list of individual skills. A democratic society is more than
a collection of independent individuals, but includes the ways that people
cooperate and relate to one another in employment, in politics and in making
social decisions, in their neighborhoods and within public spaces. This means that
the standards for an adequate education are importantly relational. What is
required to serve on a jury or to participate effectively in political life depends on
what others know. This is why, although strict equality of educational opportunity
is not required for equal citizenship, the lives of the advantaged and disadvantaged
can not grow too distant from one another.
Moreover, while some aspects of civic competence (e.g. numeracy, literacy, the
knowledge of history) can be achieved by individuals alone or in varying contexts,
other competencies (e.g. mutual understanding, mutual respect, and tolerance) are
group achievements (Anderson 2007). Do today’s students really have the skills for
respect, cooperation with others, and independence? And are they likely to develop
some of these skills in settings where students are divided by class and race?
Desegregation and finance reform have often been policy goals of those seeking
to advance equity but these goals have largely been pursued separately (sometimes
by necessity): from the point of view of education’s relationship to equal
citizenship, these goals should be brought together in the pursuit of equal
educational opportunity.11 Why? Let us see how the two points I made above
support the conclusion that a focus on inequalities in school funding alone is not
sufficient. The first point was the need to enlarge fair equality of opportunity
beyond income class and the second point was to broaden the domain of fair
equality of opportunity beyond employment.
First, with respect to challenging the stunting of ambition that goes hand in
hand with racism and sexism: integration is an important factor in changing our
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Unequal chances 47
conceptions of ourselves and others. The mechanisms of social mobility and
intergenerational status transmission are crucially sensitive to patterns of contact.
As Jonathan Kozol, who has spent a lifetime trying to redress educational funding
inequalities has noted in the context of the divisions between rich and poor: ‘. . .
money is not the only issue that determines inequality. A more important factor,
I am convinced, is the makeup of the student enrollment, who is sitting next to you
in class. When virtually every child in the class is poor, a mood of desperation
develops, a sense of hopelessness . . . When poor kids share the class with rich children and upper middle class kids, who grow up with infinite dreams, those dreams
become contagious and every child benefits’ (quoted in Kahlenberg 2001: 37).
A body of empirical research also shows that the absence of contact is a critical
factor in the persistence of racial stereotypes and racial stigma. Integration is clearly
not a panacea but there is now ample evidence that tangible resources alone do not
entirely offset the complex consequences of racial and socio-economic isolation.
Second, while I have argued that many differences in the distribution of
resources provided by the state are objectionable, I have left open the possibility
that some such differences can be justified. Some differences in school funding
are justified because they go beyond what the state is obligated to provide (e.g.
special advanced mathematics classes for high-school students) if they provide a
social benefit. And some differences in what private parties (e.g. parents) provide
may also be justified if and as long as they do not undermine the social conditions
for students to relate as equals. Admittedly, the idea of an education adequate for
equal citizenship is a harder idea to operationalize than strict equality, but it is not
impossible. How much inequality in educational resources is acceptable depends
in part on the background features of the society which helps shape the rewards
that attach to educational and employment success In American society, access to
well-paid employment is closely linked to public benefits that other societies see
as pre-requisites of citizenship: healthcare, childcare, parental leave provisions,
and relief of poverty. This makes it harder to argue that educational inequalities
do not strike at the core of citizenship.12 This is also true when schools are already
de facto segregated by race and class. Where social benefits are decoupled from
career success, an equal-citizenship view targets inequality at salient and injurious
lines of social division that lead to disadvantage. This means, effectively, that
everyone should have the preparation for college: no one should be relegated to
inferior social positions on account of social factors.
5
I have argued for the following claims:
(a) Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity is an important principle that has value
apart from a concern with the prospects of the least well off.
(b) Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity is ambiguous as to scope, and can
oscillate between a principle that is too strong or too weak.
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48 Debra Satz
(c) In education, we should ensure that all children have the achievements
necessary for equal citizenship. These achievements provide opportunities
that encompass but go beyond opportunities for employment. They also
encompass opportunities for political, civic and social participation. Rawlsian
fair equality of opportunity is best understood in these terms.
(d) Equal citizenship does not require substantively equal educational opportunities among all individuals but it does require that inequality in these
opportunities be bounded.
(e) In evaluating opportunity principles, we need to decide what we want
opportunities for.
Notes
1. I am grateful to Maria Costa for her thoughtful comments on this article, as well
as the other participants in ‘Race, Opportunity, and Education’, the Second
Annual Conference in the Philosophy of Education at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education, 14–15 October 2011.
2. Jencks also argues that all plausible interpretations of equality of opportunity have
problematic implications.
3. More specifically it rules out such discrimination when these characteristics are
irrelevant for the positions.
4. Rawls does, however, write that ‘resources for education are not to be allotted
solely or necessarily mainly according to their return as estimated in productive
trained abilities, but also according to their worth in enriching the personal and
social life of citizens’ (Rawls 1999: 92).
5. The principle, however, treats natural inequalities differently.
6. These criticisms overlap with, but also diverge from, an older line of egalitarian
criticism. According to the older criticism, equality of opportunity was itself a
mere form of consolation for the exceptional individuals who evaded the fate of
the majority of their class.
7. Brighouse notes a political cost to abandoning equality of opportunity: given the
idea’s popularity, it marginalizes theorists from practical policy demands.
8. A similar point might be made about a focus on resources as a measure of
school quality: it is intuitively appealing and doesn’t depend on a one-size-fitsall view of education. It is tractable (although measure needs cost adjustment
for inputs costs vary in different locations) but it overlooks the point that not all
resources are the same (money might buy textbooks of very different quality) and
most crucially schools vary in their ability to convert resources to outcomes.
9. I have in mind the extent that access to health care, to safe neighborhoods, to
good schools, to time with one’s children, and so on, depend on having access to
certain kinds of jobs.
10. Since private universities should have some discretion in admissions – for example,
they should be able to choose students on the basis of geographical diversity –
more needs to be said about how equality of opportunity applies in this context.
Thanks to Randall Curren for pressing this point.
11. Recently, there have been signs of a willingness of courts to tie integration and
financial resources together: Sheff v. O’Neill (an equal education is ‘free from
substantial racial and ethnic isolation’) and Horton v. Meskill (redistributed
funding to poorest schools). In both cases courts drew out the relationship
between desegregation and funding in achieving equal educational opportunity.
Unequal chances 49
12. Admittedly, engagement in work shapes identity and self-esteem, and provides
people with what are often their most robust avenues for cooperative activity.
This is why it is a central part of an opportunity principle. But it should not be
the whole. Also important are the opportunities for meaningful political
engagement, for taking care of the elderly and the young, for promoting the arts,
and for building civic institutions.
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References
Anderson, E. (2007) ‘Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality
Perspective’, Ethics, 117: 595–622.
Arneson, R. (1999) ‘Against Rawlsian Equality of Opportunity’, Philosophical Studies,
93: 77–112.
Aud, S., Husser, W., Kena, G., Bianco, K., Frohlich, L., Kemp, J. and Tahan, K.
(2011) ‘Grade Retention’, in The Condition of Education (NCES 2011–033),
Washington, DC: US Department of Education.
Brighouse, H. (2007) ‘Equality of Opportunity and Complex Equality: The Special
Place of Schooling’, Res Publica, 13: 147–58.
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2006) ‘Equality, Priority and Positional Goods’, Ethics,
116: 471–97.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) 347 US 483, 493.
Fishkin, J. (1984) Justice, Equal Opportunity and the Family, New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Freyer, R. and Levitt, S. (2004) ‘Understanding the Black–white Test Score
Gap in the First Two Years of School’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 86:
447–64.
Fullinwider, R. and Lichtenberg, J. (2004) Leveling the Playing Field: Justice, Politics
and College Admissions, New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Heise, M. (2001) ‘Choosing Equal Educational Opportunity’, University of Chicago
Law Review, 68: 1113.
Jencks, C. (1988) ‘Whom Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to be
Equal?’, Ethics, 98: 518–33.
Kahlenberg, R. (2001) All Together Now: Creating Middle Class Schools Through
Public School Choice, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Kochhar, R., Fry, R. and Taylor, P. (2011) ‘Wealth gaps rise to record highs between
whites, blacks’, Hispanics, Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, available at:
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26 (accessed 21 April 2012).
Loury, G. (2002) The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Marshall, T. (1950 [1977]) Class, Citizenship and Social Development, Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Miller, D. (2010) ‘Equality of Opportunity and the Family’, in D. Satz and R. Reich
(eds) Toward a Humanist Justice: The Political Philosophy of Susan Moller Okin.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
National Poverty Center (2010) ‘Poverty in the United States’, available at: http://
www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/ (accessed 21 April 2012).
Pogge, T. (1989) Realizing Rawls, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Rawls, J. (1996) Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press.
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50 Debra Satz
——— (1999) A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Rothstein, R. (2004) Class and Schools, Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
Satz, D. (2007) ‘Equality, Adequacy and Education for Citizenship’, Ethics, 117:
623–48.
Scanlon, T. (1996) ‘The diversity of objections to Inequality’, Lindley Lecture,
University of Kansas.
Steele, C. (1992) ‘Race and the Schooling of Black America’, The Atlantic, April:
68–75.
Williams, B. (1962) ‘The Idea of Equality’, in P. Laslett and W.G. Runciman (eds)
Philosophy, Politics and Society, 2nd series, Oxford: Blackwell.
Zeidenberg, J. and Schiraldi, V. (2002) ‘Cellblocks or classrooms? The funding of
higher education and its impact on African American men’, Justice Policy Institute,
available at: http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/2046 (accessed 21 April
2012).
Chapter 3
Non-comparative
justice in education
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Thomas Schramme
Introduction
Many people agree that education in Western societies is organised unjustly. Not
surprisingly, though, they disagree on what exactly constitutes injustice in
education. In this chapter I highlight two reasons why the issue of justice in
education has been vexing us for such a long time. One reason is that it is unclear
what exactly amounts to education. Here, I contrast education and training, and
defend a very broad notion of education, indeed a notion that is so broad that it
is hardly usable to discuss issues of justice. I do not see this as a problem of this
idea of education but as a hint at our occasionally restricted viewpoint on
education when we discuss educational justice – a restriction we should be aware
of. Another reason for the lack of progress in the debate is that we have different
notions of justice that are not sufficiently separated. Here I will point out, and
trade on, the difference between comparative and non-comparative justice that
was introduced by Joel Feinberg some forty years ago. This distinction, though
not often explicitly used, still has important traces in the current debate regarding
justice in education, especially concerning the dispute between egalitarianism and
sufficientarianism (or educational equality versus educational adequacy; cf.
Brighouse and Swift 2009). I will opt for non-comparative justice in education
and I will give flesh to this account by discussing specifically the notion of equality
of opportunity. A non-comparative reading of this principle, as applied to higher
education, asserts that everyone should have a real opportunity to achieve a
university degree. This can be a demanding ideal. It requires an answer to the
question as to what hurdles people face in pursuing the aim of gaining access to
higher education are normatively significant. I point out that this question cannot
be answered by stating statistical differences between academic achievements of
‘advantaged’ and ‘disadvantaged’ groups.
What is non-comparative justice?
Many philosophers believe that justice essentially requires impartiality (e.g.
Barry 1995). Injustice, for many, is arbitrary treatment or discrimination; hence
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52 Thomas Schramme
impartiality indeed seems to be a basic requirement of justice. Impartiality
can be understood, firstly, as impartiality in treating others; hence it is often
said that treating like cases equally is a basic theorem of justice (Benn and
Peters 1959: 111; Hart 1961: 155). Sometimes, this latter idea is even linked to
requirements of rationality, as it seems to be a requirement of consistency to treat
equal cases equally.1 Secondly, impartiality can be understood as a second-order
idea, when it is said that principles of justice have to be justified to everyone
affected.2 This is of course strongly linked to contractualist theories of justice. In
either case of impartiality, justice seems to require some kind of equality, either
equal treatment or equal justification. It is no surprise, then, that many philosophers actually identify justice and equality. Indeed, some philosophers hold
that some kind of egalitarian distribution is actually implied by these formal
aspects of impartiality, since they seem to put the onus of justification on any
distribution that diverts from an equal distribution. Hence some philosophers
hold a presumption of equal distribution (Berlin 1955–56; Tugendhat 1993:
374; Gosepath 2004: 200ff.; cf. Westen 1990: 230ff.). In fact, however, the
presumption of equal distribution does not merely follow from a formal notion,
i.e. impartiality, but requires in addition the further claim that people are equally
deserving in a certain respect. People deserve, it is claimed, the same amount of
a particular good, say welfare, opportunities, capabilities, or any other metric
of justice, because they are moral equals. As has already been indicated, discrimination or arbitrariness is ruled out when discussing principles of justice.
So the formal principle of justice, i.e. to treat equal cases equally or to justify
principles impartially, together with equality of status of persons, seems to
demand equality of distribution in at least some respect.
I believe the egalitarian idea can be captured in a basic principle of justice,
which is also formal in that it does not preclude non-egalitarian distributions
either: For all X that fulfil criterion Y, Z is due. Different theories can flesh out
this principle in different ways, for instance by stating that for all human beings
who have a disease, medical treatment ought to be provided. This principle seems
to underlie the mentioned idea of treating equal cases equally; it also calls for
consistency, but not because of any value of consistency or equality per se, but
because of the contingent fact that some cases are to be considered equal on the
basis of a fixed criterion. Equal treatment is then indeed simply a side-effect of
consistently sticking to the mentioned principle. Since we today almost universally
believe in status equality, many people also hold that at least when it comes to
basic goods all people are equally deserving simply because they are persons. In
terms of the formal basic principle: For all beings that are persons, basic goods are
due. The distribuenda or goods that are to be distributed, Z, can be either a fixed
absolute amount or measured in relation to other claim holders, i.e. to other Xs
that fulfil criterion Y. For egalitarians, Z usually means an equal amount of
something, for instance equal social primary goods, equal opportunities to
welfare, or equal capabilities. But egalitarian justice does not necessarily follow
from the notion of impartiality, not even in combination with status equality. For
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Non-comparative justice in education 53
instance, if we demand the fulfilment of basic needs as a matter of justice, equal
amounts of goods might be due to people if they are equally needy. But their
needs do not depend on the situation of others, so in this case equal treatment is
a contingent consequence of equal needs.3
Egalitarian justice is necessarily comparative (Frankena 1962: 9; cf. Hart
1961: 159). To be, or to become, equal to someone else in a certain respect
requires a standard of comparison. Person A might be, for instance, equal to
person B in terms of income. In that case, A and B would need to have the
same income in order to be deemed equal. If we want to find out whether
they are indeed equal, we need to compare them, not only against the standard
of comparison, i.e. income, but also against each other. Whether A is equal to B
depends on the situation of B and the other way round. For purposes of justice it
is important to note that justified claims of persons might be due to the situation
of others. In the example given, if justice requires equal income, how much is due
to claimants depends on the actual income of others. Even the second-order idea
of equal justification is comparative, at least as it is conceived in major theories of
justice. For instance, Rawls assumes that nobody would agree to principles of
justice that would give other people more (unless there is a reason that would
make such an inequality agreeable). So whether a person agrees, i.e. deems a
proposed principle of justice justified, is due not only to the situation they project
for themselves given such a principle, but also on the projected situation of others.
If they believe that other people will fare better under a considered principle of
justice without an additional justification, such as a benefit to themselves, they
will reject the principle. Hence Rawls’s general conception of justice reads: ‘All
social values – liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the social bases of
self-respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any,
or all, of these values is to everyone’s advantage’ (Rawls 1999: 54).
Comparative justice, especially in the version of egalitarianism, is the received
view of the philosophical debate today. But there is a reasonable alternative: noncomparative justice. The term ‘non-comparative justice’ was introduced by Joel
Feinberg, first in his book Social Philosophy (1973: 98f.) and then more thoroughly
in an article published in 1974: ‘In all cases, of course, justice consists in giving a
person his due, but in some cases one’s due is determined independently of that
of other people, while in other cases, a person’s due is determinable only by
reference to his relations to other persons. I shall refer to contexts, criteria, and
principles of the former kind as noncomparative, and those of the latter sort as
comparative’ (Feinberg 1974: 298).
Feinberg’s distinction draws attention to the standard of comparison that has
been mentioned before. In some cases of justice we do not need to make interpersonal comparisons, in contrast to the mentioned example of comparisons
of income, but merely need to compare each person against a fixed standard. For
instance, if we want to make sure that everyone has (at least) a certain amount
of income, say 1000 $ per month, then we can compare each person against this
standard. We then do not need to compare persons against each other, because
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54 Thomas Schramme
whether each person individually fulfils this standard is not due to the situation
of any other person. So if the standard of comparison is set in an absolute manner,
for instance by a certain amount of something, then it is a non-comparative
standard, and principles of justice that are based on such an absolute standard
are principles of non-comparative justice.4 We can now return to the basic principle of justice that allows for either comparative or non-comparative readings. For
all X that fulfil criterion Y, Z is due. It is now clear that non-comparative justice
could require giving all deserving Xs, i.e. all Xs that fulfil criterion Y, a fixed, or
absolutely set, amount of Z. How much is due to each X would in this case be
independent of how much any other X gets or has. Indeed, there might not even
be any other person X.
The difference between comparative and non-comparative justice can also
apply regarding the claim basis Y, since this criterion can be comparative or noncomparative. For instance, we could say that everyone who works a certain
amount of hours should get a particular pay; this is a non-comparative principle
of justice. But we might also demand as a matter of justice that, say, the most
productive person (or persons) should get a different amount of payment. Now,
who the most productive persons are is a matter of comparison. We do not know
unless we have weighed, as it were, the merits of each X against another.5 This is
why comparative justice makes a lot of sense in competitive scenarios (Feinberg
1974: 299). Whether someone wins a competition is usually depending on the
performance of competitors. More formally, we could for instance state the following principle: For every individual X that runs faster than any other X, a gold
medal is due. To be sure, there can be non-comparative kinds of contests.
For instance, it might be required that everyone, who, say, runs a mile in less than
10 minutes, ought to receive a particular price.
In summary, there can be reasonable and justified principles of comparative or
non-comparative justice. Especially competitive situations seem to call for comparative justice whereas contexts where basic needs are to be met seem to demand
non-comparative principles of justice. Note, however, that non-comparative
justice is not necessarily minimalist; sufficientarianism is only one version of it.
Non-comparative demands of justice might be highly demanding, for instance
when we require a high level of education for all. The obvious task for the remainder of this chapter is to determine what kind of context the social institution of
education represents and what kind of principles of justice, comparative or noncomparative, seem to be adequate for matters of education.
Training and education
Training and education are both very important aspects of our lives. They
start from our lives’ very beginning and can be considered to last until death,
though in its institutionalised forms education and training are most common
and influential in what is called the formative years, i.e. childhood until adulthood.
For my purposes, it is important to note a strong relation between education
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Non-comparative justice in education 55
and individual development. Indeed, the German word ‘Bildung’, which is
often used in English publications to convey a particular cultural tradition that
goes back to at least Wilhelm von Humboldt, has been translated with the word
‘development’, whereas the English word ‘education’ is again usually translated
into German by ‘Bildung’. There is a strong tradition, epitomised in John Stuart
Mill’s essay On Liberty, which closely links the notions of individuality,
development, happiness, and education. It is obvious, in this tradition, that
education does not only serve to make people ‘fit’ for leading their own lives or
to be autonomous persons, but also to turn them into what are called ‘wellrounded’ persons. This ideal contains far more than can be taught in schools
or universities, it is the aim of sociality per se, including moral development.
Education, according to this reading, is therefore an end in itself, perhaps the
very purpose of life.
It is obvious that this very general and idealised notion of education does not
apply to modern institutionalised educational systems, such as schools or universities. Today, education has indeed become a place of competition, and education,
especially in so-called higher education, has taken over many aspects of training.
The Humboldtian ideal of Bildung has more or less disappeared from universities,
if it had ever gained any foothold. Still, it might be useful to remember this traditional notion of education when thinking about justice in current education.
In line with these introductory remarks regarding education, the main difference between training and education I want to focus on is their different kinds of
value. Training – the acquisition of particular skills and capacities – usually has
mainly instrumental value in that it provides the means to achieve certain goals,
most importantly in relation to jobs and professions. Vocational training, which
is known in many countries, might serve as an example, though the very fact that
it is also regularly called vocational education can bear evidence of the ultimately
artificial separation of education and training. Surely, I do not want to deny that
the acquisition of skills can be seen as an end in itself. This can happen especially
when a person develops an interest in the performance of a certain skill itself, say
cooking or carpentry, and when they aim at perfecting these skills. Yet, generally
speaking, the ends of training are commonly defined by certain milestones or
achievements – usually capacities to perform tasks – which need to be realised by
trained persons. Especially as regards training that is organised by state institutions or funded by public monies, it is probably advisable to lay down certain
standards of training, which should be achieved by every trained person, and not
to conceive such instruction as open-ended. In that respect training simply provides the means to these fixed ends, and the ends are determined by social interests in a particular profession and by the instrumental requirements of taking on
these roles. So a cook in a school cafeteria, for instance, does not need to be an
accomplished chef after training, but simply someone who can prepare healthy
and tasty meals.
Education, in contrast, does not prepare people to take on certain social roles,
but is a more general preparation to lead one’s own life (see also Curren, this
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56 Thomas Schramme
volume; and Meyer 2011). It is a less goal-orientated good, because there are no
clearly defined skills to achieve in order to be educated. In other words, there is
no straightforward saturation point, or minimally sufficient level of achievement,
in education – although such a level could be defined, as I will later discuss.
Indeed, several aspects of institutionalised education contain practices that are
considered ends in themselves, e.g. gaining knowledge, expressing oneself,
experiencing cultural products, or conversing with other persons (see also
Brighouse and Swift, this volume). In addition, as has been indicated before,
education can be regarded as a means to a special end, which again is an end in
itself, namely autonomy.6 Education, understood in this way, can arguably be
considered a human need, which is, at least partly, due to the perfectible nature
of human beings that Mill stressed in On Liberty.
The very fact that education is such a diverse good, i.e. that it does not pursue
a particular aim, and that it can be pursued by everyone at any time in his life,
makes it rather difficult to determine in what way it allows for considerations of
justice. How would, for instance, an egalitarian distribution of educational
resources look like? It is not even straightforward, whether the so-called circumstances of justice apply, because at least under a broad definition of education it
does not seem to be a scarce good but rather a ubiquitous resource. It is therefore
necessary to restrict the scope of the problem of justice in education by focusing
on a particular branch, such as university education, and on concrete aims, such
as the achievement of certain specific capacities (Brighouse 2005). It should be
noted, however, that if we restrict our range in this way, it seems that we have
already made the first step towards non-comparative justice, and this, again,
might be a reason why several scholars in the recent past have focused their attention on matters of ‘adequate’ education (Satz 2007 and this volume; cf. Brighouse
and Swift 2009; Macleod 2012), or education for a particular purpose, such as
citizenship (Anderson 2007). Indeed, the aspects of education I have highlighted
before make education (in certain respects) a non-competitive good, hence call
for non-comparative justice. However, these aspects do not apply to training and
potentially neither, more importantly for the purposes of this chapter, to at least
one particular branch of education, namely higher education, especially at university level. Whether we eventually see higher education as an object of comparative
or non-comparative justice at least partially depends on how we conceive of
higher education more generally, namely in terms of self-development, or in
terms of acquisition of skills. Here, we have at least potentially a fitting case of a
competitive institution, hence a fitting scenario of comparative justice. I will
accordingly focus on university education and scrutinise how far the notion of
non-comparative justice gets us in thinking about justice in education.
In this section, I have highlighted aspects of education, understood broadly as
means and goal of a pervasive form of development and self-development. These
aspects put education at variance with training, which is more focused on
particular skills to fulfil social roles and professions. Education is therefore difficult
to address as an issue of justice, especially from a comparative point of view. The
Non-comparative justice in education 57
qualities of education, especially the development and improvement of capacities
to lead one’s own life, are such that we normally do not want to provide them in
competitive scenarios but to secure their access for all.
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Equality of opportunity in education
Except for those elements of education that are more properly deemed training,
there is nevertheless at least one important branch of education proper, which
can and maybe should be open to competition, namely academic education. By
saying this, I do not want to endorse the current situation, where university
degrees put persons in an advantaged position to gain access to well-paid jobs or
to other economic benefits – where education has become something like a convertible currency to purchase other goods. On the contrary, I believe that this
very situation is a regrettable hindrance to perceive the real value that education
has – its worth but also the limits of its worth. Where academic education
becomes merely an economic asset, it loses its original status as an end in itself.
Also, not everyone necessarily regards academic education of sufficient value to
pursue it and might actually have good reasons not to. Yet, once it has been
turned into an exchange value like money, people will have an incentive to strive
for more of it – though for the wrong reason, namely not for its own sake. Again,
the picture I draw here is slightly exaggerated, since it is based on an ideal of
education that has probably long been lost, and maybe has never really had much
impact. But my purpose is to draw attention to aspects of education that are not
absurd and do indeed have a strong tradition in liberal thinking. Once we realise
this tradition, some of the problems of the current situation of institutionalised
education in many societies become less an issue of justice than one of current
conceptions of the good society and our way to organise education in general.
To put it more succinct and as clear as possible: university education per se
has never been and probably will never be an end in itself for everyone. To
propose otherwise is most likely based on a common academic prejudice of
people who are themselves academics (obviously, all university professors are
academics by definition). However, if and when university degrees are turned
into economic resources, everyone has a reason to pursue it for instrumental
reasons, and persons who do not gain access to this instrumental good
for whatever reason are to be deemed disadvantaged. This situation is the basis
of starting to see university education as a competitive scenario and to begin
discussing statistically determined differences in university enrolment of socioeconomic strata as an issue of justice.
To be sure, I do not want to say that socioeconomic background determines
or should determine one’s level of desired academic achievement. Obviously, a
desire to attend university is an individual matter, though, again, it is more likely
to be present in children of academics. Yet, to deem the non-existing desire to
aim at university education a kind of pathological aberration is made easier by an
assessment of it as an economic asset. Once this presumption is in place, we
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58 Thomas Schramme
should expect everyone to be interested in gaining access to university degrees for
reasons of economic rationality.
A slightly different but related point is the diverse quality of education in many
countries. Sometimes even the same quantitative amount of school or university
education, say 12 years in schools and 4 years in university programs, does not
lead to the same result for pupils and students of the same level of talent and
capability, because institutions have different funds, teachers with better or worse
capacities, and so on. This also seems to pose an issue of egalitarian justice,
because, after all, it should not matter where one lives or where one comes from
(in terms of socioeconomic background) in order to get the same level of
education.7 Indeed, this latter claim seems unquestionable, but does it really pose
an issue of comparative justice or does it rather put into doubt the quality of
education provided in some schools in deprived areas? I believe the latter to
clearly be the case. Surely, in terms of school education we usually require that
every child should get a decent level of it (hence the same level as everyone,
understood in terms of a non-comparative standard), and should have the
opportunity to gain more of it, if desired and formally qualified to higher
education. But the sometimes extremely variable quality of schools is an issue of
quality, not of interpersonal comparison. In other words, injustice here is due to
the lack of decent education for some, not the fact that they receive worse,
i.e. relatively less, education than others. It is a matter of the absolute, i.e. bad,
level of education.8
Still, in a situation where university degrees, especially of highly esteemed
universities, have become assets for economic positions, the competition for
them should be fair. Fairness in gaining access to higher education, i.e. the case
I want to scrutinise in the remainder of this chapter, is often interpreted as
equality of opportunity, which usually means that social background ought not
to play any role in gaining access to this resource, but only individual merit.9
There is an important difference between a non-comparative and a comparative interpretation of equality of opportunity. Non-comparatively, it implies that
everyone has a real opportunity to achieve a certain goal. Equality of opportunities here simply means that people are equal in having an opportunity. In the case
at hand it means that nobody or no particular group is excluded to access higher
education. For instance, for a long time there was no such equality of opportunities in access to higher education for men and women, because women were not
allowed at universities. Obviously, this does not preclude a requirement that
certain formal criteria are to be fulfilled, such as A-levels or the German Abitur,
or even citizenship within the country where higher education is sought, in order
to be formally eligible to apply. These formal criteria can be called barriers, but
they can be deemed justified because there is a rationale for putting them up.
However, there could also be arbitrary or unjustifiable barriers, like the one mentioned that excluded women. In these cases, there is no equality of opportunity.
Equality of opportunity can also be interpreted more substantively, yet still in
a non-comparative fashion. Here, the background conditions that influence the
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Non-comparative justice in education 59
required abilities to fulfil any given formal criteria of access ought also to be taken
into consideration. For instance, it might be the case that a young woman is not
formally eligible to apply for a university degree scheme, because she had been
discouraged by her family to do A-levels, despite her ability to do them. Since we
would usually not expect considerable differences between socioeconomic or
cultural groups in terms of their members’ capabilities to fulfil the formal criteria
of access to universities, the statistically real differences between, say, children of
immigrants and children of academics in actual university enrolment, seem to
point at hindrances of achievement that are not connected to individual merit –
most likely at hidden discriminations.10 These hindrances can be called hurdles.
They are different from barriers in that they are informal. Substantive equality of
opportunities implies that not only barriers, but also hurdles, are to be removed.
However, one has to be wary that in this reading equality of opportunity might
turn into a notion of equal likelihood of gaining access to universities. Opportunities would then be equal when they are quantitatively equal in that everyone,
or every particular group, has about the same statistical probability to achieve a
certain aim. Opportunities, in other words, would then be regarded as chances or
odds. This would then be a comparative reading of equality of opportunity, since
one person’s opportunity to achieve something would itself be dependent on the
performance of others.
If we consider again the distinction between comparative and non-comparative
justice introduced in an earlier section, it should be obvious that a statistical
reading of pupils’ opportunities puts forward a comparative notion, since it
requires interpersonal comparison. Whether opportunities are equal between
persons (or groups) depends on their relation, in the extreme version mentioned
on a comparison of their statistically determined probabilities to go to university.
Justice here requires removing any possible disadvantages in relation to other
persons. It should be pointed out, though, that this point of view is based on
some shaky assumptions regarding underlying causalities of these presumed
disadvantages. After all, equality of opportunity is meant to remove only undeserved and unwanted differences in access. Now, the mentioned statistical
differences might be due to either lack of merit, or choices not to go to university.
The first explanation, different merit, seems rather implausible, because – as has
been said before – differences between socioeconomic or cultural groups in terms
of achievements that qualify for higher education should not be expected to be
based on differences in group members’ capacities. This, however, does not yet
provide evidence of injustice, since the second explanation of statistical differences,
which is based on choices, is less implausible. Indeed, the relatively lower level of
academic achievement in particular groups might well be due to the fact that they
do not see (on average) as high a value in higher education and therefore do not
invest as much effort as other groups.11 Here, several philosophers would doubt
the normative impact of such an explanation, as they deem a statistically less
likely decision to opt for university enrolment to be based on ‘stunted ambition’
(Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, pp. 38–40). But this argument is again based on
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60 Thomas Schramme
potentially dubious assumptions about hypothetical causalities, especially on the
contention that children from impoverished families would have cared as much
about higher education as children from affluent families, if they had been raised
in a different social or economic environment.12
I will return to this explanation shortly, but first want to summarise the point
made here about causalities by saying that it is indeed a long shot from statistical
data to claims such as Debra Satz’s, that ‘because of’ skin colour or social class
children face different life prospects (ibid. p. 35). This is just too simple an
argument, based on a possible confusion of correlations with causalities. Just to
repeat, so not to be misunderstood: it might after all be true that these data
can be explained on the basis of undeserved disadvantages, but there is a lot of
hand-waving involved in simply presuming that it is indeed the case.
I believe statistical data by itself cannot directly help us in discussing the
question which kinds of differences between persons pose normatively relevant
hurdles and which are acceptable. Simply by looking at intersubjective
incongruencies does not give us the answer. I am sure that all contributors to the
ongoing debate regarding justice in education would agree with this. Yet, by
asking the question about hurdles, we are not any more interested in comparative
justice, but return to a non-comparative account of equality of opportunity.
We are then interested in these hurdles that might unduly prevent a person
from achieving a university degree, and not interested in the comparative
position of this person in relation to others.13 The question then is, whether this
particular person has, or has had, a real opportunity to achieve academic
education. Some children might be hindered by normatively relevant influences,
others might not – never mind what their statistical likelihood of accessing a
university is. Although different probabilities might be evidence of an ignored
hurdle in gaining access to education, probabilities are, as such, normatively
insignificant.
Some hurdles seem to be themselves due to comparative aspects, after all. In a
situation where for instance some pupils have the support of their parents they
will find it easier to achieve the necessary requirements of gaining access to a
university than others who are not supported by their parents to the same degree.
Hence an unsupportive environment can itself be deemed a hurdle in a situation
where others have such support. Indeed, it seems fairly obvious that children
from poor families, migrants, black people, and members of other so-called
disadvantaged groups have – generally speaking – a harder time gaining access to
higher education. But note the comparative notion ‘harder’ here. Being harder
does not mean impossible, and only being harder to achieve is by itself hardly
posing an issue of justice. Non-comparative equality of opportunity is not present
anymore, however, when a person cannot really achieve something, i.e. does not
really have an opportunity.14 This might, for instance, be due to cultural
stereotypes or parental coercion, or, indeed, to formal barriers that have been
ignored in their significance on real opportunities, for instance the enormous
financial costs of higher education. So the main question of justice in (higher)
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Non-comparative justice in education 61
education is: does everyone have a sufficient chance to gain access to higher
education? This is a problem of non-comparative justice.
It might be objected that I have ignored the normative significance of the
comparative disadvantage of children from particular groups in gaining access to
those places in higher education that are in high demand, i.e. the particularly
competitive scenarios. It is well-known, of course, that institutions such as Oxford
University are not exactly swamped with children of the working class. In other
words, at least as far as some places in higher education are concerned – the truly
scarce ones – real opportunities seem to depend on the comparative position of
applicants. In other words, since education can be a ‘positional good,’ access to
it might depend on comparative aspects after all (Brighouse and Swift 2006).
The value of having a degree from Oxford depends on others not having such
a degree.
I believe this is correct as far as these particular examples go. Getting a place
at Oxford simply is a competitive scenario, so a lot of what I have said before
does not apply. But higher education per se is not necessarily restricted in the
way positional goods are. There could be decent higher education for all students
who are formally eligible. Also again I wonder whether the statistical differences
in access between socioeconomic strata alone raise issues of justice. If there
were no quotas or scholarships for ‘disadvantaged’ applicants, i.e. if there were no
ways to deal with the hurdles and barriers some people experience, then these
people would indeed be excluded from gaining access. But otherwise the situation
is comparable with other scarce resources. There is competition where some
people have better, some worse chances because of circumstances beyond their
control. The main problems with this, it seems to me, are, first, that institutions
like Oxford University are so much better funded and hence can offer much
better higher education than other universities, and, second, that degrees from
these places have such an impact on later economic positions, especially in terms
of salaries. Yet, these problems are not connected to equal opportunities to
gaining access to higher education but of the political and economic organisation
of many Western societies.
Returning to the issue of what kind of hurdles are normatively significant, a
good example of such hindrances is the problem of stunted ambition mentioned
earlier. The preference and motivation to actually endorse the value of higher
education is determined by one’s social environment, by parental education, peer
influence, or other circumstances, such as access to public libraries, etc. Hence, it
seems that the ambition to go to university is highly influenced by factors that
are beyond the person’s control and potentially ‘arbitrary from a moral point of
view’, to use Rawls’s famous expression (Rawls 1999: 14, 64). However,
the reverse is also true, of course: many are only highly ambitious students
because they have been ‘pressurised’ into the habit by their parents. The only
difference is that they have, according to the majority view of philosophers
working on justice in education (who are themselves academics), the ‘right’
values. The very notion of ‘stunted’ ambition makes clear that it is assumed that
62 Thomas Schramme
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the normal or healthy ambition is to go to university. But this is a contestable
claim, and I have already pointed out that it is trading on a misconception, or on
an endorsement of a normatively problematic interpretation, of higher education
as a competitive economic resource, which would make it rational to pursue on
the basis of self-interest. Hence I am not really impressed by this particular
argument concerning problematic hurdles in gaining access to higher education.
Still, it is a good example as to how we should indeed progress in leading this
kind of debate, namely by focusing on hurdles.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have defended a non-comparative viewpoint on justice in
education. I have also made some sceptical remarks regarding the current thinking
about education more generally. Equality of opportunity was scrutinised as a very
common criterion of justice in education. Again, it was shown that it makes more
sense to read it as a non-comparative notion, but that we are then required to
answer questions that are not often asked in the current debate. The scope of my
chapter is fairly restricted, though, because I have focused on higher education,
and I have assumed a contested and maybe somewhat unrealistic account of
what education is. In the current climate, where education has become a kind
of advanced training, we might want to endorse the competitive framework of
comparative justice after all. However, by aiming at this kind of justice, I doubt
we would also attempt to achieve a better world.
Notes
1 The significance of the theorem of treating equal cases equally does not really help
in determining what justice requires because it cannot itself determine whether a
particular situation requires considerations of justice in the first place – it is
a purely formal requirement. We need substantive rules to determine whether a
particular treatment is owed to someone before we can apply the formal principle
of justice (Gillespie 1975; Montague 1980: 135f.). For instance, a person might
be justified in giving a beggar some money on one day, but not the next day – even
if the ‘case’ is identical, because we believe the action to be supererogatory. To be
sure, Honoré assumed that for all actions that have a beneficial or detrimental
impact on others, we need to apply the formal principle of justice: ‘The demand
for conformity to rule prevails in practice even when the rule in question is mere
habit and not morally or legally binding. Of course it does not operate unless
some advantage or disadvantage to the claimant, the individual citizen, is involved’
(Honoré 1968: 70). It is often said, following Ronald Dworkin, that impartiality
does not require equal treatment per se, but ‘treatment as equals’ (Dworkin 1977:
227). The latter notion, to my mind, is simply another formal description, but this
time acknowledging that it needs to be fleshed out in substantive terms – in
Dworkin’s theory it is assumed that people have certain rights that determine
whether they are treated as equals.
2 We can ignore the problem of who the authors of such a principle are, i.e. whom
‘everyone affected’ refers to, for the purposes of this chapter.
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Non-comparative justice in education 63
3 This is a reason why any theory of justice that focuses on need fulfilment is not an
egalitarian theory.
4 I slightly depart here from Feinberg’s own account, because he states: ‘When our
task is to do noncomparative justice to each of a large number of individuals, we
do not compare them with each other, but rather we compare each in turn with
an objective standard and judge each (as we say) “on his merits”’ (Feinberg 1974:
300). To my mind, reference to an objective standard can be confusing here,
because it is rather the fact that the standard is absolute instead of its being nonsubjective that makes it a non-comparative standard.
5 Obviously, several aspects of this principle are underdetermined, for instance how
the concept of ‘productivity’ is interpreted and what the criteria for ‘most’
productive would be; but all these issues do not matter for drawing the distinction
between comparative and non-comparative justice.
6 Macleod (2012: 156) similarly distinguishes preparatory and intrinsic dimensions
of education.
7 Macleod (2012: 155) maintains that ‘all children are entitled to an equally
excellent education’. Does this mean that all children are entitled to the same
(excellent) level of education as others (comparative reading), or that every child
is entitled to an excellent education, such as any other children (non-comparative
reading)?
8 In Germany, different qualities of schools had not been discussed for a long time,
because almost all schools have provided decent quality of education. I believe this
still to be the case, though my experience is admittedly of anecdotal nature. The
very fact though, that slightly better schools today are believed to provide pupils
with an economic advantage in later life, has led to a situation where parents are
hysterical about school choice for their children. Similar developments are now
under way as regards university education, where, again, most universities in
Germany are of a fairly decent quality (though not in relation to the richest
universities worldwide), but now special state subsidies for so-called universities of
excellence lead to a more competitive situation. It seems obvious to me, though,
that these investments in Germany are not aiming at improving the level of higher
education per se, but focus on the global competition on a market for education.
University degrees have become a globalised asset, and Germany is competing
with other nations on such a market, and hence the quality of education is
supposed to be improved in order to enhance the competitive strength of (some)
German universities.
9 Maybe this is the right time to point out a problem that seems to me undertreated
in the literature on justice in education, namely whether equality of opportunity
in gaining access to higher education should be deemed a cosmopolitan idea.
Many issues of justice these days are discussed as global problems and one might
wonder, why not Congolese, Chinese, Australian, Indian, etc. students should
have equal opportunities to gain access to, say, places such as Stanford, Oxford or
Yale University.
10 Debra Satz, for instance, after having pointed out statistical differences between
black and white Americans’ level of academic achievement, claims that
these statistical differences ‘arguably’ raise considerations of justice (Satz, this
volume: Ch. 2, p. 34).
11 Consider a hypothetical case, where only 5% of musical prodigies of a cohort go
to the university. Hence, the group of musical prodigies would be relatively underrepresented and indeed statistically significantly less likely to opt for higher
education. However, hardly anyone would see this as normatively dubious,
because we tend to believe that they have good reasons to be interested in other
aspects of education than those taught at universities.
64 Thomas Schramme
12 This should not be the trivial point that if black or other under-represented
children were raised by other parents they would have had different preferences.
13 I will deal with a complication shortly, namely whether hurdles can be due to
comparative positions.
14 Similar thoughts are expressed by Andrew Mason (2006: 134ff.). He distinguishes
between a ‘neutralisation’ and a ‘mitigation’ approach and opts for the latter.
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Postscript, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Honoré, A. M. (1968) ‘Social Justice’, in R. Summers (ed.) Essays in Legal Philosophy,
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Macleod, C. (2012) ‘Justice, Educational Equality, and Sufficiency’, in C. Macleod
(ed.) Justice and Equality, Calgary: University of Canada Press.
Mason, A. (2006) Levelling the Playing Field: The Idea of Equality of Opportunity and
its Place in Egalitarian Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meyer, K. (2011) Bildung, Berlin: De Gruyter.
Montague, P. (1980) ‘Comparative and Non-Comparative Justice’, Philosophical
Quarterly, 30(119): 131–140.
Rawls, J. (1999) A Theory of Justice. Revised Edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Satz, D. (2007) ‘Equality, Adequacy and Education for Citizenship’, Ethics, 117:
623–648.
Tugendhat, E. (1993) Vorlesungen über Ethik, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Westen, P. (1990) Speaking of Equality. An Analysis of the Rhetorical Force of ‘Equality’
in Moral and Legal Discourse, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Chapter 4
Educational justice and the
justification of education
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Johannes Giesinger
The debate on educational justice is often conceived as a debate on distributive
patterns. However, if we talk about distributive justice, we have to clarify what –
namely what type of good – is to be distributed. In the case of educational justice,
the answer seems clear: the good in question is education.
However, this answer does not suffice. Two further questions arise at this
point. The first question is widely recognised as crucial to the theory of educational
justice: What is it that is to be distributed – educational resources, opportunities,
outcomes, or something else?1
In what follows, I will focus on a second question. This question can initially
be taken as a conceptual issue: What do we mean by the concept of education? It
is common to distinguish a general sense of the term from a more specific
meaning. Understood in a general sense, education refers to schooling and to
processes of teaching and learning. The question is whether all processes of
learning are educational. Even according to an unspecific understanding of the
term, certain instances of learning, such as learning to play billiards, might fall
outside the conceptual sphere of education. We must at least say that the debate
on educational justice is not concerned with the distribution of skills in billiards.
Instead of discussing this issue on a conceptual level, we could directly turn to
the normative question: Is billiards worth being taught at school? My basic claim
is that an account of educational justice cannot be agnostic or neutral with regard
to questions of this kind. In other words, it cannot avoid the question of which
types of education are worthwhile. Referring to the English philosopher of
education Richard Peters, we can call this the problem of justification.
Peters addresses this problem in his book Ethics and Education (1966) and
the essay ‘The Justification of Education’ (1973). He asks why ‘[s]cience, mathematics, history, art, cooking and carpentry feature on the curriculum [but] not
bingo, bridge and billiards’ (Peters 1966: 144). In his attempt to answer this
question, Peters starts from conceptual considerations: he outlines a specific
concept of education based on the distinction between education and training.
Like the German term Ausbildung, training refers to the development of specialised skills that are useful to fulfil particular tasks. In contrast to this, education
or Bildung expresses a non-instrumental understanding of learning. It is often
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66 Johannes Giesinger
assumed that being educated is valuable in itself, and not with regard to some
external purposes.2 There are various ways to specify this notion of education.
Peters’s account focuses on cognitive capacities. The educated man, he says,
‘possesses a considerable body of knowledge together with understanding [. . .]
He has developed the capacity to reason, to justify his beliefs and conduct’
(Peters 1973: 87).3 Peters’s idea is that this account of education can be gained
through conceptual analysis, but must be justified by further considerations.
I do not intend to go into the details of Peters’s conceptual analysis and his
justificatory approach, but let me briefly indicate how Peters attempts to argue
for the value of being educated. In a first step, he states that the (intrinsic)
value of the practice of justification cannot be reasonably questioned because
any attempt to do so presupposes the value of justification. In a second step, he
argues that the practice of justification presupposes certain other values that are
implied by the concept of education – particularly the value of truth, knowledge
and understanding. From this, he concludes that anyone who brings forward a
rational argument against the value of being educated thereby presupposes its
intrinsic value.
This transcendental argument has mostly been rejected, and Peters himself
found it unsatisfactory in later years (Peters 1983). In a recent paper, Stefaan
Cuypers (2012) proposes re-formulating Peters’s justificatory account in perfectionist terms. A perfectionist justification of education – that refers to an objectivist
notion of the human good – will be challenged by political liberals. Thus, a further
question is whether Bildung can be justified on political liberal grounds.
Some types of education are widely acknowledged as valuable because there is
an obvious instrumental justification for them. One type of instrumental justification refers to the positional value of certain capacities. In competitions for
jobs or social positions, it might not suffice to be well-trained or well-educated;
one has to do better than the other competitors. In these cases, the value of one’s
education depends on the others’ level of ability. First, I would like to focus on
the positional significance of education and its obvious relation to the issue of
justice. Second, I consider education in its non-instrumental value. In the third
part, I discuss two different types of justification for the non-instrumental aspects
of education: civic and perfectionist accounts.
Fair competition and the justification of education
Let us consider, first, the so-called meritocratic principle of educational justice, as
formulated by Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift: ‘An individual’s prospects for
educational achievement may be a function of that individual’s talent and effort,
but they should not be influenced by her social class background’ (Brighouse and
Swift, this volume: Ch. 1, p. 15).
Nothing is said here about educational aims or the value of education. The
message is that, whatever is taken as an educational aim, the prospects for
achievement should be equal for persons with the same (natural) talent and the
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Educational justice and the justification of education 67
same willingness to develop their talent. I do not claim that Brighouse and
Swift would subscribe to the view that considerations of educational justice
are fully independent of the problem of justification. I only observe that the
meritocratic principle seems to be neutral with regard to educational aims.
It should be noted that this principle traditionally plays a specific role in
theories of justice: it is designed to regulate the fair distribution of social positions.
In other words, it is taken to guarantee equality of opportunity in the competition
for social status. However, considered in this light, it is obviously wrong to say
that the meritocratic idea is neutral with regard to educational aims. Imagine, for
instance, that our school systems focused on activities such as bingo, bridge, and
billiards; schools would thus ensure that persons with equal talent and motivation
for these games have equal prospects for achievement. Yet we would consider this
to be unjust because it does not enable students to develop those abilities or types
of knowledge that are relevant in the competition for social positions.
What are these abilities and types of knowledge? This depends on the particular
circumstances in a society – namely, which abilities are factually valued in society
and the labour market. Consider a society in which it is taken for granted that
only eminent chess players qualify as political or economic leaders. When applying
for a leadership position, you would have to play chess against other candidates
for the job. Under these social circumstances, chess would have to be among the
core subjects in school: it would be unfair not to do the best to support every
student in becoming a good chess player.
Peters asked for justification as to why some subjects feature in the curriculum
while others – ‘bingo, bridge, and billiards’ – do not. The scenario just outlined
provides a clear-cut justification for including chess in the curriculum: being able
to play chess is positionally valuable in the competition for leadership positions.
To be successful in the competition for social status, you have to play better than
others. There could be other types of justification for introducing chess as a
school subject; for example, chess playing could be seen as an intrinsically valuable
activity or as instrumentally valuable with regard to learning mathematics. Yet if
we concentrate on the problem of fair competition, these possible justifications
do not matter.
It could be suspected that the focus on fair competition is at odds with the
demand for education – as contrasted to training: acquiring useful skills seems to
be much more important in the competition for status than being educated, in
the sense outlined by Peters. However, it is not that simple. When we look at the
selective school systems in Germany or Switzerland, we see that the school type
traditionally committed to Bildung (i.e., the Gymnasium) still provides good
opportunities in the competition for social rewards. The Gymnasium enables
students to acquire a diploma that ensures them access to higher education.
Moreover, it endows them with certain types of attitudes, capacities, and
knowledge that – although apparently useless – might nevertheless prove to be
useful in the competition for status: being able to read Goethe’s Faust or
understanding the meaning of Kant’s categorical imperative is – to borrow
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68 Johannes Giesinger
Pierre Bourdieu’s term – a form of cultural capital that allows its owner to
distinguish himself from the uneducated members of lower classes (Bourdieu
and Passeron 1977). In this perspective, education or Bildung is seen exclusively
in its instrumental, positional value. If we rely on the meritocratic principle of fair
competition, we have to conclude that, in a society in which Bildung is in fact
competitively salient, access to Bildung should not be influenced by social
circumstances. However, if society ascribes no competitive value to this kind of
education, there is no reason to include it in the curriculum.
Within this framework, the aims of education must be derived from the
conditions of competition in a particular social setting. This means that virtually
anything can be justified as an educational aim if it proves to be relevant in social
competitions. The meritocratic principle – as well as any other principle designed
to regulate social competitions – is not tied to a particular set of aims, yet it is not
independent from considerations of justification. The education system can only
count as just if it promotes the right type of capacities or forms of knowledge. On
the other hand, certain curricular contents are justified with reference to the
purpose of securing fair competition.
Unfortunately, these insights do not provide us with a clear-cut answer to the
question of how the relevant type of education is to be distributed. The problem
is that any sort of educational inequality is likely to be positionally salient.
Should we stipulate strict educational equality? According to the meritocratic
view, inequalities due to social background – but not inequalities of natural
endowment – should be neutralised. Inequalities of effort are not seen as unjust,
even if they are caused by social circumstances. Many adherents of the meritocratic
view, it appears to me, are somewhat uneasy about this distinction between
justified and unjustified inequalities. After all, natural inequalities are not more
deserved than inequalities of social background.4 It is clear, at least, that significant
inequalities of educational resources are likely to spoil the fairness of social
competitions. Moreover, legal and informal forms of discrimination within the
school system are, in my view, morally unacceptable.5
Educational justice and the non-instrumental
value of education
The type of justification considered thus far leads to a distorted – or at least
incomplete – picture of education and its value. Even those aspects of education
that are commonly seen as non-instrumentally valuable are reduced to
their instrumental, positional value. Moreover, the reasons for promoting noninstrumental forms of education depend on the conditions of social competition
in a particular society. In a society where Bildung is competitively irrelevant, there
is no reason to educate young people.
In our societies, it is controversial whether and to what extent the school
system should be committed to the non-instrumental aspects of education. This
is why Peters tried to develop a justification for education. Such justification is
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Educational justice and the justification of education 69
independent of considerations of justice, but I claim that a theory of educational
justice must rely on an account of the value of education. If there is no value in
being educated (and not only trained), it does not matter, from the perspective
of justice, how education is distributed among individuals. However, if the value
of education – and a certain type of educational aims – can be justified, this might
change the way we consider the problem of distribution.
My idea is this: once it is acknowledged that everyone should be educated in a
certain way and achieve certain aims, the primary question is whether all students
equally reach these aims. Thus, the question is not whether an equal amount of
resources should be spent on them or whether all students – or all students with
equal talent – reach the same level of achievement.
Consider Brighouse and Swift’s remarks on the non-instrumental aspects of
education:
[E]ducation is valuable not only for competitive reasons; in addition to
improving career prospects, it independently improves individuals’ lives by
enabling them to engage in a wide range of intrinsically valuable pursuits,
such as reading good literature and discussing it with friends, playing complex
games, entertaining themselves with mathematical puzzles, and socializing
with people who speak other languages. This ‘intrinsic’ value of education
typically contributes significantly to the quality of life.
(Brighouse and Swift 2008: 462–463)
In the last sentence, the authors present a justification for including literature,
complex games, mathematics, and foreign languages within the curriculum.
These pursuits are intrinsically valuable and contribute significantly to the human
good. In other words, educational aims might be justified with reference to the
idea of the good human life.6
According to Brighouse and Swift, the meritocratic principle should be applied
not only to the instrumental benefits of education, but also to its intrinsically
valuable aspects. Persons with equal talent and motivation should have the same
prospects to be initiated into intrinsically valuable activities. As previously noted,
Brighouse and Swift’s formulation of the meritocratic principle does not refer to
educational aims. Yet these authors do claim that activities such as reading
literature significantly contribute to a person’s quality of life. The question is,
then, whether they see commitment to the human good as an integral aspect of
educational justice.
If they do so, they should also acknowledge that it is of primary importance to
enable every person to achieve these aims. This means that everybody should
have an effective opportunity to develop the capacity to read and enjoy good
novels. Some students might have difficulties acquiring this capacity because they
are disadvantaged by their natural endowment or their family circumstances. In
either case, it seems crucial to support them in learning to read literature if this
contributes to the quality of their lives.
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70 Johannes Giesinger
Thus, focusing on educational aims leads to an account of educational
justice that is clearly distinct from the meritocratic idea. The meritocratic principle can be satisfied if (1) students are educated for the wrong aims, (2) all
students equally fail to reach an appropriate level of achievement with regard to
the relevant aims, and (3) those disadvantaged by their natural endowment
are not supported in achieving these aims. The main shortcoming of the meritocratic conception is that it does not ensure an appropriate education for all
students.
Against this backdrop, I would like to turn to the adequacy view of educational
justice, as presented, for instance, by Debra Satz (2007, 2008, and in this volume;
see also the work of Elizabeth Anderson 2004, 2007). Satz’s account is concerned
not only with patterns of distribution, but also with educational aims. In contrast
to egalitarian accounts, it involves the insight that a substantial conception of
education is an integral part of an account of educational justice.
Satz claims that the education provided by the democratic state should
be ‘adequate for democratic citizenship and for relations of civic equality’
(Satz 2007: 647). I propose reading this as a justification for a certain type of
education. According to Satz, educational aims are justified ‘with reference to the
idea of equal citizenship’ (Satz 2007: 635). As she notes, ‘[w]e can derive, in
general terms, the nature and content of educational adequacy from the requirements of full membership and inclusion in a democratic society of equal citizens’
(Satz 2007: 636). This is a justification of education that differs fundamentally
from the one presented by Brighouse and Swift. It is not the human good that
justifies certain educational aims, but the principle of civic equality.
As Satz points out, this principle determines not only the aims, but also the
level of education that should be reached by all students: everyone should
be educated up to a certain threshold level of achievement. As soon as we think
of educational justice in terms of educational aims, it is natural to introduce the
notion of a threshold that is set by these aims. You can reach a certain aim or fail
to reach it. Consider the capacity to read literature. In the development of a
person’s reading skills, there comes a point when he or she becomes able to read
good books. This is the threshold that everyone should reach (if reading novels
is valuable).
We should think of the threshold level as a platform: once a person has reached
this platform, he or she has the opportunity to refine his or her capacities,
especially by using them. For example, in terms of the capacity to participate in
public debates, education enables students to acquire the basic capacities for
discursive communication. By participating in the political discussions, they
constantly improve their abilities in this field.
Let us turn back to the question of how educational aims can be justified.
Satz, to be sure, does not work with the distinction between intrinsically
and instrumentally valuable aspects of education. Yet she makes it clear that
functioning as an equal citizen requires more than a narrow form of training
(Satz 2007: 637; this volume: Ch. 2, pp. 45–48). In what follows, I will focus on
Educational justice and the justification of education 71
determining to what extent the civic account is apt to justify those aspects of
education that go beyond the preparation of students for the labour market and
the competition for social status.
I will also discuss whether the civic account should be preferred to justifications
that rely on a notion of the human good. I will start by considering this latter
type of justification and then return to the civic account.
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Civic standing and the human good
It must first be noted that various types of education might be instrumentally
valuable in promoting the human good such as by enabling persons to get an
interesting job. However, apart from this, being educated is often conceived as
non-instrumentally valuable. According to Brighouse and Swift, education is
valuable because it introduces us to intrinsically valuable pursuits, which implies
that the specific ideal of education might be justified by arguing for the intrinsic
value of certain activities. Yet ‘bingo, bridge, and billiards’ might also be conceived
as intrinsically valuable pursuits that contribute to the quality of life. After all,
games are usually played for their own sake.
According to Peters, games like bingo are not educational because they are
not connected with knowledge, reasoning, and understanding. Stefaan Cuypers
(2012) agrees with Peters on this point. He also shares Peters’s view that
a hedonistic justification of education is not fully convincing (Cuypers 2012: 5).
Instead of turning to a Kantian transcendentalist strategy, as Peters did, Cuypers
proposes proceeding within a perfectionist framework: ‘Perfectionism is a type
of objective list theory which maintains that, besides pleasure and desiresatisfaction, some excellences or “perfections” [. . .] are intrinsically valuable’
(Cuypers 2012: 9). Thus, three elements are essential for the perfectionist
approach: (1) objectivism, (2) a commitment to intrinsic value, and (3) the
reference to excellences or perfections.
Cuypers’s justification of education is based on the claim that knowledge is an
objectively and intrinsically valuable perfection: ‘[K]nowledge is intrinsically
valuable, for it involves the exercise of cognitive abilities to some degree of
excellence by some appropriate standard (which is minimally set by the demand
for justification)’ (Cuypers 2012: 11). In line with Peters, he assumes that being
educated means to possess (objectively and intrinsically valuable) knowledge.
Against this backdrop, he claims that a justification of the value of knowledge can
ground a justification of education.
As he points out, this line of argument is not committed to a narrow type of
perfectionism that depends on a teleological account of human nature, but to a
broad perfectionist view that is rooted in ‘everyday moral judgements’ (Cuypers
2012: 12). As Cuypers claims, we intuitively endorse the view that someone who
spends his time playing video-games – or the games mentioned by Peters –
without caring for literature, history, science, or mathematics, is far from living a
life that is truly worthwhile.
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72 Johannes Giesinger
The problem is, however, that this intuition is not generally shared. It is not
only contested whether the education system should promote a reason-based
type of education, it is even more controversial that adults’ flourishing essentially
depends on reading good novels and doing mathematics. Many people conceive
of their lives as worthwhile, although they do nothing of the kind.
Kirsten Meyer (2011) thinks that this problem is best addressed by refraining
from an objectivist perfectionist justification of education. As she notes,
perfectionist accounts of value are not only hard to justify, but are also likely to
conflict with the liberal demand for state neutrality (Meyer 2011: 119). She
agrees with Cuypers, however, that education can and should be justified with
reference to the human good. Turning to a subjectivist conception of the good,
she claims, helps to solve the problems just mentioned.
According to her view, certain activities (e.g., reading a good novel) can be
intrinsically valuable because they enable us to have certain valuable experiences
that cannot be reduced to mere pleasure (Meyer 2011: 103). While Meyer distinguishes her account from hedonism, she agrees that it resembles hedonism in
an important point – value is tied to subjective experiences. In this sense, her
account – as well as the hedonistic theory of value – can be considered as subjectivist (see also Cuypers 2012: 10). However, hedonism highlights pleasure as a good
that is valuable independently of whether it is being valued. In fact, it is not generally agreed that pleasure is an important aspect of the human good. In the same
sense, it can be denied that the experiences provided by a good novel are worth
having. Consider, for instance, a person who judges a religious life of work and
prayer as more valuable than a life that contains diverse aesthetic experiences.
My proposal is, then, to distinguish two types of subjectivism (and objectivism).
First, an account of value might be called subjectivist, if it ties value to subjective
experiences. Both hedonism and Meyer’s account are subjectivist in this sense.
According to the second type of subjectivism, the ascription of value depends on
the individual’s subjective judgement or desires. In this sense, something is only
valuable if it is valued. The contrary position – objectivism – would be that some
things can have value independently of persons’ evaluative judgements. It is
important to note that this second sort of subjectivism does not imply the first
type. For instance, persons might subjectively value autonomy although it does
not only provide pleasurable experiences. On the other hand, certain types of
subjective experiences might be valuable independently of whether they are
subjectively valued.
It is the objectivist strain in Meyer’s account that grounds its educational
significance. Take the example of a student who considers playing video-games as
more valuable than reading novels. According to a purely subjectivist account of
value, we would have to assume that his subjective judgement expresses what is
good for him. In this case, there would be no good reason to educate him. But if
we assume – as Meyer does – that the initiation into the sphere of literature will
provide him with opportunities for valuable experiences, there might be reason
to educate him in this way.
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Educational justice and the justification of education 73
Two questions must be distinguished here. The first question is whether
some sort of education (or Bildung) is valuable – in either a subjective or objective
way. The second question concerns the sphere of political justification: is it
legitimate for the liberal state to promote these forms of education, or to make
them mandatory for all? Meyer states that since she endorses a subjectivist account
of value, her justification of the value of education – that is, her answer to the
first question – can be used to address the second question. She claims that
her justification of education does not violate the basic principles of liberal
thought – especially the principle of neutrality – and can therefore ground a
political demand for Bildung.7 I think, by contrast, that her account of the value
of education expresses a particular conception of the good that cannot be
expected to be generally endorsed, in the process of political justification.
In Rawlsian terms, it can be said that political principles must be acceptable in
the light of ‘public reason’, that is, they cannot be justified with reference to a
controversial conception of the good (Rawls 1993). So, Bildung – as a contested
educational ideal – cannot be justified with reference to a conception of the good
that is itself contested. Consequently, it seems illegitimate for the state to promote
Bildung, and to make young people engage in cultural activities they do not
themselves value.
It might be doubted, however, whether this line of argument can be applied to
(non-autonomous) children and adolescents. First, these persons are not in a
position to participate in a reasonable public discourse, nor to give a qualified
form of consent to coercive political arrangements. Second, it seems that nonautonomous persons are not morally violated by forms of education that are
justified on perfectionist grounds. It is clear that forcing adults to read good
novels would have to be considered as a lack of respect for their conception of the
good. The demand for liberal neutrality might be linked to the principle of
respect: if the state promotes one particular perfectionist conception of the good,
this can be seen as a form of disrespect towards those who hold alternative views
(Nussbaum 2011). This line of thought, however, does not apply to persons who
have not yet developed a conception of the good that is fully their own.
Two kinds of responses can be made to this objection. The first possible
response is to point out that children’s parents might object to perfectionist
forms of education. But is it plausible that refraining from perfectionist education
is owed only to the parents, but not to the children themselves? Alternatively, the
idea of the hypothetical or future (reasonable) consent of the children might be
introduced. According to this idea, educational measures have to be reasonably
acceptable to the children themselves. We can ask, then, whether children have
reason to consent to forms of education that are justified with reference to a
contested conception of the good. If we rely on Rawls’s notion of public reason,
we must assume that persons can reasonably disagree on matters of the good.
So, we cannot expect children to reasonably agree with this sort of education (see
also Clayton 2006). It might be concluded from this that the children themselves
are wronged if the liberal state commits them to a perfectionist form of Bildung.
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74 Johannes Giesinger
Let us turn to the second type of justification mentioned earlier: justification
based on the idea of equal citizenship. According to Satz, ‘citizenship requires a
threshold level of knowledge and competence for exercising its associated rights
and freedoms – liberty of speech and expression, liberty of conscience, and
the right to serve as a jury, vote, and participate in politics and in the economy’
(Satz 2007: 636). To participate in politics, persons need the capacity to think
critically about public issues. Such civic education clearly requires more than
training.8 However, Satz refers mainly to the public activities of citizens. It is not
clear whether her account involves the initiation of students into practices such as
literature and art. Moreover, nothing is said about the capacity for autonomy in
personal matters.9
Satz’s conception of citizenship comes close to Rawls’s notion of political
autonomy. As Rawls states in his Political Liberalism, children should be educated
for political autonomy, but not for ethical autonomy.10 He conceives of ethical
autonomy as a core feature of a liberal conception of the good that – according
to his view – should not be privileged in the education system of the liberal
state.11 The civic account promoted by Satz seems to be compatible with a
Rawlsian political liberalism; it does not presuppose a particular conception of
the good, but is based on the normative idea of equal civic standing. This idea is
widely recognised as fundamental to the liberal democratic order, which is why it
seems promising to take it as the basis for the justification of education.
However, it is dubious whether all the relevant aspects of education can be
justified in this way. Should we accept the view that certain educational aims can
only be justified in perfectionist terms? I think that there is room to enrich the
civic conception of education.
One reason for initiating students into cultural practices such as literature or
art is that future citizens should be enabled to feel at home in the cultural world
in which they live. This is a precondition for conceiving of oneself as a fully
fledged member of the political community. Thus, everyone should get an idea
of what a novel is and what it means to read a novel. Yet this does not mean that
everyone should see the reading of novels as an essential part of his good life.
Imagine that you come to live in a cultural community that is radically different
from the one in which you grew up. If you want to belong to that community,
you will first have to learn the language of this cultural group and the various
codes of behaviour that guide its members in their everyday lives. In addition, it
will be necessary for you to acquire a fundamental understanding of the more
sophisticated cultural practices of this community, such as drama, songs, religious
worship, and philosophy.
A second point is highlighted by Martha Nussbaum in her writings on
education. Nussbaum thinks that schools should foster what she calls ‘the
narrative imagination’: ‘This means the ability to think what it might be like to
be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader
of that person’s story, and to understand the emotions and wishes and desires
that someone so placed might have’ (Nussbaum 2010: 96–97). According to
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Educational justice and the justification of education 75
Nussbaum, initiating students into literature and art can help foster the
development of this ability that she sees as essential for democratic citizenship.
Citizens should be enabled to develop understanding and sympathy for others
and show genuine concern and respect for them. According to this approach,
becoming acquainted with literature and art is an important aspect of people’s
moral and political development.12
Nussbaum’s point refers exclusively to individuals’ roles as citizens. In line
with Rawls, she thinks that the justification of personal autonomy as an educational aim would have to rely on a perfectionist form of liberalism – that is, a
liberal account that is grounded on a controversial conception of the good
(Nussbaum 2011: 36). I think, by contrast, that an education for some sort of
personal autonomy can be justified in non-perfectionist terms – namely, as an
aspect of equal citizenship. My argument relies on the notion of autonomy as the
capacity to act in accordance with one’s own views. Educating children for autonomy means, among other things, enabling them to develop views of their own.
My basic idea is that an education that undermines the development of autonomy
and authenticity is likely to keep children in a subordinate status. Children will
then be unable to emancipate themselves from their parents’ influence and
become independent citizens. But how can the development of authentic attitudes be ensured?13 First of all, parents must refrain from indoctrination and
other manipulatory forms of education. Second, it seems important to foster
children’s capacity for critical self-reflection. Adults, to be sure, can lead authentic
lives without constantly reflecting on their basic values. The case of children,
however, is special. Even if children are not intentionally manipulated, they constantly take up attitudes from their social environment in a rationally uncontrolled way. Fostering their reflective capacities enables them to critically evaluate
the values or beliefs they have already adopted, or are in the course of adopting.
The notion of autonomy presupposed in this line of thought is to be
distinguished from both an ideal of individual self-realisation and a rationalist
understanding of autonomy. It expresses the idea that persons should be enabled
to autonomously choose a conception of the good, but is compatible with
conceptions of the good that do not highlight the values of individuality or
autonomy. Moreover, persons might autonomously rely on values and beliefs
that cannot be rationally justified to everyone.14 It is possible, I think, to critically
reflect on one’s values without applying strict rational or scientific standards
to them.
I take it, then, that autonomy with regards to personal matters is constitutive
for equal citizenship. This leads me to a final point: being autonomous with
regard to the personal life presupposes that a person is aware of different options
of the good. Thus, the individual should be informed about various religious and
ethical views. Moreover, he or she should come to know that activities such as
reading novels might contribute to the quality of life. Consider, for instance, a
working-class child whose parents do not read novels and who has no access to
good books. Were we to stop teaching literature in public schools, this child
76 Johannes Giesinger
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might never even come into contact with good books and so never have the
opportunity to start caring for them. This argument is perfectionist in the sense
that it is grounded in considerations about the good. However, I think that it is
compatible with political liberal ideas because it does not presuppose that a life
without literature, art, or philosophy is essential for the human good. Initiating
students into certain cultural and intellectual practices with which they might
otherwise not become acquainted expands children’s future opportunities for
choice.
Concluding remarks
In this chapter, I made three related claims. My basic claim is that the issue of
distributive educational justice is related to the problem of the justification
of education. It is not enough to determine patterns of distribution; which
kind of education is to be distributed must also be clarified. It is pointless to
provide everyone with a fair share of something that has no value. Considerations
about the value of education as well as certain educational aims should be seen as
an integral part of an account of educational justice. I would say that an education
system should not be considered as just if it promotes the wrong type of capacities
or forms of knowledge.
My second claim is that focusing on educational aims has consequences for
the problem of distribution. For instance, if we hold that all students should
become autonomous, our primary concern must be that everyone has an effective
opportunity to develop the relevant capacities. Yet further considerations must
be made to ensure fairness in social competitions.
My third claim is that the justification of education should start from the
normative idea of equal civic standing. The question is then what kinds of
capacities are tied to the status of citizenship. I think that a broad conception
of civic education should lie at the heart of an account of educational justice.
Notes
1 See also Constantin Stroop’s considerations on the notion of an educational
opportunity (in this volume).
2 In this essay, I neither provide a clear-cut account of Bildung (or education), nor
a discussion of what it means that Bildung is ‘intrinsically valuable’ (on this latter
issue, see also Peters’s work on liberal education: Peters 1977a, 1977b). I work
with a rough notion of Bildung as a sort of education that goes beyond forms of
training that prepare students for the labour market and for the competition for
social rewards.
3 In contrast, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s notion of Bildung focuses on the ideal of
individual self-realisation (see Humboldt 1792: 69). Thomas Schramme’s account
of education (in this volume) might be read in Humboldtian terms.
4 One way to deal with this uneasiness is to complement the meritocratic principle with an additional principle. Rawls, for instance, introduces the difference
Educational justice and the justification of education 77
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
principle at this point. He notes that this principle ‘gives some weight to the
considerations singled out by the principle of redress’ (Rawls 1971: p. 100).
The principle of redress states that all undeserved inequalities – including
inequalities of endowment – ‘call for redress’ (ibid.).
This problem must be further discussed. My idea is that a principle of fair
competition should complement the principle of adequacy that is developed in the
remainder of this essay. I am sceptical about Satz’s attempt (in this volume) to
transform Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity (that is, his principle of
fair competition for social rewards) into a principle of adequacy. This strategy does
not give appropriate consideration to fair competition as a distinct problem of
educational justice.
This view is also expressed in Randall Curren’s Aristotelian account of educational
justice (in this volume).
Interestingly, Randall Curren (in this volume) seems to assume that his form of
eudaimonism is compatible with liberal principles. Curren endorses a Kantian
notion of equal respect and combines it with Aristotelian considerations. In a first
step, he provides a justification of liberal education that does not rely on
eudaimonism, but on a Kantian principle of respect (Curren, this volume: Ch. 5,
p. 83–84). In the second part of his essay, he justifies liberal education with regard
to the human good.
It might be objected, however, that the civic account justifies education not in its
intrinsic value, but as instrumentally valuable with regards to civic demands. But
I would say that the relevant capacities or attitudes should not be seen as a means
for the realisation of full citizenship, but as constitutive for it.
The account that Satz presents in this volume focuses, too, on the public role of
citizens. Satz claims the state should provide all persons with ‘a threshold of
knowledge and competence for public responsibilities’ (Satz, this volume: Ch. 2,
p. 46). Furthermore, she points to the importance of the ‘capacities for empathy,
self-respect, imagination and reciprocity’ and mentions the relevance of ‘mutual
understanding, mutual respect, and tolerance’ (Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, p. 46).
Satz thinks that egalitarian civic relationships can only be established and
maintained by persons who possess these capacities or virtues.
In the passages, where Rawls makes his statement on education (Rawls 1993:
199), he implicitly refers to a previously made distinction between political and
ethical autonomy (77–8), but does not mention the terms. It should also be
noted that Rawls’s Political Liberalism provides the theoretical resources to justify
personal autonomy as an educational aim. Rawls (1993: 19) states that the
normative equality of citizens depends on their having ‘two moral powers’. The
second of these powers – ‘a capacity for a conception of the good’ – might be
described as a form of personal autonomy. Rawls explains: ‘The capacity for
a conception of the good is the capacity to form, to revise, and rationally pursue a
conception of one’s rational advantage or good’ (Rawls 1993: 19).
Rawls’s considerations are directed against the ‘liberalisms of Kant and Mill’
(Rawls 1993: 199). It is clear that Rawls could also have mentioned Humboldt’s
liberalism – that is, grounded on an ideal of Bildung as individual self-realisation.
In an interview with the Swiss national radio (DRS 2, February 3, 2012),
Nussbaum was asked whether she would consider her account of education as a
conception of Bildung. She replied: ‘We’re using Bildung without feeling entirely
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78 Johannes Giesinger
satisfied by that because it has a kind of traditionalistic implication that I don’t
really want . . .’
13 I cannot provide a thorough discussion of this problem here (see, e.g., Cuypers
2009 or Noggle 2005).
14 Nussbaum writes that ‘teachers in public schools should not say that argument is
better than faith as a general way of solving all problems in life. To say that is to
denigrate students who are members of nonrationalist religions. They may
certainly say that in contexts where citizens of many different views debate about
fundamental matters, rational argument is crucial. They may also commend it as
part and parcel of a particular enterprise, such as scientific proof. But they should
not say, “Live your life by reason and not by faith”’ (Nussbaum 2011: 39). I agree
with this, but according to my view, this is compatible with fostering students’
self-reflective capacities. Nussbaum seems to think that children should be
educated to critically think about public issues, but not about personal life
problems. However, she notes that ‘real freedom to live according to one’s own
view also requires protecting [. . .] the spaces in which children learn about
options so that they can really live their own lives. That sort of thing Rawls calls
“political autonomy ”’ (Nussbaum 2011: 36). This view, it seems to me, comes
close to the view defended in this essay – autonomous citizenship involves the
capacity to live one’s own life.
References
Anderson, E. (2004) ‘Rethinking Educational Opportunity: Comment on Adam
Swift’s How Not to be a Hypocrite’, Theory and Research in Education, 2: 99–110.
——— (2007) ‘Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective’,
Ethics, 117: 595–622.
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.-C. (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and
Culture, London: Sage.
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2008) ‘Putting Educational Equality in its Place’,
Education Finance and Policy, 3: 444–466.
Clayton, M. (2006) Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Cuypers, S. (2009) ‘Educating for Authenticity: The Paradox of Moral Education
Revisited’, in H. Siegel (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
——— (2012) ‘R. S. Peters’ “The Justification of Education” Revisited’, Ethics and
Education, 7: 3–14.
Humboldt, W. von (1792; reprinted 1980) ‘Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Gränzen der
Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen’, in Werke in fünf Bänden, vol. 1, Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Meyer, K. (2011) Bildung, Berlin: de Gruyter.
Noggle, R. (2005) ‘Autonomy and the Paradox of Self-Creation: Infinite Regresses,
Finite Selves, and the Limits of Authenticity’, in J. S. Taylor (ed.) Personal
Autonomy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2010) Not for Profit. Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
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Educational justice and the justification of education 79
——— (2011) ‘Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism’, Philosophy and
Public Affairs, 49: 3–45.
Peters, R. S. (1966) Ethics and Education, London: Allen & Unwin.
——— (1973; reprinted 2010), ‘The Justification of Education’, in Education and
the Education of Teachers, London: Routledge.
——— (1977a; reprinted 2010) ‘Ambiguities in Liberal Education and the Problem
of its Content’, in Education and the Education of Teachers, London: Routledge.
——— (1977b; reprinted 2010) ‘Dilemmas in Liberal Education’, in Education and
the Education of Teachers, London: Routledge.
——— (1983) ‘Philosophy of Education’, in P. Hirst (ed.) Educational Theory and its
Foundation Disciplines, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
——— (1993) Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press.
Satz, D. (2007) ‘Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship’, Ethics, 117:
623–648.
——— (2008) ‘Equality, Adequacy, and Educational Policy’, Education Finance and
Policy, 3: 424–443.
Chapter 5
A neo-Aristotelian account
of education, justice, and
the human good 1
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Randall Curren
Philosophy of education is one of several sub-fields established as a semiautonomous domain of analytic philosophical inquiry in the mid-twentieth
century, along with philosophy of science, philosophy of law, and others.
Philosophy of education and philosophy of science were alike in being dominated
by standard models during the 1960s and 1970s, first as constructive projects and
later as objects of critique. The two sub-fields remain alike in that neither has
generated a successor model to replace the one discarded, and both have
experienced a migration of effort from the big questions associated with the
standard model to smaller questions − a migration away from what are presumably
the core questions. I say ‘presumably’, because these sub-fields differ in the
degree to which a coherent canon of field-defining questions was associated with
and survived the demise of their respective standard models. The past decade
has seen a self-conscious movement back to the core questions of philosophy
of science − questions that pertain to basic forms and features of scientific
endeavour − but there is little indication of any such movement in philosophy of
education (see Curren 2010b). Self-conscious return to the core questions
of philosophy of education − questions that pertain to basic forms or features of
educational endeavour − is unlikely without a convincing articulation of what
those questions are, and the architects of the standard model in philosophy of
education did not provide one.
Richard Peters, their leading light, was never closer to defining the domain
than he was in asserting – in the face of much evidence to the contrary – that, ‘any
proposals about education involve judgments about worth-while things which
are to be transmitted’, and inferring that the field’s ‘main issues’ concern the
justification of educational content as worthwhile and justification of ‘procedures’
of transmission as desirable (Peters 1966: 17, 18).2 School reform proposals that
do not revolve around the inherent worth of something to be transmitted were
dismissed as not truly educational proposals, and references to educational
aims beyond people being educated per se were condemned as an abuse of
language. School subjects ‘can be viewed instrumentally’, Peters wrote, but ‘to
regard them as having educational value is to rule out such considerations’
(Peters 1966: 144). He and his collaborator, Paul Hirst, equated their conception
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Neo-Aristotelian account 81
of education as initiation into the forms of knowledge with liberal education as
Aristotle conceived it (Peters 1966: 46–62, cf. 2007; Hirst 1965). This equation
was correct in some respects, but it ignored the fact that such instrumental
purposes as fostering civic unity figure prominently in Aristotle’s educational
thought (see Curren 2000a: 127–36, 2010a, 2014a). Writing in an era in which
analytic philosophy did not embrace direct normative analysis, Peters offered a
richly ironic image of the error of offering principled guidance on such matters as
(by implication) the injustice of racially segregated schools: ‘One of the main
preoccupations’ of ‘professional’ philosophers, ‘has been to lay bare such
aristocratic pronouncements under the analytic guillotine’, he wrote (Peters
1966: 15). Principled critique of educational policy and practice was taken off the
table, and the conceptualisation of what remained was problematic.
I. The shape of the field
One of my starting points for conjuring a credible successor model is an attempt
to offer the missing articulation of what the basic questions of philosophy of
education are, and why they are the basic questions. A comprehensive philosophy
of education would address most or all of the basic questions concerning education that can be addressed philosophically − the questions with which the major
subdivisions of the field are concerned. I partition these subdivisions by distinguishing five basic normative questions about governance, and observing that
education is a kind of governance of the activities of learners. The five normative
questions about governance are: What are its proper aims? What authority does it
rest on? What responsibilities does it entail? How, or in what manner, should it be
conducted? What should its communicated content (expressed in legislation and
other acts of state) be? Corresponding to these normative questions about governance are related subdivisions of philosophy of education pertaining to the
aims of education and associated ideas about its nature; the authority to educate
(its basis, limits, and distribution); the extent and assignment of responsibility
to educate adequately and equitably; the conduct of teaching and educational
institutions generally; curricular and non-curricular educational content. These
questions mark off five forms of political justice and five corresponding divisions
of philosophy of education in which questions of justice arise.3 Existing work that
self-identifies as philosophy of education and is actually about some aspect of
education fits within these divisions remarkably well.4
I can think of three significant tests that any proposal of this kind should pass.
The first is that it is true to the objects in the domain of inquiry and allows us to
ask the important questions about those objects. This one is and does, whereas
Peters’s was not and did not. The second is that it yields an exhaustive and nonoverlapping partition of the domain. It does. The third is that it is not implausibly
revisionary with respect to the field’s history and trajectory. Otherwise, it might
be said that a mere sub-field or different field altogether has been identified, rather than an existing one reformed. Consider by way of analogy that each
82 Randall Curren
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methodological revolution in psychology has brought with it a different associated
ontology or definition of the mind and revision of the phenomena that can be
addressed and research questions that can be framed. Behaviourist psychology
might have been dismissed as at best a vision of a modest sub-field of psychology,
inasmuch as it jettisoned too much of the established domain and too many
important questions, and did so for reasons that were ultimately confused. The
same could be said of the Peters–Hirst model, but not a model with the scope
and divisions I have marked out.
II. Perennial questions
Several perennial questions in philosophy of education are manifestations or
aspects of one basic question: To what extent can educating children for the
common good be reconciled with educating them for their own good? Justice
demands a reconciliation (as a matter of educational responsibility), while various
aspects of education add complexity to the task of reconciliation:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
How are happiness and virtue related? If a person need not be virtuous in
order to be happy, how can receiving an education in moral, intellectual,
civic or other virtues be for the good of the individual who receives it, and
not just for the common good? If virtue is essential to happiness or a
flourishing life, how widely can the requisite virtues be cultivated?
How are education and law related to one another as tools of governance,
means of social control in and out of school, and instruments of mastery or
self-mastery? Can education be an instrument of governance for the common
good and also advance individual freedom?
How are knowledge and individual well-being related, and how widely
accessible can knowledge that is vital to individual and collective interests be
made through education? How will individual and collective interests be
reconciled and adequately protected if knowledge material to those interests
can only be made accessible to one or more classes of specialists?
How are happiness and work related? If a person need not work in order to
be happy, must we chose between education for a leisured elite and mass
schooling to serve the greater economic good? Can mass schooling advance
and reconcile individual well-being and the common good by advancing
equal opportunity to obtain offices and positions of employment?
How are learning and motivation related? If the motivation to do school
work is not sustained by the inherent rewards of such work, must the current
happiness of students be sacrificed to their presumed future happiness or
some larger common good?
These questions, distilled from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau,
Nietzsche, and Dewey, fall within the category of educational aims. The first,
third, and fourth also pertain to the content of education, while the second and
Neo-Aristotelian account 83
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fifth also pertain to pedagogy, classroom management, and the ethics of education
(the conduct or manner of education). Note that these questions are all to some
extent empirical, yet also in large measure normative and conceptual − which is
to say, philosophical. Philosophy of education can abandon the important
questions that have occupied it in the past, as it largely did under the Peters–Hirst
model, or it can incorporate the resources of other disciplines and collaborate
across the disciplinary divides.
III. Governance and ethics of respect
The neo-Aristotelian account I will sketch is substantially focused on the role of
education in the just promotion of human well-being.5 To provide a sense of it,
and some starting points for addressing these reconciliation problems – all
problems of justice − I need to return to the five normative dimensions of
governance. Identifying an ethic of governance that encompasses all five of these
normative dimensions offers the prospect of an overarching framework that
would unify a philosophy of education spanning the field’s sub-divisions, as
I have defined them.
A base-line ethic of respect
Having argued at some length previously that the political works of Plato and
Aristotle can be understood as elaborating the consequences of a Socratic ethic of
respect for reason (Curren 2000a), I begin with the familiar core of this ethic,
which requires respect for persons as rational agents. This ethic is usually
associated with Immanuel Kant, and in his version it grounds moral duties of
non-violence, non-coercion, truth-telling, and mutual aid and epistemic
cooperation in developing talents and fulfilling valued ends. The logic by which
these duties are derived is essentially this: that what we can know in the abstract,
or impartially, is that we are rational agents who have ends we wish to fulfil, that
as finite agents we are vulnerable and have limited knowledge and capacity to
fulfil those ends, that there are a multitude of other finite agents whose aid could
enable us to better fulfil our ends at little cost to themselves, hence that it is
rational to exhibit respectful self-restraint toward others and cooperate in sharing
information and aiding each other in developing talents when it is not too costly
to do so (Kant 1981; Herman 1998; O’Neill 1998, 2003). Realising that as finite
rational agents we may have ends we will not be able to fulfil without the
cooperation of others, we could not will to make it a universal law that such
agents as ourselves would not cooperate in a variety of ways.
Kant understands the duties of common morality thus identified as authoritative in all the affairs of finite rational agents, and as such they will constrain the
manner in which citizens and states deal with each other. What is required most
obviously (and clearly enough in Aristotle’s Politics) is that such dealings and
governing be transacted primarily through truthful and reasoned instruction,
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84 Randall Curren
persuasion, and consultation, and only as a last resort through force or violence.
These duties will also partially define the content of governance or law, as in the
protection of related protective and liberty rights, but because natural moral
duties are not enough to fully define the moral relations in which persons stand
to one another – their specific property rights and the limits of acceptable imposition of risk, for instance – those who are bound to have dealings with one another
have a duty to enter into a social contract authorising a common rule of law and
government (Kant 1991: §6). Basic duties of interpersonal respect establish the
context for ‘free and equal citizenship’ and the negotiations that yield further
needed specification of the terms of cooperation under a common rule of law.
Duties of mutual aid and epistemic cooperation in developing talents and fulfilling valued ends may also be converted from duties of non-specific performance
to ones that are specific by law and substantially discharged collectively. Whatever Kant’s official view of the matter, one might treat the overcoming of
human developmental and epistemic vulnerability as among the defining aims of
governance – aims properly discharged in large measure through schools.6
A central aspect of Aristotle’s understanding of schooling is that it should be
common and the same for all, by which he means provided by publicly operated
day schools in which citizen children from all parts of a city should be educated
together in the interest of civic friendship and the acquisition of common virtues
foundational to living well together (Pol. VIII.1). Aristotle takes citizenship
to involve sharing in rule and being ruled through voluntary and informed
consent, and he regards such citizenship of self-governing equals as only possible
in a context in which there is enough social and economic equality to allow all
citizens to perceive each other as equals bound together by civic friendship and
the goodwill, trust, and shared virtues and interests such friendship entails
(Barnes 1984, vol. 2: 2005, 2010, 2032–33, 2056–57, 2096, 2121 [Pol. II.5
1263b37–38; II.7 1266b24–32; III.9 1280a32–81a5; IV.11 1295b14–26;
VI.5 1320a35–b3; VIII.1 1337a21–27]; Curren 2000a, 2002c).7 Aristotle envisions common schooling as promoting civic unity and cooperation, but also the
judgment essential to sound decisions in matters of public concern. Here, as in
recent works by Debra Satz and Elizabeth Anderson, a demanding conception of
educational adequacy seems to be entailed by little more than an ideal of free and
equal citizenship and the premise that such citizenship rests on such things as
employment status and not simply equality before the law (Satz 2007: 635–39;
Anderson 2007: 615, 2010: 89ff.).8
Greek antiquity and the developmental conception of reason
An implausible and limiting aspect of Kant’s version of this ethic of respect for
persons as rational agents is that he treats practical rationality as a gift of human
endowment by which moral law can be readily intuited and obeyed, whatever
upbringing and education a person might or might not have received (Hill 2013).
The version of this ethic adopted by Plato and Aristotle is more empirically
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Neo-Aristotelian account 85
plausible in its understanding of the development of rational agency, and the
educational import of this developmental view is substantial. If rationality and
rational self-control develop in ways shaped by formative influences beyond the
individual’s control, then the commitment to a civic life mediated by reason will
entail collective educational responsibilities more compelling than any so far
considered.
I follow Lon Fuller in taking law to be an ‘enterprise of subjecting human
conduct to the governance of rules’, and one that can only succeed through
people becoming ‘responsible agent[s], capable of understanding and following
rules’ (Fuller 1964: 106, 162; Curren 2002b). If we accept, as Plato and Aristotle
did, a developmental conception of rationality – the view that good judgment
and the capacity to act from it are not universal, all-or-nothing gifts of nature,
but develop more or less completely over time and with much assistance
(Reeve 1988) – then we must acknowledge that what establishes a rule of law is
in large measure not the apparatus of law itself but efforts to nurture a degree of
moral autonomy and civic understanding sufficient for recognising and responding
to the reasonableness of reasonable laws and recognising and resisting injustice.
States have a legitimate interest in compliance with laws that are not unjust, but
no legitimate interest in securing compliance with unjust laws. A rule of law
whereby individuals generally understand and comply with laws voluntarily is one
that will therefore require that powers of discrimination in matters of justice and
public interest be as widely cultivated as possible.
Educational consequences of the developmental
conception of reason
Respecting persons as rational agents will require laying an educational foundation for voluntary and informed compliance with the reasonable demands of
law in order to create and maintain an enforceable rule of law. Because there will
continue to be new laws, and the informational burdens will be mediated by
processes of public deliberation touching on diverse and complex matters of
public policy, this will entail not only moral education, but also civic education
grounded in relevant forms of disciplinary knowledge. In Rawls’s terms, this
would include all that is educationally preparatory to participation in public
reason, hence accepting what he calls the burdens of judgment associated with
reasonable disagreement, and accepting the authority of forms of scientific
expertise bearing on matters of public choice (Rawls 1993: 54–58, 212–254;
2001: 27, 35–36, 89–94). Such education will include more or less all of what we
would call a liberal education.
Because criminal offenders are answerable to the public and lack any possibility
of meaningful third-party recovery of the losses they may suffer in facing
prosecution and conviction, the public’s responsibility to provide the education in
question is inalienable. State authority to fulfil this public responsibility would be
inseparable from the authority to institute a rule of law, and the priority of this
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86 Randall Curren
authority over competing claims of parental educational discretion would be
justly accorded constitutional status. So far as moral education in particular is
concerned, its content would go no farther than the elements of common and
civic morality expressed in law, and should for that reason be uncontroversial.9
Because governments should not be complicit in elevating aggregate or individual
risk of criminality, and unemployment is a substantial predictor of aggregate and
individual criminality, a related burden of justice would be education that is
equitably preparatory to employment together with policies favourable to full
employment (Curren 2000a). This does not entail fair equality of opportunity in
Rawls’s sense of ensuring that membership in different social class quintiles does
not influence who secures the most coveted positions and offices, but it does
require that everyone receive an education good enough to create opportunities
for respected employment and that there be enough such employment to go
around.10
Considerations of equity or equal protection of security in the possession and
retention of individual rights would require global equality of provision of this
education up to a baseline of adequacy sufficient to enable most people to
understand what is good in laws and voluntarily accept their legitimate demands,
participate in civic affairs and processes of public reason with a comparable level
of understanding, and do work consistent with recognition as a full citizen.11
I initially described this education that is foundational to a legitimate rule of law
as satisfying a threshold of social inclusion (Curren 1995: 241), but subsequently
as forms of educational equality pertaining to moral and civic education, forms of
inquiry and knowledge important to matters of public concern, and preparation
for work (Curren 2000a: 183; cf. Satz 2007: 636, 638). Since even the most
minimal just state would have a legitimate rule of law, no state can be just without
a public system that ensures these educational responsibilities pertaining to full
membership in society are fulfilled. A public system of education in this sense
might or might not be a system of public schools, but unregulated private
and home schooling, which has a growing presence in the U.S.A., would be a
non-starter (Curren and Blokhuis 2011).
The fate of individual responsibility
Once we acknowledge both that a civilisation cannot operate without a principle
of individual responsibility, and that the adults of a society have a collective
responsibility to enable children to develop well, we may wonder whether these
two forms of responsibility can be fully reconciled – whether individual
responsibility is not undermined by the recognition of developmental dependence
and failures of collective responsibility. It’s a vexed question. The best answer I
have found, and the only one that offers an account of what is morally distinctive
about juvenile offenders, has three parts (Curren 2000a: 157ff, 2002a, 2009b).
The first part is an analysis of what responsibility is: it is a kind of relationship
between a person and an outcome arising from the person’s state of character,
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Neo-Aristotelian account 87
whatever the origins of that state of character. Some people do not turn out well
for reasons largely beyond their control, and they do bad things for which they
are responsible. Sometimes other people are egregiously at fault in this, but it
does not matter to responsibility. This can sound terribly harsh.
The second part of the analysis makes it less harsh. It says that judgments of
responsibility are essentially diagnostic and do not justify punitive sanctions.
Punishment will require some further rationale and it will not be predicated on
desert as such, but on responsibility and the protection of others’ rights.
The third part of the analysis says that an ethic of respect for persons as rational
beings requires that we exhaust educative efforts before punishing – that we give
up on such efforts only when there is good reason to think the offender is no
longer developing in relevant respects and educative efforts will have no further
benefit.
What is interesting about the debate over whether there should be a separate
developmentally oriented system for juvenile offenders, is that it seems to be
impossible to make sense of the intuition that there is something morally
distinctive about young offenders without the third part of this analysis (Curren
2002a). Developmental psychologists point to a variety of ways in which the
capacity to make and adhere to sound judgments continues to develop through
the teens, but this is answered by the observation that adult offenders are on the
whole no more developmentally mature than teenagers are. Brute developmental
immaturity cannot be the decisive factor in seeing young people as worthy of
conscientious developmental care and support, and immune to harsh deprivation
until they have received that care and support. The decisive factor must be that in
a just society that is conscientious about such things, an adult will have had an
equitable opportunity to overcome his immaturity, and a young person will not
yet have had that opportunity. This suggests not only that we should preserve
and strengthen a distinct developmentally oriented system for juvenile offenders,
but that schools should be far more proactive in helping students at risk
and far more selective in suspending and expelling student offenders. This is an
aspect of educational justice rarely addressed by philosophers, but surely one of
immense importance to the well-being of students in urban schools in the
U.S.A. (see Bahena et al. 2012).
The value of reason and intellect in classical eudaimonism
There is another feature of Plato and Aristotle’s understanding of human nature,
also not without merit, that led them to regard the flourishing of human rational
powers as having intrinsic value, and not simply value that is instrumental, in the
sense of enabling people to manage their lives in ways that are prudent, successful
in achieving their chosen ends, and socially cooperative. They regarded the
intellect and its exercise in accordance with virtues of intellect as what is
most admirable and most gratifying in human existence. I shall explain how
this manifests itself in Aristotle’s political and educational thought, then sketch
88 Randall Curren
my approach to developing a version of it that overcomes charges of elitism
and illiberal perfectionism, as well as the limitations of Peters’ and Hirst’s
neo-Aristotelianism.
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IV. Aristotle on education, justice, and the
human good
The opening of Aristotle’s Politics depicts the self-organisation of human beings
into households, villages, and polises or city-states as ‘natural’. Each of these
institutions is portrayed as (properly) consensual and mutually beneficial for all
participants, and these conditions are reflected in the theory of constitutions
elaborated later in Book III: the ‘true’, just, and legitimate forms of constitution
aim at the common good and (in their manner of operation) are governed
through consent rather than force (Barnes 1984, vol. 2: 1987–88, 2029–30
[Pol. I.1–2, III.6–7]). The naturalness of living together in city-states is threefold:
people are sociable or inclined to live together and pained when they cannot, they
need to live together in city-states in order to live well, and they are equipped
with language that enables them to cooperate in living well together (Barnes
1984, vol. 2: 1987–88 [Pol. I.2 1252a8–53a30]; Miller 1995: 30–45).
Without probing the details of why Aristotle thinks that only a polis is selfsufficient with respect to providing what people need in order to live well, I shall
suggest that these needs or ‘Aristotelian necessities’ pertain to qualities of both
persons and the circumstances in which they live. I adopt Philippa Foot’s use of the
term, ‘Aristotelian necessities’, to refer to necessities that must be fulfilled in
order for a member of a species ‘to be as they should be, and to do that which
they should do’ in order to live well or flourish – to achieve and experience goods
achievable by members of the species, by fulfilling potentialities characteristic of
the life-form well (Foot 2001: 15).12 The qualities of persons and circumstances
mediate the fulfilment of human potentialities in activity constitutive of living
well (or failures of fulfilment of these potentialities constitutive of not living well).
Ignoring for the moment Aristotle’s highly restrictive view of what can qualify as
a happy life, it is clear that no life can qualify as eudaimonic or lived well (lived
happily, admirably, pleasantly, freely – all of these being closely associated) unless
it is successful in relevant respects. Success will require that a person be wellequipped and disposed with respect to all of the fundamental dimensions of
agency, and it will require circumstances that facilitate the acquisition and
expression of relevant personal qualities in admirable and satisfying activity.
What are these fundamental dimensions of agency? ‘The origin of action’, says
Aristotle, ‘is choice, and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an
end. This is why choice cannot exist either without intellect and thought or
without a state of character’ (Barnes 1984, vol. 2: 1798 [NE VI.2 1139a32–34]),
a state of character being a complex of related dispositions with respect to desire,
perception, emotion, and responsiveness to reason. Successful action in which
states of character express themselves in conduct depends not only on the
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Neo-Aristotelian account 89
‘reasoning with a view to an end’ referred to in this passage, but also on the
adequacy of the actor’s understanding of the circumstances of action (Barnes
1984, vol. 2: 1752–54 [NE III.1]). Beliefs about the circumstances of action
are to some extent products of perceptual dispositions and the exercise of care
inseparable from character, but beliefs and understanding that enter into choice
can be acquired in ways that are much less a reflection of character. It is clearest,
then, to think of action as arising from choices that are products of beliefs, states
of character, and reasoning through which these are mediated and brought
together in choice. It is through capabilities of various kinds that choices are then
enacted, sometimes but not always in outward conduct in the world. Intellectual
capabilities (broadly construed) are among the capabilities through which choices
are enacted.
Taking a step back from this, the conclusion we can reasonably draw is that the
fundamental dimensions of agency number three: states of character, beliefs, and
capabilities of reason and outward conduct. Successful acts would require that
the agent be well equipped and disposed on all three of these dimensions.
Granting that no life could be successful, hence well lived or flourishing, without
admirable success in specific acts, living well would require being well equipped
and disposed along all three of these dimensions of action. It is basic to Aristotle’s
eudaimonistic perspective that living well revolves around fulfilling potentialities
in activity that exhibits virtues and is experienced as pleasant and satisfying.
However this is specified, it will require the development of powers or capabilities,
acquisition and exercise of virtues, and possession of understanding, taking
understanding to be the relevant excellence with respect to belief. The Aristotelian
necessities embodied in persons will consequently take the form of virtues of
character and intellect, understanding, and capabilities. The Aristotelian
necessities pertaining to the qualities of circumstances will consist of institutional
and other environmental conditions that facilitate the acquisition of salient
virtues, understanding, and capabilities, and the expression of these personal assets
in activity that achieves goods sufficient for a flourishing life.
Having argued that the fulfilment of all three of the forms of Aristotelian
necessities embodied in persons is essential to being a successful agent, we can
specify three related categories of essential goods without which no one lives well.
These goods are associated with three kinds of potentialities that must be fulfilled
reasonably well over the course of a life for it to conceivably qualify as successful
or flourishing. The kinds of potentialities in question are intellectual, social, and
productive (of effects in the world). Their respective goods are truth, understanding, knowledge, good judgment, and self-governance in accordance with
good judgment; relationships of mutual goodwill in which virtues of character
are displayed; and goods associated with diverse forms of competence or
excellence in arts of performance, production, and other forms of endeavour.
Unlike the list of capabilities identified by Martha Nussbaum as basic to a life of
‘dignity’ (Nussbaum 2006: 76–78), these essential goods are not simply enabling
conditions for living well, but constitutive elements of living well.
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90 Randall Curren
Aristotle’s conception of what is sufficient for a flourishing life is predicated on
not just a convergence between what is admirable and what is satisfying, but the
premise that only the most admirable and satisfying activities suffice for flourishing
or happiness. He suggests the ‘best’ and most admirable pleasures can be experienced only by the ‘best man’, in the course of explaining that there are ‘branches
of learning’ we should value ‘for their own sake’ and ‘study merely with a view to
leisure (scholê) spent in intellectual activity’ (Barnes 1984, vol. 2: 2122; cf., 1857,
1859 [Pol. VIII.3 1338a8–12; cf. NE X.4 1174b17–23, X.5 1176a4–29]). He
identifies the best or happiest life with the life devoted to the exercise of theoretical
wisdom or sophia, the ‘best and most complete’ virtue, in theoria or contemplation
of the best (presumably divine) objects of knowledge (Barnes 1984, vol. 2:
1734–42, 1859–64, 2100–04 [NE I.7–10, X.6–8; Pol. VII.1–3]; Kraut 1989;
Lawrence 2006; Reeve 2006). He counts only one other life as happy, the life
devoted to the most admirable exercise of the second best and most complete
virtue, namely the exercise of phronêsis or practical wisdom in political leadership.
In light of this, it is not surprising that he identifies the development of good
judgment as the overarching aim of education at all levels, with foundations laid
in moral virtue at the elementary level, and progress at all levels proceeding
through mastery of arts and sciences.
Aristotle envisioned a system of public day schools that would prepare all
citizen children for partnership in living the most flourishing life, a liberal
preparation for citizenship and ‘leisure’, not work. Like other fourth-century
B.C.E. writers, he treated what is illiberal or not free in the realm of occupations,
arts, and studies as synonymous with what is ‘banausic’. The Greek term,
banausos, designated an artisan whose work involved use of the hands, but it
implied subservient catering to others through commercial exchanges and so a
kind of dependence or lack of freedom. Aristotle supposed, in addition, that all
paid employments ‘absorb’ and ‘degrade’ the mind. Rather than exclude artisans
from citizenship, as Aristotle proposed, one could accept some form of preparation
for work as a given, and regard Aristotelian justice as requiring the enactment of
reforms to make the circumstances of employment conducive to the exercise of
virtue in rewarding activity.13
V. A neo-Aristotelian view of the educational
facilitation of living well
A viable contemporary eudaimonism would be more expansive than Aristotle’s
and it would offer empirically adequate support for its assertion of a convergence
between virtue and happiness, or the admirable and the satisfying – a convergence
essential to the idea of flourishing. It would also be consistent with respect for
the diverse reasonable conceptions of good lives present in liberal democracies,
and offer guidance for education that speaks to present circumstances. I shall
outline a form of neo-Aristotelian eudaimonism that satisfies these conditions,
building on the understanding of Aristotelian necessities and essential goods
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Neo-Aristotelian account 91
sketched above and aspects of Aristotle’s understanding of justice that invite a
Kantian-constructivist rendering – the underlying ethic of respect, its correlates,
and the assumption of mutual advantage invoked repeatedly in the Politics.
As in Rawls’s Original Position (Rawls 2001: 85–89), representatives are to
know the general truths of human nature and society, including ‘the basis of
social organisation and the laws of human psychology’ (Rawls 1999: 119), but
they do not know particular facts about themselves, their place in society, or those
they represent (1999, 2001: 85–99). From behind this ‘veil of ignorance’ they
will regard the design of institutions as fundamental objects of constitutional
interest, no less than distributions of rights, opportunities, and so on. What
institutions would they elect to have and what would the functions of those
institutions be? The plausible Aristotelian conjecture is that representatives would
agree that the institutions of a society would exist to enable all its citizens to live
well – to live in ways that are good and that they experience as good. Recognising
that there are Aristotelian necessities for living well that people cannot provide
themselves, it would be agreed that these basic institutions should include
educational ones, whose basic function is to promote forms of development
conducive to living well, in circumstances conducive to students achieving the
essential goods of truth, understanding, knowledge, good judgment, and selfgovernance in accordance with good judgment; relationships of mutual goodwill
in which virtues of character are displayed; and goods associated with diverse
forms of competence or excellence in arts of performance, production, and other
forms of endeavour. The promotion of forms of development conducive to
living well would be understood to concern the acquisition of understanding,
capabilities, and virtues of character and intellect. Developmental and epistemic
dependence are fundamental, limiting aspects of the human condition that would
be recognised as no less important in defining the point of a social contract than
the perils of lacking systems for adjudicating conflict or regulating economic
activity (cf. Kittay 1999; Buchanan 2004).
Educational institutions could be distinguished more fully by the fact that they
promote such development conducive to living well by initiating learners into a
variety of practices that express human flourishing – practices whose mastery and
activities provide opportunities for fulfilling human intellectual, productive, and
social potentialities in admirable and satisfying ways. Flourishing pertains to
activity, and the activities through which virtues, capabilities, and true beliefs are
acquired and expressed are shaped by the norms and structures of a society’s
practices. It is through the activities shaped by practices that capabilities,
perception, understanding, desire, and attachment to goods develop, all in
connection with acquiring vocabularies of the good, forming identities, and
finding meaning and direction in life. It is in such activities that students find or
do not find rewards that sustain their interest and effort to learn. I included
‘circumstances conducive to students achieving the essential goods’ in the
defining function of educational institutions, and this requires that the structures
and operations of such institutions be conducive to students finding those rewards
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92 Randall Curren
and sustaining engagement and energy in learning they find worthwhile. The
habituation through which capabilities and virtues develop occurs primarily in
structured activities in which learners are coached, and it is this consideration that
suggests initiation into practices is essential to education. One need not assume
that traditions play a special role in justifying practices, or that initiation into
practices is fundamentally conservative and inconsistent with individual autonomy.
Initiation could not be consistent with any form of Aristotelian eudaimonism
unless it is autonomy supportive. Schools must select practices that are good with
respect to the traits they cultivate, the domains of value and opportunity for
meaning they create, the quality of relationships they promote, the human needs
they satisfy both directly for those who engage in them and indirectly in further
benefits they provide, and the quality and scope of contributions they make to
successful lives and societies. The Peters–Hirst equation of education or liberal
education with initiation into the forms of knowledge was too narrow, as Hirst later
acknowledged in suggesting that education should be regarded more broadly as
involving initiation into human practices (Hirst 1993; cf. Smeyers and Burbules
2006, Strike 1999, 2003, 2004), but practices of inquiry, evaluation, and selfexamination must be part of the mix that would also include a variety of creative
and productive arts, games, and social, civic, and performance practices.
Behind the ‘veil of ignorance’ in this Original Position, representatives can
know that those they represent may or may not adhere to ‘comprehensive’
conceptions of the good grounded in ‘religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines’
(Rawls 2001: 19), but they cannot know which, if any, are adhered to. They
could know that such conceptions differ on many specifics; hence cannot all be
right in every respect (cf. Locke 1983: 27–28), but also that there are points of
convergence between diverse cultural and religious traditions on the association
between common virtues and happiness (Peterson & Seligman 2004). Most
importantly, perhaps, they can know robust findings in psychology that offer
confirmation, adequate for the purposes of educational policy, that the Aristotelian
necessities and essential goods associated with them are necessary to persons
perceiving their lives as going well in any society. Such confirmation falls short of
fully demonstrating that virtue is essential to happiness (or demonstrating the
truth of the strongest formulations of this proposition), but it is sufficient as a
guide to educational responsibility. In enabling all students to live well in the
context of ‘a fair system of social cooperation over time’ (Rawls 2001: 5), schools
have sufficient reason to cultivate moral and civic virtues (as established in §III),
even if it is discovered that people could display moral and civic failings that
would make their lives less than admirable yet satisfy their social needs enough to
live subjectively happy lives.
Although the contributions of the positive psychology movement to
school reform might be introduced at this juncture (see Seligman et al. 2009;
Seligman 2011: 78–97), those contributions are primarily focused on positive
affect and the movement’s conceptualisation of virtue is problematic
(see Kristjánsson 2013). More salient from my perspective is self-determination
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Neo-Aristotelian account 93
theory (SDT), a theory and body of supporting research on motivation that
the positive psychology movement has drawn on (see Franklin 2010; Waterman
2013). SDT is the only systematic view in social psychology that adopts an
organismic perspective on human nature, agency, and well-being, and its focus on
potentialities, associated psychological needs, and motivation provide a basis for
its claim to being a form of eudaimonistic psychology (Ryan et al. 2013). Developed
by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, and confirmed through studies conducted
with and by hundreds of collaborating investigators, it posits three innate,
universal psychological needs closely associated with the satisfaction of human
potentials: the need for competence or efficacy; the need for autonomy or the
experience of self-directedness congruent with the person’s values, needs, and
sense of self; and the need for relatedness or the experience of mutually affirming
interpersonal relationships. The satisfaction of these needs has been investigated
over the course of three decades, and one of the central findings that has been
replicated trans-culturally, by research teams in a variety of countries, is that the
satisfaction of all three of these basic psychological needs is essential to reported
well-being or happiness and to related measures of psychological well-being, such
as vitality (a sense of psychological and physical energy), meaning (a sense of
purpose), and the absence of stress and psychic conflict. This has been found to
be true, whatever value research subjects and their cultures do or do not place on
the need in question. There is thus reason to regard these needs as universal
requirements of human well-being grounded in human nature, and to regard
their satisfaction and the related fulfilment of human intellectual, social, and
productive potentials in accordance with norms of competence and merit as
central to human flourishing (Deci and Ryan 2000; Ryan and Deci 2001; Ryan
et al. 2008, Ryan et al. 2013). These needs can be understood as felt Aristotelian
necessities, associated through the three kinds of potentialities with the fundamental
aspects of agency, hence any successful life. The qualifier ‘felt’ signifies that these
are not only necessary conditions for living well or flourishing, but that people
exhibit and experience less well-being when these conditions are not met, even if
they are not aware of having the needs and do not understand the association of
their psycho-somatic states with need-frustration.
This having been said, we can add to the foregoing that the practices into
which students are initiated in schools should be ones through which – and
should be taught in such a way that – the students can fulfil diverse human
potentials and experience the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (Ryan and
Niemiec 2009). How far mastery of any one practice may develop and be
rewarding, and what role it will ultimately play in making a life better, will depend
on the individual student and their circumstances. I assume that an education
essentially involves initiation into a plurality of practices taught so as to provide
opportunities to experience competence, facilitate sociability and relationships of
mutual regard, and cultivate the judgment, self-awareness, and habits of selfexamination essential to managing one’s life competently. Constraints of justice
require that this be framed as a provision of meaningful opportunities to engage
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94 Randall Curren
and develop mastery in admirable domains of human practice, without pressure
to adopt, abandon, or revise any specific conception of the good within the
reasonable plurality of such conceptions. It nevertheless identifies a robust role
for public schools in promoting human flourishing, in part by expanding and
deepening students’ understanding of what is valuable and enabling them to
relate to things of value in ways that give their life meaning. In this fundamental
educational role, the work of schools is focused on direct contributions to wellbeing – to living well – though it is surely within limits compatible with schools
also making instrumental contributions to the functionality of a society equipped
to enable everyone in it to live well.
This brings us back to the reconciliation problems enumerated in §2. The neoAristotelian account I have sketched offers starting points for resolving all five of
these problems, but that is a larger task for another time and place. I shall finish
by simply noting the particular salience of this view for how we think about the
motivation to do school work and whether we should perceive a tradeoff between
current and future well-being for students. We should not perceive any such
tradeoff. The evidence is clear that schools simply will not succeed through
standards, accountability, and outcomes assessment schemes predicated on the
notion that teachers and students need to be externally motivated. The
encouragement of focus on extrinsic motivators depresses intrinsic motivation to
learn and do good work, and the anxiety induced in teachers by the imposition of
regimes of control leads them to be more controlling and teach less well (Ryan
and Weinstein 2009, Pelletier and Sharp 2009, Vansteenkiste et al. 2009). What
will sustain students in real learning and teachers in real teaching is the meaning,
satisfaction, and energy of engagement associated with doing work one can see is
good, in a setting where that is expected and appreciated. Good work is a
channelling of one’s own capabilities, virtues, and judgment toward something of
value – in school as in life – and it is sustained in school no less than in life by how
much we need to do it to be happy.
Notes
1 This paper is a descendant of the one I presented at the Conference on Education,
Justice and the Human Good, hosted by Kirsten Meyer, Constantin Stroop, and
the Department of Philosophy, at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 13–14 July
2012, and a few weeks later at a Philosophy of Education Workshop hosted by
Emily Robertson at Syracuse University, funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation
through the Humanities Corridor of Central New York, 6 August 2012. I am
grateful to Kirsten, Constantin, Emily, their departments and universities and the
Mellon Foundation and Humanities Corridor for providing opportunities to
present the work, to Ken Strike and the other participants in both events for
valuable discussion, and to Emily for her commentary presented at the workshop.
I presented the paper in close to its present form at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton, New Jersey, on 15 November 2012, and I am grateful to
Danielle Allen, Patchen Markell, Deva Woodly and others in the Institute’s School
of Social Science for their helpful comments. I owe special thanks to Richard Ryan
Neo-Aristotelian account 95
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
for ongoing formative conversations and to the Institute and its School of Social
Science for providing an ideal residential and scholarly setting in which to complete
this work as the Ginny and Robert Loughlin Founders’ Circle Member for
2012–13.
Peters wrote, in the introduction to his 1973 Oxford Readings in Philosophy
volume, that philosophy of education ‘draws on . . . established branches of
philosophy [such as epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind] and brings
them together in ways which are relevant to educational issues’ (Peters 1973: 2).
This characterisation of the field provided the organisational plan for Soltis 1981,
a landmark of philosophy of education in North America, but it is a methodological
characterisation that does not define the domain of study – its objects of study and
questions about them are to be addressed – and it is not reflected in the plan of
Peters’s own anthology, which echoes his statements in 1966.
The category of distributive justice will strike many readers as conspicuously
absent, but any and all of the enumerated forms of political justice may have
distributive entailments.
See Curren 2007, and note especially the arrangement of Parts I–V and the
rationale for that arrangement spelled out in the General Introduction, at pp. 3–4.
To the extent that philosophy of mind, language, and psychology can shed light
on learning, understanding, and the foundations of psychometrics, such work
pertains indirectly to the conduct of education. Philosophy of science, philosophy
of history, moral philosophy, and other philosophical sub-disciplines may be
similarly relevant to conceptualising forms of educational content. For alternative
attempts to partition the domain of philosophy of education, see Curren 1998
and 2003; for discussion of some of the methodological difficulties involved, see
the Introduction to Curren 2000b.
For some preliminary formulations of aspects of the account, see Curren 2006,
2009a, 2012; Ryan et al. 2013. For a fuller elaboration of some of its central
features, see Curren 2013, 2014b.
I have endorsed an argument along these lines in the context of interpreting
Aristotle’s defence of public education (Curren 2000a: 95–96, 198).
Following the conventions of citation in for works of ancient Greek philosophy,
I will abbreviate Aristotle’s Politics as Pol. and his Nicomachean Ethics as NE, and
cite the book, chapter, page, column, and line numbers in the standard Greek
edition. With the exception of line numbers, these numbers appear in the margins
of most modern translations of the works. Where passages are quoted in English
translation they are from Barnes, 1984.
Referring to ‘the political, civic, and economic conditions that are needed to make
one a full member of one’s society’, Satz defines the education required for ‘full
membership and inclusion in a democratic society of equal citizens’ as providing
‘knowledge and competence for exercising [citizenship’s] rights and freedoms’,
integrated by class and race [so as to ensure citizens and leaders know and
understand each other], and good enough to ensure no one is relegated to
second-class citizenship (Satz 2007: 636–38). Anderson writes similarly that the
focus of concern with equality in society should be ‘an ideal of social relations, in
which people from all walks of life enjoy equal dignity, interact with one another
on terms of equality and respect, and are not vulnerable to oppression by
others. This requires that people with diverse identities share a common stock of
cultural capital whereby they can cooperate competently with one another and
respond to one another’s claims and that each have enough human capital to
function as an equal in civil society’ (Anderson 2007: 615). These conceptions of
civic equality are used to defend accounts of educational adequacy that are strongly
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96 Randall Curren
9
10
11
12
13
relational, justify integrated or common schooling, and call for sharply limiting
social, political, and economic inequality in the society at large. They are, in these
respects, very similar in substance and rationale to the Aristotelian account
of common schooling I have defended as resting on ‘important public goods’
(Curren 2000a: 215). Anderson’s argument, in particular, is designed to
strengthen the case for government authority to promote racial integration in a
U.S. constitutional context that requires a ‘compelling’ or ‘paramount’ state
interest be identified. Identifying such an interest, or ‘important public goods’ at
stake, provides a powerful argument, but one that seems to fall short of showing
that educating all children together in common schools is required as a matter of
justice (215). What a government has the authority to do, it might not have an
absolute responsibility to do. What I have sought to demonstrate, however, is that
several important aspects of education for ‘full membership and inclusion’,
including those pertaining to moral and civic education and preparation for work,
can be defended through an argument that does establish a government
responsibility as a fundamental requirement of justice. This is explained in the two
sub-sections that follow.
Insofar as such education would reduce the risk of criminality, I have defended it
as a basic aspect of the least restrictive means to maintaining a well-ordered society,
in Curren 2002a.
The qualifier ‘respected’ employment requires further argument predicated on
the social psychology of inequality, the other main predictor of aggregate crime
rates along with unemployment. See Curren 2000a: 179–82 and 189–99 for
discussion and references.
Marginal equality would pertain only to what is provided in schools, while global
equality would pertain to all education deriving from any source.
Foot credits Elizabeth Anscombe with the term ‘Aristotelian necessity’, meaning
‘that which is necessary because and in so far as good hangs on it’ (Foot 2001: 15,
citing Anscombe 1981: 15, 18–19).
Aristotle affirms public responsibility to provide other circumstantial necessities for
living well (detailed in Nussbaum 1998), so it is natural to ask whether this
oversight may be attributable to pessimism about altering the conditions of
manual work, the prejudices of a leisured elite, contentions regarding entitlement
to participate in governance, or some combination of these factors.
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Chapter 6
What does equality in
education mean?
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Stefan Gosepath
There should be no doubt, and there are a lot of data available to support this,
that the school system has an enormous influence on the future lives of its
students. For those of us who share a broadly egalitarian outlook, however
defined, equality in education should be of primary concern if we want a better,
more just society. But what exactly does equality in education mean? In this
chapter I would like to suggest that we should distinguish between three levels of
education based on the three (or more) purposes and levels of the school system:
basic education for all; the cultivation of individual talents and capacities; and the
selection for higher education and the job market. On each level, as I argue in the
second part of this chapter, egalitarians should in my view demand a different
kind of equality and a different kind of metric. Since for the selection for higher
education and the job market equality of opportunity seems the approriate metric
of justice in education, I turn in the third part of the chapter to an analysis of four
different conceptions of equality of opportunity. The kind of equality of
opportunity it makes sense to talk about with regard to education can, as I try to
explain, only be the principle of fair social equality of opportunity, which in my
opinion constitutes a kind of compromise.
I. Education or the socialisation of youth as a
sphere of justice
In the domain of public political justice, the goods and burdens to be distributed
may be divided into various categories. Such a division is essential because reasons
for unequal treatment in one area do not necessarily justify unequal treatment in
another. A theory of equality should not be monistic; it should recognise the
complexity of life and the plurality of criteria of justice. Thus, egalitarians can
only proceed from very general comprehensive theories of justice to concrete
discussions of justice in specific spheres if the spheres are correctly construed.
What then is the appropriate sphere of justice where education is concerned?
Education and socialisation in general, or the school system in particular?
Schooling is only one factor among many that affect an individual’s later economic
and social status and educational achievements. The most important factor is
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What does equality in education mean? 101
likely to be the individual’s family background – its size, income and wealth, the
parents’ social and especially educational status, their personal traits, their class,
race, etc. Other factors, such as teachers’ and friends’ backgrounds, can also be
very important. If this is indeed the case, it raises the question of whether the
school system is really the proper focus for egalitarian concerns and public action.
Should we not rather focus on education in a broader sense of the term, thus
including the influence that factors such as family background or socialisation as
a whole have on educational outcomes?
Moreover, I am convinced that people could not be educated fairly in an unjust
society because their everyday experiences would always refute the intentions of
the educator. As Schleiermacher (1826) pointed out, teaching is imparted not
only through ‘intentional education’ – the deliberate, goal-directed intentions of
the educator – but, also and more importantly, when it comes to values and to
shaping a life, through ‘functional education’, that is, in and through social and
personal relations. If this is true, it means that to aim at justice in the educational
domain certainly demands that we broaden its scope.
Nevertheless, the scope of justice is ultimately limited. Its sphere of application
is public, not private life. Where to draw this line is of course controversial.
Liberals take it as a basic right that the family, or the parent, has primary
responsibility for the upbringing of a child. Since the family is regarded as private,
the state should regulate education within the family as little as is necessary. But
since education within the family probably has the farthest-reaching effects on life
prospects in almost all respects (comparable only to a person’s genetic
endowment), egalitarians might also think harder about how the effects of family
backgrounds can be counterbalanced with respect to education without infringing
on the basic rights of parents.
A society that establishes and maintains a public school system already goes
some way towards providing all its members with basic knowledge and capabilities
and some opportunity to develop skills that will enable them to succeed. The
same can be said of a society that enforces minimum standards of child welfare.
Such standards may include health care, an adequate diet, mastery of one’s
mother tongue and the language of one’s place of residence, and the bases for
adequate intellectual and emotional development. One can imagine a society that
is organised even more in accordance with this spirit. Since egalitarians are of
course concerned about inequality in all spheres, their policies will also aim at
reducing disparities of various sorts in other spheres, such as the economy, that
have massive effects on life prospects. By reducing inequality in all spheres,
egalitarian policies would ideally counterbalance the influence of many of the
factors relevant to a person’s family background.
II. Three different levels of education
Putting this broad construal of education and socialisation to the side for the
moment, I now turn to the question of what good is to be justly distributed in
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the narrower domain of school education. My suggestion is that we should
distinguish between at least three levels of school education, corresponding to
three primary purposes: (A) basic education for all; (B) the cultivation of
individual talents and capacities; and (C) selection for higher education and the
job market. Each of these levels requires a different kind and metric of equality.
Let me discuss the three levels in turn.
(A) The first and most important task of a fair school system is basic education in
the broadest sense of the term, centring on basic knowledge and skills, but
including the acquisition of cultural resources and even personality development
as well. It is essential for a number of reasons that this kind of basic education
should be mandatory and universal. (a) First of all it has a quasi-transcendental
value: without at least minimal education and knowledge, we would not be able
to live our own lives. It is thus to be regarded as the most important resource for
coping with the challenges of everyday life. (b) Secondly, it has additional
pragmatic values. Since it is a precondition of other higher ideals such as private
and public autonomy, education affords an opportunity to live a good life. An
adequate education is important since it enables individuals to enjoy the culture
of their society and take part in public affairs. (c) Thirdly, it has intrinsic value:
a lot of people value and appreciate education, in the sense of Bildung, in its
own right.
Since basic education is essential in these three ways, we want all children to be
adequately educated for life within their society. Education is therefore often
considered a human right. Western societies grant this human right by providing
universal access to school and, even more importantly, by making it mandatory
up to a certain age. The kind of equality that should be demanded on this level
from an egalitarian standpoint is equality of outcome. Its metric is basic capacities
or capabilities such as literacy, numeracy, and basic knowledge of the natural
sciences and humanities. The application of a metric of equality of opportunity
would be off-target here. Since everybody has a right and duty to go to school up
to a certain level, the idea of merit implied by the concept of equality of
opportunity does not apply. Equality of opportunity is normally a component of
a moral theory of justified social inequality. On this first level, however, access to
education should vary as little as possible. Here we aim for equal outcomes: all
members of society should acquire the same basic capacities.
(B) I now turn to the second level. The second task of education is the cultivation
of talents. A society provides too little scope for opportunity, personal development
and autonomous choice if it fails to provide for the recognition, development,
and exercise of a wide range of (worthy) human talents. Society is thus obliged
to offer a range of educational opportunities that give everyone the chance to
develop his or her talents to at least some extent. This obligation arises firstly
from the idea that in order to have real choices, one needs a broad range of
desirable options to choose from. Secondly, society should also cultivate a wide
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What does equality in education mean? 103
range of worthy human talents for the reason that these may turn out to be
socially or economically useful. Thirdly, every person should have the right and
chance to develop his or her talents and abilities in accordance with his or
her ideas unless this will infringe the rights of others. In a market economy ruled
by supply and demand one cannot know in advance which talents will be needed.
It thus seems wise to have a broad pool of developed talents at hand in case
demand shifts. Since, as far as we know, society cannot effectively plan its
economy, it should not attempt to plan the cultivation of talents entirely but
rather leave the development of skills partly up to the choices and motivation of
individuals. This at the same time helps recognise the diversity of talents and their
worth. What qualifies a person as talented or untalented (or for that matter as
able or not able) is not simply a function of her natural attributes, but rather
the intersection of these attributes with values and demands resulting from the
organisation of society.
On this second level, justice demands that access to education and success
in school should not vary according to differences in social background or other
arbitrary characteristics. Education should be provided for everyone regardless
of their background, and a concerted effort should be made to develop all
talents. This calls for a school system that is insensitive to background and
at the same time sensitive to endowment and ambition. The cultivation of
talents should, according to this logic, be meritocratic and proportional to
students’ aptitude and readiness to learn. This will of course lead to inequalities
of outcome, but these may be economically useful, if not strictly speaking
necessary. If we then go on to stipulate that the development of specially valued
talents works to everyone’s advantage, including that of those who are worstoff, then inequalities of trained talents would be justified. These prima facie
justifiable inequalities can create problems, however, that turn them into unjust
inequalities. For if certain talents and the corresponding jobs or social roles are
valuable, no doubt special advantages and rewards will be attached to them.
Inequalities in trained talents will thus lead to inequalities of positions and
income. And bestowing special advantages on people on the basis of unchosen
endowments such as talents seems unfair from the point of view of most egalitarian
conceptions of justice (I will return later to the diffulty to find a just solution to
this problem).
(C) Let us finally turn to the third level of education. This third level is entirely
competitive. On this level, high school can be seen as the first of many playing
fields on which competition for higher learning, better jobs, higher income, and
superior positions in the social hierarchy takes place. From the point of view
of social justice, the opportunities which prove relevant to any consideration of
justice are above all opportunities for a certain income and certain assets in the
economic sphere as well as opportunities for specific positions, offices and
professions in society, and for social status. I shall concentrate on the latter
and ask: what metric of justice is to be applied here? I propose: Since on this third
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104 Stefan Gosepath
level, as in a race, inequality of outcome is simply inevitable, it can be regarded as
the proper domain of equality of opportunity. Why is this?
Contrary to the conception of strict equality of results, the idea of equality of
opportunity for positions, offices and income does not – either normatively or
descriptively – assume purely static social relations with a fixed system for the
distribution of material goods. Instead, on the one hand, it takes into account
social dynamics as a social fact; on the other hand, it gives voice to the normative
conviction that social mobility is also necessary for just social development. It is
generally regarded as unacceptable and impractical that positions and offices
should be equally distributed in any strict sense.
It is unacceptable from a normative point of view, because general civil rights
guarantee every person free choice of occupation, including free choice of
profession. Therefore no person should be obliged prima facie to practice a
particular occupation or to do a particular job. Basic and civil rights also entail
every person’s right to develop his or her own talents and abilities in accordance
with his or her own ideas. If moreover we assume that individuals can be made
responsible for their individual achievements, on condition that they start off
with equal opportunities, then they should be entitled to the fruits of their free,
autonomous occupation. According to this so called ‘luck-egalitarian’ principle
of liberal-egalitarian responsibility,1 it is unjust if one person is less provided for
than others (in terms of her shares of resources) unless it is as a result of conditions
for which she herself is responsible, i.e. her own voluntary decision or a mistake
she could have avoided. In these instances of unjust inequality the persons
concerned are, from an egalitarian point of view, entitled to compensation. From
another perspective, this principle implies that persons are indeed themselves
responsible for certain instances of inequality resulting from their own voluntary
decisions, and – apart from minimal provision in an emergency2 – they do not
deserve compensation.
The strictly equal distribution of positions and offices seems furthermore
impractical because it would undermine the efficient social organisation of
division of labour, which is directed toward the goal of obtaining those candidates for socially necessary or desirable occupations who, on account of their
abilities and previous achievements, are the best suited for them. Hindering this
mechanism of selection for social desirable occupations would be extremely
unwise from the point of view of those directly or indirectly affected by the
occupation in question. Organising a society in this way would ultimately damage
all members of that society; free-market production would become less efficient,
and goods that are in demand would be quantitatively and qualitatively worse.
This would in turn detract considerably from the quality and quantity of the total
amount of distributable goods, so that the productive inefficiency would also
have an indirect effect on the justice of the social set-up as a whole. In order to
take into account these prudential arguments and arguments based on civil rights,
the distribution of positions and offices should not be strictly equal, but only
based on the principle of equality of opportunity.
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What does equality in education mean? 105
One might argue that the rule of equality of opportunity in the sphere of
education and socialisation, with its emphasis on responsible agency within a field
of social competition, is preparing young people for adult life: the playing field is
levelled when the influence of unchosen individual circumstances on success is
counter-balanced so that the game of life is not tilted by morally arbitrary factors
such as socio-economic and cultural background. When this is the case, individuals
can reasonably be held responsible for the choices that determine their potential
positions in the social hierarchy. This form of equality of opportunity thus seems
to be a form of equality that can be accepted by everyone. However, this
impression is deceptive, since different people mean different things by ‘equal
opportunities’. I therefore now turn to an analysis of equality of opportunity.
III. What kind of equal opportunities?
The object of any principle of equality of opportunity is not equal chance of
success, but a legitimately unequal chance of success. It can apply to power,
positions, rights, wealth, etc. Equality of opportunity is introduced in political
discussion (cf. Williams 1973: 366–397) when the distribution of goods is at
issue, goods which firstly are wanted by many people, secondly said to be
‘deserved’ or ‘earned’, and thirdly in short supply, so that not everyone can have
them, either by nature (such as prestige) or for contingent reasons. They
are available to everyone who fulfils certain conditions, but not everyone fulfils
the conditions (above all personal abilities, professional qualifications and personal
motivation).
When we talk about equality of opportunity in connection with education,
social dynamics and in particular the potential for upward mobility, there is,
however, general disagreement as to what is necessary for the realisation of
equality of opportunity in practice. Thus we can distinguish at least four subforms
of equality of opportunity, which gradually supplement one another, i.e. are
continuations of one another: the precept of anti-discrimination, the principle of
formal equality of opportunity, the principle of fair equality of opportunity, and
the principle of substantive equality of opportunity (cf. Gosepath 2004). In the
following paragraphs (A–D) I shall present the four subforms and discuss their
respective advantages and disadvantages.3 Finally, in the last paragraph (E) I shall
draw some qualifying normative conclusions on the just allocation of social
positions.
(A) ‘Everyone should have equal legal rights to advantageous social positions.’
Equality of opportunity constitutes at the very least a precept of anti-discrimination.
The prohibition of primary discrimination precludes favouring or discriminating
against someone on the grounds of morally irrelevant criteria such as race,
sex, background, looks or social and ethnic background. Differential treatment
of those concerned on the grounds of these criteria is morally arbitrary. For
differences in natural endowments are differences for which the people in
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question are not themselves responsible, and can therefore not justify differential
treatment.
According to this minimal conception, there is equality of opportunity as soon
as everyone has the negative freedom to try to obtain social positions, i.e. when
they are not prevented from doing so by public discriminatory rules. Which rules
determine the subsequent allocation of positions remains however completely
open – it could be decision by lot. According to common conviction, therefore,
this rudimentary conception needs to be expanded.
(B) ‘Careers should be open to all those who are competent and able.’ This is the
principle of formal equality of opportunity. Social positions are often allocated by
means of competition, and the rules of such competitions should not necessarily
allow everyone to take part; more precisely their sole criterion for allocation
should be aptitude for the post which is to be filled. Merit alone should determine
the allocation of offices and positions.
However, formal equality of opportunity is not sufficient, for it does not take
into account the unequal starting conditions of those competing for certain social
positions. For this reason, this conception also needs to be expanded.
(C) ‘Careers should be open on equal starting conditions to all those who are
competent and able.’ This is known as the principle of fair equality of opportunity
(cf. Rawls 1999: §14: 73–78). Competition for positions can offer formal equality
of opportunity; nevertheless some people have better starting opportunities while
others are prevented from even developing their talents in the first place as a
result of their social environment or background. Such unequal starting
opportunities in the competition for positions are recognised and accounted for
by the principle of fair equality of opportunity. It is directed against the actual
preferential treatment of those that are already socially and materially better off.
The children of poor parents should not be prevented by school or university fees
from receiving an adequate education, nor should prejudice prevent women from
receiving an adequate education, especially since it is education which constitutes
the crucial starting condition in the competition for higher-level positions.
Applied to the social sphere of education, fair equality of opportunity demands
that society be organised in such a way that everyone has equal rights to
advantageous social positions, that all careers are open to those who are capable,
and that all people are guaranteed equal social starting opportunities. Next to
legal structural conditions, fair equality of opportunity also demands comprehensive socio-political measures which must work towards dismantling
existing forms of social disadvantage and discrimination. In addition, they must
also create the material conditions necessary for all equally talented and motivated
people to enjoy equal opportunities, regardless of the social inequality which
exists between them. This latter point means that all people, regardless of their
social background, should be able to receive education, further education and
support (e.g. for disabled people) which should if necessary be made available to
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What does equality in education mean? 107
them by publicly financed educational institutions. In normative terms this is all
the more important as it means that the value of education and qualification
ought not to be regarded from a purely economic point of view. Education makes
cultural views accessible to persons and enables them to participate to an increased
extent in social life, thus providing them with a secure sense of self-esteem
(cf. Rawls 1999: 87). Education can enrich the personal and social life of an
individual; for that reason alone it should be available to everyone.
On the whole the principle of fair equality of opportunity nowadays receives
widespread recognition. However, convincing though it may be, the basic idea
does not go far enough; it meets with both moral and practical difficulties.
(D) The idea of fair equality of opportunity misses out on an important respect
in which human fate is influenced by factors which the person concerned cannot
‘help’, the effects of which are thus ‘undeserved’: if social circumstances are
indeed not the responsibility of individuals and if the resulting inequalities are
therefore unfair, then the same must in fact be true of natural talents. We can call
this the conception of substantive equality of opportunity. If we accept that natural
factors are also a morally arbitrary influence on the distribution of goods, then
the popular concept of merit doesn’t hold. In fact it becomes clear that what we
regard as our own achievement is by no means entirely based on what is our own,
but depends instead on endowments we just happen to find ourselves with.
The prevailing conception of equality of opportunity is therefore unstable
(cf. Rawls 1999: 64) and deceptive (cf. Dworkin 1986: 207). It is unstable
because once we have accepted that the influence of social circumstances on the distribution of social goods is unjust, we are led to reflect that natural endowments
are a further example of chance which must also be precluded from influencing
the social distribution of goods. In as far as the criterion of merit has forfeited
its plausibility, the prevailing conception of equality of opportunity becomes
untenable, too (cf. Gosepath 2004: ch. V.1.3). In addition, this conception is
deceptive because it suggests the real possibility of ‘equal opportunities’ which,
with its meritocratic criterion, it cannot really guarantee to those who are
disadvantaged by nature. Fair equality of opportunity is only a form of marginal
equality; as the following example by Bernard Williams makes clear, it allows for
the continued existence of instances of inequality which effect it, but lie outside
its immediate area of implementation (cf. Rae et al. 1981: 74ff.).
Suppose that in a certain society great prestige is attached to membership of
a warrior class, the duties of which require great physical strength. This class
has in the past been recruited from certain wealthy families only; but
egalitarian reformers achieve a change in the rules, by which warriors are
recruited from all sections of the society, on the results of a suitable
competition. The effect of this, however, is that the wealthy families still
provide virtually all the warriors, because the rest of the populace is so undernourished by reason of poverty that their physical strength is inferior to that
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of the wealthy and well nourished. The reformers protest that equality of
opportunity has not really been achieved; the wealthy reply that in fact it has,
and that the poor now have the opportunity of becoming warriors – it is just
bad luck that their characteristics are such that they do not pass the test. ‘We
are not,’ they might say, ‘excluding anyone for being poor; we exclude
people for being weak, and it is unfortunate that those who are poor are also
weak.’ – This answer would seem to most people feeble, and even cynical.
(Williams 1973: 244f.)
The supposedly fair race of life often bears more similarity to a tournament than
to an open competition, a tournament whose rule of selection is: whoever wins,
wins the right to continue to the next round; whoever loses, has lost forever. This
is quite simply due to the fact that fair equality of opportunity yields unequal
rewards, which usually enable further, greater success in the future.
(E) In the economic sphere, i.e. in the sphere of the material distribution of income
and assets, this analysis would yield the following conclusion: individuals need not
suffer the results of social circumstances and natural endowments. The consequences should be collectively compensated and redistributed. This results in a
principle of equal opportunities for a successful life (cf. Gosepath 2004: ch. V.1).
However, it is not possible to draw the same conclusion when it comes to the
matter of justly organising the distribution of social positions and offices. Here it
is at best possible to bring to bear the principle of fair equality of opportunity that
I have just presented. The reason for this is as follows.
Persons differ from one another in their potential access to higher-level careers.
The differences derive from various factors: natural factors (in particular aptitudes
and talents), social factors (in particular the parental home and class), personal
factors (motivation, ambition, readiness to work), and luck. Individuals are not
responsible for any of these factors; they cannot therefore derive any justified
claims from them either. Following the principle of fair equality of opportunity,
only one of these factors is excluded, because this principle demands that a social
order be established in which access to positions is regulated in such a way as to
prevent social factors from determining individual success in the competition for
these positions. However, with respect to the social distribution of positions, it
does not seem possible to exclude the influence of these other factors directly.
First of all, there is a difficulty in sorting out how many of an individual’s choices
are actually within her control. The distinction between choice and circumstances
is a tricky issue and widely regarded as such both by scientific discourse and
everyday experience. Moreover, for the prudential reasons named above, it would
be unwise to give positions to less talented or motivated applicants and it
would have indirect results on the overall justice of the social system as a whole.
The impact of good and bad luck on individual success in society cannot be
directly excluded either.4 There is however an indirect route to more equality of
opportunity. Talents and motivations even if partially innate are nevertheless
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What does equality in education mean? 109
significantly socially constructed: What counts as talents and what counts as the
right kind of motivation is for the most part affected and influenced by social
conditions. A theory of justice therefore should try to structure social conditions
in a way that the right kind of talents and motivations are reinforced. At the same
time talents and motivations should no longer be treated as pure personal assets
and if applicable as personal decisions. Instead talents and motivations should be
seen as due to a large extent to a persons’ circumstances (cf. Meyer, this volume;
Brighouse and Swift, this volume). Complete equality of opportunity is therefore
not directly attainable; it is at best possible in the approximate form of fair
equality of opportunity. Restricting the actual implementation of equality of
opportunity is thus justified because attempting to eliminate all inequalities
would impair the social and economic system to such an extent that – at least in
the long run – opportunities for the disadvantaged would become even worse
(Rawls 1999: 265).
It is, however, possible to institutionalise compensations for the (not directly
avoidable) consequences of factors for which no one is responsible. Yet when
theories of justice offer prima facie compensation in order to realise fair equality
of opportunity, we are faced with conflicting goals and norms. On the one hand,
the compensatorial measures come into moral conflict with civil rights, above all
the right to the free development of one’s own personality,5 and on the other
hand, they come into moral conflict with the prudential and functional
requirements of an efficient economic and administrative system.6
Thus the principle of fair social equality of opportunity constitutes a compromise
between the ideal of substantive equality of opportunity and prudential
considerations of cost concerning the social order of distribution. Even if it can
be seen as a compromise, it is still normatively highly demanding, and has
not been realised in most societies. Everyone should indeed have comparable
opportunities to realise their life plans, develop their abilities and talents and try
to obtain demanding, challenging positions which correspond to their abilities
and motivation. Their chances of certain positions will however differ according
to their natural talents, the abilities they have cultivated, and the motivation
they display. This inequality of opportunity can only be justified if the situation
or the chances of the disadvantaged are improved (cf. Rawls 1999: 266f.).
The inequalities can then be accepted by everyone on prudential grounds as
increasing the social welfare and the fulfilment of public duties, if they are
combined with an important limiting condition.7 Such a principle of limitation is
intended to essentially regulate the unequal distribution of social capital associated
with social positions and offices such as higher standing and fame, as well as the
opportunity to use the social status one has already attained to climb even higher
up the social ladder.
The principle of fair equality of opportunity does not however justify a moral
claim to higher positions or offices in the sense of personal merit. The qualifications
and demands can be freely set by society in accordance with its pragmatic
considerations. The rights of particularly well-qualified people to these positions
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110 Stefan Gosepath
cannot be violated in this way, because they do not exist as such. A person’s
‘right’ to a position is not one of personal merit (cf. Rawls 1999: 276).
Since morally arbitrary elements play a significant part in fair equality of
opportunity, and since this stands in a relationship of tension to the ‘luckegalitarian’ principle of responsibility mentioned above, the form and scale of
social stratification needs to be examined from the point of view of justice. Social
stratification need not be based on only one or a few categories; the multiplication
of socially valued qualities along which social goods and positions that are
distributed could mean a certain relief of the burden of injustice which still
remains, and could moreover result in a socially richer society. However, it is not
only the hierarchisation which requires critical examination in every case, but also
the power to define socially relevant categories and their significance. As a rule,
those better off in a system are the ones who lay down what qualities are to
be socially valued and where the boundaries between the social groups are to be
drawn (cf. MacKinnon 1991). This monopoly of definition and interpretation
must be broken if truly fair equality of opportunity is to be achieved. Just as the
external regulation of the problem of which persons are to be regarded as
members of which group(s) constitutes a power problem, so the internal regulation
of which groups persons feel they belong to constitutes an identity problem.
Multiple membership, borderline cases and loners seem to evade the analytical
net of the current scheme of fair equality of opportunity. Every policy of equality
of opportunity, even if it starts with group discrimination for heuristic reasons,
must focus primarily on the support of the unjustifiably isolated individual, who
should be entitled to what is his or hers. In principle, fair equality of opportunity
is to be guaranteed to all individuals in all their variety in order to give everyone
equal opportunities for a successful, self-determined life.
Conclusion
To sum up: in the domain of education three levels can be distinguished, each of
which, as I have argued from an egalitarian standpoint in this chapter, demands a
different kind of equality and a different kind of metric of justice to be applied.
What this distinction suggests, finally, is a theory where these levels are vertically
arranged rather than horizontally, i.e. in simple competition with each other:
first, some basic education for all, second, equal access for the cultivation of
talents, and third, equality of opportunity for selection to higher learning
and better positions. The kind of equality of opportunity that is relevant with
respect to this last level of education can, as I have tried to explain in the third
part of my chapter, only be the principle of fair social equality of opportunity,
which in my opinion constitutes a kind of compromise between the ideal of full
substantial equality of opportunities and the practical limitations to its realisation.
Thus, what I have proposed in this chapter is an account of how, i.e. in accordance
with which principles, justice can be at least approximately achieved in the
education system.
What does equality in education mean? 111
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Notes
1 This principle is being advocated by many liberal egalitarians, cf., e.g., Arneson
(1989); Cohen (1989: 922); Gosepath (2004: ch. V.1.2); Rakowski (1991). For a
critique of this ‘luck-egalitarianism’ cf. e.g. Anderson (1999: 287–337).
2 The right to provision of care derives from the right to compensation for
special needs Gosepath (2004: ch. V.1.5). This right accounts for Anderson’s
(1999: 295–299) critique according to which the liberal-egalitarian principle of
distributional justice implies that people should not have a right to be helped if they
are suffering from circumstances they themselves have caused.
3 The following analysis of equality of opportunity is obviously heavily influenced by
Rawls 1999. Cf. Baker (1990: ch. 5); Roemer (1998).
4 For example: If the best runner has the bad luck of losing a competition due to a
muscle cramp although he would have won it had he not had the cramp, this
doesn’t yet make him the ‘real’ winner.
5 In many societies parents enjoy a right to determine the mode of education for
their own children that is widely considered as essential. If this right is socially
recognised, the huge impact that parents have on the development of their children
will never be levelled by, e.g., a public school system.
6 Also, it is difficult to tell what it really means in practice to implement fair equality
of opportunities for all persons and how violations of this principle can be measured.
The existence of fair equality of opportunities may only be confirmed hypothetically:
in a just society the distribution of social positions among members of different
social groups would roughly mirror the respective share of these groups in the
whole of the population. When talents and motivation were equally distributed
among these groups, then the most important social positions would have to be
roughly equally distributed among them, too. From this there follows as a rule that
with respect to a specific desired social position there exists fair equality of
opportunities between two groups if the probability of success in competition for
this position is the same for both groups (cf. O’Neill 1976). In this counterfactual
situation a statistic correlation, and thus an equality or inequality of results –
(in-)equality ex post – can be considered as indicator for (in-)equality ex ante among
social groups. If there are such hints at a pre-existing inequality of opportunities
and the social patterns of education, stratification and selection are implying
structural discrimination, then a positive discrimination of the otherwise negatively
discriminated may be justified.
7 I vindicate such a principle of limitation of socio-economic inequalities in Gosepath
(2004: ch. V.1.6).
References
Anderson, E. (1999) ‘What is the Point of Equality?’, Ethics, 109: 287–337.
Arneson, R. (1989) ‘Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare’, Philosophical
Studies, 56: 77–93.
Baker, J. (1990) Arguing for Equality, 2nd edn, London, New York: Verso.
Cohen, G. A. (1989) ‘On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice’, Ethics, 99: 906–944.
Dworkin, R. (1986) A Matter of Principle, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gosepath, S. (2004) Gleiche Gerechtigkeit, Frankfurt am Main [cf. Schleiermacher]:
Suhrkamp.
MacKinnon, C. (1991) ‘Reflections on Sex Equality under Law’, The Yale Law
Journal, 100: 1281–1328.
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112 Stefan Gosepath
O’Neill, O. (1976) ‘How Do we Know When Opportunities are Equal?’ in: C. Gould
and M. Wartofsky (eds.) Women and Philosophy. Toward a Theory of Liberation,
New York: Putnams.
Rae, D. and Yates, D., Hochschild, J., Morone J. and Fessler, C. (1981) Equalities,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rakowski, E. (1991) Equal Justice, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rawls, J. (1999) A Theory of Justice, 2nd rev. edn, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Roemer, J. (1998) Equality of Opportunity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Schleiermacher, F. (2000) Grundzüge der Erziehungskunst (Vorlesung 1826), in:
M. Winkler, J. Brachmann (eds.), Schleiermacher, Texte zur Pädagogik. Kommentierte
Studienausgabe vol. 2, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, esp. 7–187.
Williams, B. (1973) Problems of the Self. Philosophical Papers 1956–1972. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chapter 7
Fair equality of opportunity
and educational justice
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Constantin Stroop
The current debate on educational justice primarily focuses on the status and
role of comparative considerations within a just distribution of educational
benefits. The educational egalitarians Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift think
that an unequal distribution of education is unjust because it leads to an unfair
competition for social advantages. This is why their pluralistic account of
educational justice contains an equal opportunity principle called the ‘meritocratic
conception of educational equality’ (Brighouse and Swift 2008 and this volume).1
In contrast to this, advocates of an adequacy or sufficiency approach argue for
providing a minimum level of education for all and do not consider educational
inequalities above this level as problematic. Recently, however, Debra Satz (2007
and this volume) reshaped the idea of an adequate education with a comparative
aspect by integrating Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity into her
conception of an educational threshold. Besides her concern for the absolute
position of the worst off members of society, the move towards equality of
opportunity is motivated by the issue of social inequality.
Thereby, the idea of equality of opportunity marks an unexpected point of
intersection between these two competing approaches to educational justice.
Moreover, the overlapping formula appears to indicate some substantial
agreement. In particular, by putting their money on the equal opportunity horse
both approaches are aiming at a remedy of social inequality and, correspondingly,
are considering equality of opportunity as a genuinely egalitarian idea.2
Additionally, both explicitly refer to Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity. Thus, this latest chapter of the recent debate about educational justice
provides the perfect occasion to face a complex of interrelated questions on
opportunities and education: What does educational justice have to do with
equality of opportunity? What follows from accepting fair equality of opportunity
for the question of how educational goods and benefits should be distributed?
In which currency is the good of education to be distributed: as educational
resources, educational opportunities, or educational attainments? And in particular,
can Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity properly motivate to focus on
educational opportunities and thereby support the corresponding ideal of equal
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114 Constantin Stroop
educational opportunity which is often regarded as the ‘classical idea’ (Giesinger
2011: 43) of educational justice?3
In this chapter I will approach this issue by analysing the relationship
between educational justice and fair equality of opportunity within the theories
of Satz and of Brighouse and Swift. I will demonstrate how both theories
fall apart in the following respect: Satz in effect considers an adequate distribution
of education as a necessary condition for the realisation of fair equality of
opportunity. Brighouse and Swift, on the other hand, seem to directly apply
Rawls’s principle to the sphere of education by formulating the meritocratic
conception which, then, can be interpreted as demanding fair equality of
educational opportunity. Interestingly, both these possible relationships between
educational justice and equality of opportunity can be found within Rawls already.
For he talks about the ‘social conditions necessary for fair equality of opportunity’
regarding the distribution of education, which he, then, outlines as ‘equal
opportunities of education for all’ (Rawls 1971: 73).4 Here, it does not seem
straightforward to regard educational justice as a matter of distributing opportunities, because the talk of a ‘social condition’ appears to separate the domain of
educational justice from the domain with which the opportunity principle itself is
concerned. So it remains an open question if and for what reason education itself
should be distributed as ‘equal opportunities of education’.
Note that the principle of fair equality of opportunity demands fair chances to
attain certain goods which Rawls only roughly characterises as ‘offices and
positions’ and ‘culture and achievement’ (Rawls 2001: 42, 44). Therefore,
an answer to the open question could be provided be interpreting these notoriously indeterminate formulations with which Rawls describes his opportunity
principle’s range of goods. It is, however, unclear whether or not the good of
education should be considered as one of the goods to which this principle
intelligibly can be applied. Should everyone have a fair chance to attain certain
educational benefits? What reasons do we have to talk about educational
opportunities instead of answering the question of educational justice by referring
to educational outcomes?
In the following I will, at first, introduce the principle of fair equality of
opportunity focusing on the idea of a fair chance as its core concept (section I).
I will then discuss Debra Satz’s attempt to integrate this principle into her
approach of educational adequacy (section II). Since the thereby emerging
relation between educational justice and fair equality of opportunity bears some
serious problems, I will turn my attention to the meritocratic conception of
educational equality and ask whether it provides a better answer to the posed
question. My conclusion, however, will be negative in this regard, too, since
weighty objections can be raised against the idea of a fair chance to education
which is inherent in the meritocratic conception (section III). Finally, I will
evaluate these results in three steps: firstly, I will show how Satz’s approach can
be modified in a way that it can provide a promising answer to the main question
of this paper.5 Building on this, secondly, I will defend the thesis that the principle
Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 115
of fair equality of opportunity does not motivate to prefer opportunities over
attainments as the relevant currency of educational justice. Moreover, the
modified version of Satz’s account seems to give proper reason for concentrating
on educational attainments. The intuitive appeal and plausibility of the notion of
an opportunity of education, as I will finally suggest, is most likely motivated by
considerations other than those of justice (section IV).
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I. The principle of fair equality of opportunity
Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity is, roughly speaking, an extension
of the merely formal ideal of non-discrimination.6 Nobody is formally discriminated against if everybody can apply, say, for a job, and nobody is excluded from
application because of irrelevant reasons like, for example, his skin colour
or gender. But this merely formal equality of opportunity is not enough in
Rawls’s mind, because it leaves the competitors’ unequal starting places completely out of consideration. Since these differences cause unfair chances of
success in the competition, he extends the requirements of non-discrimination
beyond the formal borders to arrive at the principle of fair equality of
opportunity.7 So what is distinctive of a fair chance in the race for offices and
positions?
To specify the idea of a fair chance we say: supposing that there is a distribution
of native endowments, those who have the same level of talent and ability
and the same willingness to use these gifts should have the same prospects of
success regardless of their social class of origin, the class into which they are
born and develop until the age of reason. In all parts of society there are to
be roughly the same prospects of culture and achievement for those similarly
motivated and endowed.
(Rawls 2001: 43)
Thus chances are fair when the social background of the competitors does not
influence their prospects of success. This idea of a fair chance is the core content
of the principle of fair equality of opportunity. Regarding the term ‘chance’, it has
to be noted that this term has different meanings in the idea of a fair chance and
the idea of a formal chance, respectively: a formal chance is simply the entitlement
to take part in the competition, whereas a fair chance refers to the prospects of
success within the competition. Now, these prospects of success can be distributed
fairly or unfairly and for Rawls this difference is routed in the sources for having
better or worse prospects. So fairness, here, is not a matter of chances being
equal, but a matter of why they are unequal.
In the quote above, three categories of causal factors are implicitly distinguished which potentially result in advantages or disadvantages in the social
competition. These categories are talent and ability, willingness and motivation
and social background. Somebody has a fair chance if the influence of one of these
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116 Constantin Stroop
categories, namely social background, on his prospects of success will be eliminated. So there is nothing within this idea that gives reason against unequal
chances on the basis of unequal talents and abilities or unequal willingness and
motivation.
Rawls makes it absolutely clear that those with superior talent and willingness
do not deserve the resulting advantages, because both of these advantageous
characteristics are just arbitrary outcomes of the natural lottery for which nobody
can claim any credit. In this regard all three mentioned categories are on a par,
as Rawls also acknowledges. This can be called the instability problem of his
opportunity principle.8 Against this backdrop it becomes apparent that there
need to be other than fairness considerations that motivate the divergent handling
of social background in comparison with the two other categories of influence.
Rawls’s answer to this problem is his difference principle according to which the
worst off members of society have to benefit from the particular organisation of
social competition in order for this organisation to be justified. These worst off
members are those who were unlucky in the ‘natural lottery in native assets’
(Rawls 1971: 104) and who, thereby, have only very poor chances to be successful
in the competition with the better endowed. Therefore, the instability of the
opportunity principle, though obviously problematic when the principle is
considered in isolation, may not be problematic within the wider context of
Rawls’s theory.9 Since letting the talented capitalise on their superior talents will
yield greater economic productivity overall which is (under assumption of
adequate redistribution) to the advantage of the worst off, this policy is justified
on grounds of the difference principle. In comparison, social background is
not an attribute like talents and abilities that will maximise productivity when
people are allowed to draw advantages from it. But why should willingness and
motivation also factor into the competition outcome?
Rawls reminds us of the fact that these considerations would also justify to
abandon the fair competition completely and to give important offices and
positions directly to the highly talented. But the principle of fair equality of
opportunity forbids this:
It expresses the conviction that if some places were not open on a basis fair
to all, those kept out would be right in feeling unjustly treated even though
they benefited from the greater efforts of those who were allowed to hold
them. They would be justified in their complaint not only because they were
excluded from certain external rewards of office such as wealth and privilege,
but because they were debarred from experiencing the realization of self
which comes from a skillfull and devoted exercise of social duties. They
would be deprived of one of the main forms of human good.
(Rawls 1971: 84)
Thus, to install a fair competition that is open to all is first and foremost
important because nobody shall be excluded from the experience of realising
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Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 117
herself and, thereby, from ‘one of the main forms of human good’. This requires,
first, an open competition in which the less talented can participate, too, and it
secondly demands the outcome of this competition to be sensitive to the
competitors’ choices and decisions which in turn influence their willingness
and motivation. For only on the basis of individual choice self-realisation can
be attained. Thus, the kind of competition that is implied by the principle of
fair equality of opportunity leaves ample room for individual aims and preferences and, thereby, can take into account divergent conceptions of the good
life. Regarding the underlying idea of a fair chance, we can now see that this idea
uses a voluntaristic notion of chance: chances can be deliberately used or ignored.
Therefore, fair chances in the social competition are unlike chances to win a
lottery; in contrast to the described voluntaristic notion, the latter use of the
term chance denotes a mathematical or statistical notion which bears no
relation to individual choices at all. So having a fair chance does not mean that
there is a certain probability to get the desired good, say a job, but it means
having certain options of choice which partly determine whether or not one will
get the good.10
The principle of fair equality of opportunity does not explicitly entail an answer
to the question of how educational goods ought to be distributed. But it is
obvious that the kind of education one receives heavily influences one’s prospects of success in the social race for offices and positions. Thus Rawls counts
‘maintaining equal opportunities of education for all’ among ‘the social conditions
necessary for fair equality of opportunity’ (Rawls 1971: 73).11
On the one hand, educational justice is viewed as a form of a ‘social condition’
with regard to the principle of fair equality of opportunity. This sounds like a
precondition that has to be fulfilled before the principle itself can be fulfilled and
which, therefore, does not belong to the principle itself. The distribution of
educational goods could in this way be guided by the aim of securing a fair
competition without being itself part of this competition. On the other hand,
Rawls again speaks of ‘equal opportunities’ regarding the question of how
educational goods should be distributed. What could this expression mean here?
One possibility is to read this sentence as an application of the idea of a fair
chance to the realm of educational justice. Thus, the distribution of the good
of education could very well be a part of the opportunity principle insofar as
the principle’s core content, the idea of a fair chance, has to be employed in
educational contexts as well.
What seems clear so far is that Rawls, in one way or another, derives the
classical idea of equality of educational opportunity from his opportunity principle. But the unknown details of this derivation matter for two reasons: firstly, if
we really want to reformulate the idea of equal educational opportunity (as a
concept of educational justice) we will have to understand this idea
more precisely, because otherwise we would probably just add another chapter
to the long-lasting and unproductive history of interpreting it. Secondly and
more fundamentally, we need to fully understand the relationship between fair
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118 Constantin Stroop
competition and educational justice in order to scrutinise Rawls’s suggestion
that a concern for fair competition in fact leads to an equal opportunity principle in education. For this purpose, we need to be aware of a very basic
alternative regarding distributive principles: a principle of distributive justice
can either be outcome-based or procedural. In contrast to the former which
looks for results only, the latter focuses, either additionally or exclusively, on the
process of distribution. This means that according to principles of procedural
justice a given distribution is just if it is the result of a fair distributive process.
Now, the principle of fair equality of opportunity is obviously one of procedural
justice. To be more precise, Rawls talks of ‘pure procedural justice’ in this case as
one of three variants altogether, besides ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect procedural
justice’, which ‘obtains when there is no independent criterion for the right
result: instead there is a correct or fair procedure such that the outcome is likewise correct or fair, whatever it is, provided that the procedure has been properly
followed’ (Rawls 1971: 86). Fair equality of opportunity demands that the social
status of a person does not influence the process of the distribution of offices and
positions. If this demand is satisfied, we can call the respective process a fair
competition.
Now the question, provoked by Rawls’s remarks about ‘equal opportunities of
education’, is whether or not educational justice should be conceived as a matter
of (pure) procedural justice: Should the good of education be distributed in the
currency of fair opportunities of education, as the widespread talk of educational
opportunities appears to indicate? And does such a procedural account of
educational justice follow from a concern for fair competition in the distribution
of offices and positions? At this point we can clearly see how the different
questions about justice in education are bunched together and how Rawls’s
opportunity principle may lead the way towards a procedural account of
educational justice. The concept of a fair competition for social rewards surely has
important implications in respect to the distribution of education. But these
implications may not inevitably involve the idea of a fair chance of education; it
will not lead to this conclusion in particular if educational justice has to be viewed
as a distinctive sphere of distribution whose principles and currency would have
to be considered separately. Instead, under the assumption that the distribution
of education does not have to be treated as a part but rather as a precondition of
fair equality of opportunity, it could very well be necessary to demand certain
distributive outcomes in order to secure the fairness of social competition. Thus,
an outcome-based conception of educational justice could be a conceivable
option even when starting from Rawls’s opportunity principle. One crucial
question in this regard is how to translate the idea of a fair chance from
the distribution of offices and positions to the distribution of education.12 In the
following section I will discuss Debra Satz’s proposal for connecting the principle
of fair equality of opportunity with her adequacy approach to educational justice.
In the end, this will leave me with a double-sided result: although the main idea
of Satz’s approach seems to motivate an outcome-based account of educational
Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 119
justice, her treatment of Rawls’s principle is problematic for other reasons and
does not back up her conclusion.
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II. Fair equality of opportunity and
educational adequacy
The present debate about educational justice revolves around the alternative of
equality or adequacy as competing standards for distributing educational goods
and benefits. From the perspective of Debra Satz’s adequacy approach, however,
this is no question of either-or. This is because her approach integrates comparative
aspects and thereby neglects the clear-cut alternative of either equality or adequacy
and, instead, leads to the more sensible question of where and in which function
equality-based considerations should be brought into play within a comprehensive
theory of educational justice.
Against this background, Satz argues for a democratic interpretation of
Rawlsian equality of opportunity and tries to integrate it into her conception of
an adequate education. My present purpose is to clarify what role and function
the principle of fair equality of opportunity does exactly serve in this context. For
that reason, I will at first outline the essentials of Satz’s approach of an ‘adequate
education for citizenship’. Afterwards, I will turn to her discussion of fair equality
of opportunity and argue for two theses: firstly, Satz combines her approach with
Rawls’s opportunity principle in such a way that securing an adequate level of
education can be described as a necessary condition for fair equality of opportunity. But by doing this she, secondly, runs into the conflict of either severely
misreading the principle of fair equality of opportunity or giving away her main
goal of social participation.
The distinctive feature of adequacy approaches to educational justice is their
focus on the absolute level of education every member of society receives, i.e.
their main concern for educational justice is grounded in non-comparative
considerations. The various adequacy theories differ mainly regarding their
concrete answers to what it exactly means to have an adequate education. Debra
Satz’s account is characterised by taking the ability to socially participate in
economic, political and civic matters as the crucial criterion for determining the
adequate level of education. Moreover, her account stands out for integrating
comparative elements into the conception of an educational threshold. For,
according to Satz, the threshold itself cannot be determined as effectively enabling
social participation without any comparative considerations. If, in a given society,
educational inequality exceeds a critical limit, the less educated will be excluded
from certain social practices, no matter how well they are educated in absolute
terms. A minimum level of education that is determined purely in absolute terms,
so Satz argues, cannot serve the assumed purpose within a context of grave social
inequality.13
Now, where and how does the principle of fair equality of opportunity come
into play here? At first sight, it seems that fair equality of opportunity is given the
120 Constantin Stroop
role of ensuring the threshold’s sensibility for inequality, since Satz obviously
views it as a genuinely egalitarian idea:
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The fate of our society’s worst-off members is a pressing concern.
Nonetheless, I think giving up on the equality of opportunity framework is
a mistake if it means losing focus on the fact that inequality is at stake [. . .].
(Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, p. 35)
Therefore, retaining the idea of equality of opportunity appears to serve as the
comparative element which is embedded in Satz’s conception of the educational
threshold. Against this background she turns to Rawls’s principle of fair equality
of opportunity and discusses some of its criticisms. However, I will not go into
the details of Satz’s enriching discussion here, since for my purposes it is fully
sufficient to note that Satz considers the principle’s vague relation to goods.
Within this context, she highlights the important question of to which concrete
goods the indefinite talk of ‘offices and positions’ and ‘prospects for culture and
achievement’ can reasonably be applied: what do we want opportunities for?
Satz criticises the common interpretation of Rawls’s opportunity principle
along the narrow lines of economic constraints. Instead, she suggests an interpretation of fair equality of opportunity as a democratic principle which would result
from a focus on the opportunities for equal participation in social life:
If we measure equality of opportunity in terms of the ‘opportunity to
participate fully in the political, civic and economic life of the community’ –
to stand as a citizen in a society of equals – then we will need to attend to
other measures besides access to careers: not everyone will want or be able to
opt for a college education or a high-flying career.
(Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, p. 45)
Thus, she regards social participation as the relevant good we need to provide
opportunities for. Note, that this conception which resulted from Satz’s discussion
of Rawls still is supposed to be an interpretation of his principle of fair equality of
opportunity, instead of some other opportunity principle. Therefore, the core
implications of Rawls’s principle must not get lost within this interpretation. In
the foregoing section I explained the idea of a fair chance as this distinctive core
of the principle. Now, if we accurately apply the implications of this idea to Satz’s
proposal of fair equality of opportunity for participation, we will notice a major
shortcoming of this proposal, as I shall explicate in the following.
On the one hand, Satz’s account of an ‘adequate education for citizenship’ is
centred around the thesis that justice in the distribution of educational goods and
benefits first and foremost is determined by the demand to effectively enable all
members of society to equally participate in economic, political and civic regards.
Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity, on the other hand, is a principle
of (pure) procedural justice which is designed to ensure the fairness of competition
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Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 121
for desirable but scarce goods. Social participation, however, is apparently not
scarce in any sense of the word. At least within Satz’s account it is not viewed as
something that only few people can achieve but, instead, as something everybody
is entitled to and should be empowered to by means of public education.
Accordingly, there should not be a competition for participation. If participation
would be conceptualised as scarce and be distributed via a competitive process,
inevitably some people – to be precise we can say: the more talented and motivated
people – will end up with more participation than others. Despite the intuitive
implausibility of such a concept of participation, a society of equals surely looks
different than this. Hence, if we really take the essential features of Rawls’s
opportunity principle into account, Satz’s proposal will certainly miss its central
point. So far, it looks like her original account is not able to integrate the principle
of fair equality of opportunity without disregarding this principle’s main content.
But I may have misunderstood Satz’s suggestion and thus should not withhold
another possible interpretation of it.
This alternative interpretation of what Satz might have intended to express by
speaking of opportunities for participation comes into sight by asking what this
would, in turn, mean for the distribution of education and the adequacy threshold.
Since being adequately educated, within Satz’s account, means being effectively
enabled to participate, an opportunity for participation can be translated into an
opportunity to reach the educational threshold.14 Should, in the end, everyone
have a fair chance to achieve an adequate education? This would probably amount
to a procedural conception of educational justice, effectively dealing with
educational opportunities. Satz in fact does use this expression when she states
that ‘[e]qual citizenship does not require substantively equal educational
opportunities among all individuals but it does require that inequality in these
opportunities be bounded’ (Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, p. 48).
But at the same time, she also emphasises the importance of achievements as
educational outcomes:
In education, we should ensure that all children have the achievements
necessary for equal citizenship. These achievements provide opportunities
that encompass but go beyond opportunities for employment. They also
encompass opportunities for political, civic and social participation. Rawlsian
fair equality of opportunity is best understood in these terms.
(Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, p. 48)
Here, Satz explicitly focuses on the result of a distribution: all should at least
receive an adequate education in the sense of actually reaching the respective
threshold. This concern for the result of the distributive process, instead of merely
considering fair opportunities within this process, is consistent with her statement
that ‘when thinking of children, opportunity is not the relevant metric: we want
children to learn to read, not to have the fair opportunity to learn to read’ (Satz,
this volume: Ch. 2, p. 46).
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122 Constantin Stroop
Up to this point, I have sketched two possible interpretations of Satz’s
attempt to bring together educational adequacy with fair equality of opportunity. This alternative is based on the fact that social participation as well as
the threshold of adequacy can be put into the opportunity principle’s vacant
relation to goods. The former option would result in either misreading Rawls’s
opportunity principle or missing the main goal of educational adequacy, whereas
choosing the latter option would mean to formulate a procedural view of
educational justice, based on a specific notion of fair equality of educational
opportunity: all should have a fair chance to reach the threshold of adequacy.
Unfortunately, this option is also not available to Satz because her account is
apparently committed to the currency of educational results and, hence, on
viewing educational justice as a matter of distributive outcomes, as opposed to
competitive processes.
This is because she wants to ‘ensure’ that everybody gets adequately educated
and, thereby, will be enabled to participate. So in both interpretations, opportunities for participation or opportunities for an adequate education, the only
thing being ensured is the fairness of competition (for either participation or
education). But which outcomes this fair competition will bring about is all but
certain. The demand of fair chances to reach the threshold of adequacy, hence,
falls short of ensuring that everybody can participate. Opportunities, in the
Rawlsian sense of fair chances to succeed in competitive processes, are not
effective in the way they are supposed to be in order to fulfil the requirements of
equal citizenship. For participation one needs to be adequately educated, a mere
prospect to possibly reach this plateau will not do. However, the currency of
educational opportunity also has problematic implications independently from
the adequacy framework, as I will show now.
III. The meritocratic conception as fair equality of
educational opportunity
The ‘meritocratic conception of educational equality’, as it is formulated by
Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift, offers an answer to the open question that
resulted from the discussion of Satz’s approach: What are the goods towards
which the principle of fair equality of opportunity should be directed? Or, as Satz
puts it, which opportunities matter? The meritocratic conception puts forward
the following claim:
An individual’s prospects for educational achievement may be a function of
that individual’s talent and effort, but they should not be influenced by her
social class background.
(Brighouse and Swift, this volume: Ch. 7, p. 75)
The correspondence between this demand and the idea of a fair chance in Rawls’s
opportunity principle is evident: the category of social background should not
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Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 123
influence the outcome of certain distributive processes. Accordingly, Brighouse
and Swift describe the relationship between the meritocratic conception and
Rawls’s principle as ‘closely connected’ (Brighouse and Swift, this volume: Ch. 1,
p. 16). To my mind, it would be adequate to speak of an application of the more
general and wide-ranging principle of fair equality of opportunity to the rather
specific issue of educational justice. Here, the indistinct expressions ‘offices and
positions’ and ‘culture and achievement’ – which, as Satz showed, need to be
interpreted more precisely to clarify the relevance of Rawls’s principle for
educational concerns – are replaced by ‘educational achievement’. So the
meritocratic conception moves the principle of fair equality of opportunity into
the sphere of educational justice by demanding fair ‘prospects of educational
achievement’. Thus, it could be accurately renamed as the principle of fair
equality of educational opportunity.15
However, the exact relationship between both principles is still unclear: Does
the meritocratic conception follow from the principle of fair equality of
opportunity, or is it instead a part of the principle? Since it features the essential
idea of Rawls’s opportunity principle, both options seem possible. This difference
is important because it determines whether or not we have to consider the
distribution of education as an instance of procedural justice, once we accept
Rawls’s opportunity principle. There are two relevant questions that need to be
distinguished in this regard, namely what the most reasonable interpretation of
fair equality of opportunity looks like, and whether the idea of a fair chance,
properly interpreted, can be applied to the distribution of education. Of course
the answers to both questions are mutually dependent on each other. In this
section I will concentrate on the second question and my main thesis will be that
Brighouse and Swift’s meritocratic conception falls short of what a plausible
account of educational justice would demand. Thereby it can neither lead to
nor be a part of a fair competition. But before I can put forward my objections,
the close connection between the meritocratic conception and Rawls’s principle
have to be described more clearly.
For this purpose it is illuminating to consider the justification of the meritocratic
conception. Brighouse and Swift’s argument for educational equality (and against
the rivalling conceptions of educational adequacy) draws on the notion of fair
competition: To secure the fairness of social competition education has to be
distributed equally, at least as far as possible. This is because for competitive
purposes the value of education is positional, i.e. the competitive advantages of
being educated vary with the level and kind of education of one’s competitors.16
But what does it mean to distribute the good of education equally? As I already
noted in the introduction, the meritocratic conception of educational equality is
only one of several principles in Brighouse and Swift’s pluralistic account of
educational justice. They also argue for a kind of priority principle that expresses
a concern for the worst off and that, in conflicting cases, trumps the meritocratic
conception. Insofar as giving priority to the worst off has an equalising effect, it
is not clear, which of the two principles (or maybe even both) are intended
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124 Constantin Stroop
to realise the claim for an equal distribution of education. Brighouse, however,
elsewhere names the meritocratic conception the ‘dominant version’ of ‘the
principle of educational equality’ (Brighouse 2008: 42).
In this framework, the described argument for educational equality becomes
an argument for educational fairness. The guiding idea behind this argument
seems to be that a fair competition for social positions demands a fair competition
for education. From the claim that social background should not influence the
social competition it is deduced that social background should not influence
the educational competition. Investigation into additional questions about the
scope and potential identity of these competitions is not necessary at this point,17
because it would not change the actually important observation, namely that a
principle of procedural justice regarding the distribution of social positions
motivates a likewise procedural approach to educational justice.
This line of argument seems plausible insofar as it takes into account the fact
that socially caused advantages and disadvantages in the social competition very
often trace back to the influence of social background in the distribution of
education. So the competitors enter the social competition already equipped with
educational leads and handicaps. Therefore, if social background should not
influence the distribution of social positions, it will be necessary to prohibit its
influence on the distribution of education, too. But why is it just or fair that a
person’s educational achievement is dependent on her effort, or in Rawlsian
terms, on her willingness and motivation? And what does it exactly mean that
educational achievement may be influenced by talent? I would like to show in the
following that there are strong objections against the idea of a fair chance to
education in these two respects, starting with the second one.
Rawls seems to suppose that there is a fixed relationship between talents and
abilities such that the kind and degree of abilities a person may develop is mainly
dependent on her innate talents. Now, one can be critical about this notion of
fixed innate talents for several reasons. In general, however, it is certainly
problematic because of the overwhelming importance it ascribes to the unalterable
figure of inborn characteristics. Even if one grants the existence of talents as
innate potentials to develop abilities, which has been criticised,18 it would still be
true that the development of abilities needed a variety of supporting and
stimulating influences. Principally, these influences are generated by social
surroundings and one very important among them concerns the distribution of
public education. This is why Giesinger is absolutely right in noting that ‘the
distribution of education among individuals determines the development of their
abilities’ (Giesinger 2011: 44).19 Thus, the development of abilities is not just a
matter of being talented and, hence, a natural fact that we have to accept as it is.
Instead, it is a matter of social policy and, in particular, a question of how
educational goods are to be distributed. Pointing to supposed natural facts does
not help to decide whom we ought to give which amount of goods, unless these
facts legitimate individual claims to a certain distribution. The legitimacy of those
claims is widely acknowledged with regard to disadvantaged persons, for example
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Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 125
those with learning disabilities, but it is highly controversial with regard to the
talented.20
However, by saying that a person’s prospects for educational achievement may
be influenced by her talent, the meritocratic conception of educational equality
may just point to the fact that talented persons naturally have better educational
prospects. This is simply what we mean by describing somebody as talented. If
the meritocratic conception is read this way, Giesinger would be right in thinking
that it is ‘incomplete since it does not say anything about the distribution of
resources (or achievement) among children with different natural potentials’
(Giesinger 2011: 44). Thus, to have a fair chance to education as a talented
person does not mean to get extra attention in school, special courses and the
like. But it does mean that this person is allowed to benefit from her talents and,
thereby, eventually to end up with higher educational achievements than a less
talented person. Hence, under guidance of the meritocratic conception the
unequal distribution of talents naturally produces a likewise unequal distribution
of developed abilities. But this seems unfair since in this view nothing needs to be
done to compensate those who were unlucky in the natural lottery of talents for
their unfortunate starting place in the race for educational achievements. But
there is a rationale behind this supposed unfair consideration. Recall Rawls: Why
does he neglect either to restrict the beneficiary effects of talents or to compensate
the untalented? In a certain way the less talented actually get compensated, but
this compensation does not raise their chances in the social competition. For
Rawls this competition itself seems to be justified partly on grounds of the assumption that it will bring about greater economic productivity. When the
returns get redistributed to benefit the worst off (according to the difference
principle), everybody benefits in the end. But this will only work when the most
important social positions are held by the most able individuals. Thus, ‘talent and
ability’ should be crucial factors in the process of distributing social positions.
However, even if one accepts this rationale behind the idea of a fair chance to
social positions, it does not translate into the idea of a fair chance to education.
This is because the good of education is not only valuable in respect to other
valuable goods, i.e. instrumentally valuable, but also has intrinsic value. This
intrinsic value cannot be compensated for, for example by a redistribution
of material resources or money.21 In the debate about educational justice the
intrinsic value of being educated is widely acknowledged; Brighouse and Swift,
for example, refer to the intrinsic value of education several times.22 However,
they do not explicitly acknowledge the conflict between holding education
as intrinsically valuable and their argument in favour of the meritocratic conception which exclusively draws on education’s instrumental (or positional, as
they call it) value.23 With regard to the benefits that directly follow from certain
educational achievements, the less talented are clearly disadvantaged compared
to the higher talented. In this case, I assume, there are very strong fairness intuitions in favour of compensation. But compensation here means to enhance
the educational opportunities of the less talented and not to give them some
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126 Constantin Stroop
replacement goods. As I understand the priority principle of Brighouse and
Swift’s account, it is not sensitive to this important difference between the two
forms of compensation and, thus, cannot cure the fairness problem of their
meritocratic conception.24
Moreover, this line of argument can show that it is not only the meritocratic
conception’s treatment of talents and abilities which makes it problematic, but
also how it deals with the factors of effort, willingness and motivation. Among
the abilities developed in large part through educational means is the ability to
take responsibility for one’s decisions and actions. However, the actual possession
of this ability by a particular person is an indispensable requirement for justifying
a certain distribution of educational attainments with reference to the effort,
willingness or motivation of this person. The problem I would like to emphasise
here can be illuminated by considering the basic conceptual structure of an
opportunity that is essential to both the principle of fair equality of opportunity
and the meritocratic conception of educational equality: opportunities can be
analysed as a specific kind of relationship between subjects and objects. The
subjects are individuals that have an opportunity for certain objects, i.e. the goods
that are to be distributed.25 In the application of this conceptual framework to the
sphere of educational justice, where we talk about educational opportunities, the
objects are educational outcomes. The objects in Rawls’s opportunity principle,
in comparison, are ‘offices and social positions’ and ‘culture and achievement’.
Now, when we move from the more general principle of fair equality of opportunity to the domain-specific meritocratic conception of educational equality, the
alteration of the opportunity’s object causes a corresponding alteration of the
opportunity’s subject. This is because regarding the distribution of educational
benefits we paradigmatically think of children as the distribution’s recipients. The
principle of fair equality of opportunity, on the other hand, does not entail such
specific commitment to a certain group of persons. Rawls’s conception of ‘free
and equal persons’ entails the general requirements of his theory in this respect.
Though the real purpose of this conception is not to rule out children as the
recipients of distribution, we can, nevertheless, see the conflict between the two
‘moral powers’ Rawls ascribes to free and equal persons and our common-sense
view of children. Even under ideal conditions children would not meet these
requirements, for children are not already fully equipped moral agents.26 For this
reason, one important purpose of public as well as private education is to foster
the development of the respective capacities and attitudes.
Hence, there is a significant disanalogy between talking about fair equality of
opportunity for social positions and fair equality of opportunity for education.
The same feature that makes Rawls’s principle attractive, namely that it leaves
room for individual choice and preference, seems to be inadequate when applied
to the distribution of education. It is not fair to let the educational attainments a
person achieves be determined by the decisions this person has made as a child,
because we do not ascribe certain crucial abilities to children, e.g. the ability
to decide and act responsibly.27 Since this ability is a purpose and an aim of
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Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 127
educational efforts, it cannot simultaneously be a criterion for a just distribution
of these efforts.28
These two problems of the meritocratic conception arise from viewing the
distribution of education as a kind of (fair) competition. Even if Brighouse and
Swift are right in stating that the distribution of social benefits is, though not a
real race, but ‘relevantly like a race’ (Brighouse and Swift, this volume: Ch. 1,
p. 18), it does not follow that this picture also suits the distribution of education.
This is partly because certain educational attainments are not scarce in the same
way positions in a social hierarchy are scarce.29 Particularly, the ultimate scarcity
of educational resources calls for a distribution that enables everybody to develop
certain key competences. From the demand that an unequal social background
should not lead to unequal prospects of social positions may very well follow that
unequal social background should not lead to unequal prospects of education.
But in educational justice this is not the only factor of influence that carries
problematic implications, because – as I have tried to show in this section –
unequal effort and unequal talent neither legitimate an unequal distribution of
education. This result, to my mind, leaves no room for (voluntaristic) opportunity
principles within the educational sphere of justice.
IV. Fair equality of opportunity and
educational justice
In this paper I argued mainly for two theses: firstly, that Debra Satz’s proposal to
integrate the principle of fair equality of opportunity into her account of
educational adequacy faces the dilemma of either misrepresenting the core idea
of the opportunity principle or giving away the focal point of her original account;
and, secondly, that Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift’s meritocratic conception of
educational equality generally shows the problematic implications of procedural
approaches to educational justice and, in particular, the shortcoming of fair
equality of educational opportunity.
The principle of fair equality of opportunity is set up to secure the fairness of
social competition for desirable but scarce goods like, for example, advantageous
positions in a social hierarchy. In the following I would like to outline an idea of
how the adequacy account of Satz could be connected to this concern, which
would provide the much needed link to educational justice. Thereby, I am
countersigning Giesinger’s thesis that it is actually Satz’s and not Brighouse and
Swift’s account, contrary to what the latter authors have claimed, that can solve
this problem.30 Giesingers proposal, however, draws on the notion of human
dignity, whereas my primary concern is more technical in asking for a reasonable
positioning of fair equality of opportunity within the adequacy framework.
To my mind, a plausible relation of educational adequacy and Rawls’s principle
is the following: being in possession of (at least) an adequate education is a
necessary condition for the effective possibility to socially participate which, in
turn, is itself a requirement for realising a fair competition. But what are the
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128 Constantin Stroop
rewards of this competition? Obviously we need to ask Satz’s question again:
Which opportunities matter? Unfortunately this issue exceeds the limits of the
present paper. At most I can give a negative contribution to its solution in deleting
social participation as well as education – at least below the level of adequacy –
from the list of nominees.
I also argued against a procedural approach to educational justice that deals
with opportunities for an adequate education. Hence, must we do without
educational opportunities in the end? This expression is so much used in
philosophical accounts and political demands and so deeply implanted in everyday
discourse that trying to condemn it almost seems heretical. The talk of educational
opportunities, I guess, would still appear natural and plausible if everybody
acknowledged my arguments for a focus on outcomes. What could be the reason
for this?
I do not have a ready-to-serve answer to this question, yet. But I would like to
point out two distinctions that could matter in this regard: firstly, the intuitive
plausibility of talking of educational opportunities could be rooted in a mixing of
normative considerations and pedagogical constraints.31 Pedagogically viewed it
is impossible to guarantee that certain educational outcomes will actually be
reached even if they were demanded from the perspective of distributive justice.
Considering that the state can hardly have the obligation to bring about states of
affairs that are beyond his control, egalitarians as well as proponents of adequacy
may be tempted to move to the substitute position of equality of opportunity.32
The crucial point is that the pedagogically-motivated and the justice-orientated
talk of educational opportunities are not equivalent. The expression’s descriptive
use is motivated by several insights into the process of learning and its determinants
and constraints. For example, it cannot be guaranteed that a particular child
reaches some particular educational aim because ‘the active participation of the
student is necessary for learning to occur’ (Burbules 1990: 224–225); hence, the
educational process is partly determined by factors beyond the control of teachers,
schools and the state. In particular, active participation on behalf of the learning
individual is often viewed as a constitutive element in becoming an autonomous
and responsible person.33 Of course, we must not ignore such constraints, but at
the same time we have to be aware of the normative implications of our opportunity terminology. If we use this term, as it is usually done in debates about
distributive justice, to justify a given distribution of goods by drawing on the
notion of individual choice, we certainly should restrict this use to autonomous
and fully responsible persons. But if we speak of educational opportunities in
order to stress the importance of active learning, we thereby do not defend a
justifying claim.
Secondly, one has to distinguish between two different meanings of ‘opportunity’ as a term with normative implications. In this article I was exclusively concerned with what can be called a competition-opportunity. It is this
understanding of ‘opportunity’ as a fair chance of getting a desired good in a
competition with other contenders that I described as the fundamental notion of
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Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 129
Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity. On the other hand, there is
something like a freedom-opportunity. This concept also occupies an important
place in theories of justice, for example very prominently in Amartya Sen’s capability approach. One important difference between competition-opportunities
and freedom-opportunities is that the former merely gives you a chance to achieve
a valuable thing, whereas the latter is often regarded as a valuable thing in itself
(or at least as a constitutive part of intrinsically valuable freedom).34
Although a competition-opportunity may be part of a freedom-opportunity
(in the sense that entering a competition, say, for a particular job would be one
of several options among which the freedom-opportunity holder can choose),
this is not necessarily the case. As I argued in opposition to Brighouse and Swift’s
meritocratic conception, the value of free choice presupposes certain capacities
on part of the choosing person that we usually do not ascribe to children.
Additionally, the crucial point of holding a freedom-opportunity is to have a
plurality of options for exercising individual preferences, whereas a competition
is always a competition for a particular goal, i.e. a good or set of goods. Though
the means of competing may leave room for individual choice, the competition’s
goal is inevitably set. The main value of a competition-opportunity, thereby, is to
have a chance, not options. Thus, I suppose, the notion of an educational
opportunity, at least when it is derived from Rawls’s opportunity principle, seems
to unfairly capitalise on its freedom-connotations while escaping – likewise
unfairly, I would say, at least in the case of primary and secondary education –
detrimental consequences due to its nature as a principle of pure procedural
justice and its implication of a competition for educational attainments.
Notes
1 Brighouse and Swift’s commitment to the meritocratic conception seems to have
let up recently. In their contribution to this volume (Ch. 1, p. 76–7) they are
describing two alternative interpretations of educational equality, the radical
conception and the extreme conception, without explicitly subscribing to the
meritocratic conception anymore (cf. 2008: 447–448; Brighouse 2008: 43). But
unless they will eventually decide in favour of one of these rivaling interpretations,
I go on to take their principle of educational equality to mean the meritocratic
conception.
2 Cf. Schramme (this volume: Ch. 3) for a discussion of comparative and noncomparative notions of equality of opportunity for higher education.
3 Cf. Giesinger (2007: 373). Michael Heise (2001: 1134) even speaks of ‘American
education’s “Holy Grail”’ with regard to ‘the equal educational opportunity
doctrine’. For a representative insight into the earlier discussion about this ideal,
cf. Tesconi and Hurwitz (1974); a differentiation of its divergent interpretations
is provided by Jencks (1988).
4 See also the marginally different formulation in Rawls (2001: 44).
5 Giesinger (2011) already put forward the closely related thesis that Satz’s adequacy
account, contrary to Brighouse and Swift’s meritocratic conception, offers the
appropriate framework for a convincing account of fair competition that is based
on a notion of human dignity.
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130 Constantin Stroop
6 Cf. Arneson (1999a: 77). Debra Satz (this volume: Ch. 2, p. 38) also holds the
anti-discrimination effect of Rawls’s opportunity principle as one of its major
credentials.
7 As it is well-known, Rawls refers to the weaker, merely formal principle as ‘careers
open to talents’ (cf. Rawls 1971: 65–75). Generally, one distinguishes between
formal and substantial equality of opportunity principles, Rawls’s principle of fair
equality of opportunity being the most discussed version of the latter. Cf. Arneson
(2008: Ch. 2.2) for a wider differentiation and discussion of divergent substantial
versions. Gosepath (2004: 437–438), moreover, distinguishes between different
versions of the formal variant.
8 Cf. Rawls (1971: 74–75). Cf. Gosepath (2004: 440) for considerations on the
consequences of the instability problem.
9 This is why Rawls does not see his theory as a whole in danger of leading to a
meritocratic society, although this might be an issue for the principle of fair equality
of opportunity when considered in isolation (cf. Rawls 1971: 106–107).
10 Cf. Onora O’Neill’s (1976: 276) fitting definition of an opportunity and its
relation to the concepts of chance and probability.
11 Elsewhere, Rawls states similarly that ‘[s]ociety must also establish, among other
things, equal opportunities of education for all regardless of family income’ (Rawls
2001: 44).
12 For the separate question of how to apply Rawls’s difference principle to education,
cf. Weitz (1993: 425–427).
13 See also Satz (2007), where she argues for this idea extensively.
14 This would mean that by actually reaching the threshold one will not merely have
a fair chance to participate in social life but will be empowered – i.e. being
sufficiently equipped with the necessary skills, attitudes and knowledge – to do so.
15 Surprisingly, Brighouse and Swift do not name their meritocratic conception an
equal opportunity principle nor even talk a lot of ‘educational opportunities’ in its
narrower context.
16 Cf. Brighouse and Swift (2006).
17 Neither Rawls nor Brighouse and Swift make it clear whether they are thinking of
two (or more) separate competitions or of one big competition for several goods,
among them the good of education.
18 Cf. Scheffler (1985).
19 Cf. Satz (this volume: Ch. 2, p. 39): ‘There is no pre-given level of inborn, native
talent that can form the baseline for applying the principle of fair equality of
opportunity.’
20 Cf. Meyer (this volume: Ch. 8).
21 The case for intrinsic value might also be relevant for social positions, but this is
not my concern here.
22 Cf. Brighouse and Swift (2008: 449); Brighouse and Swift (2006: 482–483);
Brighouse (2008: 43).
23 Although their consideration that ‘an unequal distribution of education might in
time lead to the worse off having more or better education than they would
otherwise have and that this could itself yield important benefits’ (Brighouse and
Swift 2008: 449) can take into account the intrinsic value of education, it does not
solve the problem of how the worse off here and now can be appropriately
compensated for their lack of (intrinsically valuable) educational achievement.
24 Though Giesinger also distinguishes between what he calls direct and indirect
compensation, he takes another rout of criticism by charging the meritocratic
conception with an objection that Richard Arneson (1999a) originally directs at
Rawls’s opportunity principle and its super-ordination over the difference
Fair equality of opportunity and educational justice 131
25
26
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27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
principle. My argument differs from this since it points to the different contexts
the two principles are embedded in as well as to the intrinsic value of being
educated; cf. Giesinger (2011: 45–46).
Cf. Westen (1985) for an extensive analysis of the concept of opportunity to
which I am indebted here.
Unfortunately I cannot go into more detail here, see Rawls (1971: 18–24) about
the two moral powers of free and equal persons. The point about children’s
missing moral agency is also made by Gina Schouten (2012: 480–481).
This thought mainly motivated Kenneth Howe’s (1989) conceptual proposal of a
‘mandatory opportunity’.
Though Richard Arneson (1989: 88) thinks the fact ‘that it is morally fitting to
hold individuals responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their voluntary
choices’ is a general merit of equal opportunity positions compared with straight
equality positions, he demonstrates his awareness of the described problem by
explicitly limiting his own conception of ‘equal opportunities for welfare’ to
mature agents; cf. Arneson (1989: 85) and (1999b: 488). Cf. Benjamin Sachs’s
(2012: 326–335) extensive discussion of this issue.
Cf. Schramme (this volume: Ch. 3).
Cf. Giesinger (2011: 50).
In my opinion, the discussion between Nicholas Burbules and Kenneth Howe
about how to reasonably interpret the ideal of equal educational opportunity
perfectly demonstrates this mixing of pedagogical constraints and demands of
justice; cf. Burbules and Sherman (1979); Burbules et al. (1982); Burbules
(1990); Howe (1989; 1990).
In fact equality of opportunity is often considered to be a weaker and more
reasonable version of a more radical egalitarianism, as Frankel (1971: 199–204)
explains. This seems coherent with both Satz’s and Brighouse and Swift’s view of
equality of opportunity as a genuinely egalitarian idea. For a contrary analysis that
stresses the idea’s meritocratic and anti-egalitarian essence (which corresponds to
the presented arguments of mine) see Schaar (1967).
Cf. Burbules (1990: 224).
Cf. Sen (2010: 227–230), Sugden (2003).
References
Arneson, R. (1989) ‘Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare’, Philosophical
Studies, 56: 77–93.
——— (1999a) ‘Against Rawlsian Equality of Opportunity’, Philosophical Studies, 93:
77–112.
——— (1999b) ‘Equality of Opportunity for Welfare. Defended and Recanted’, The
Journal of Political Philosophy, 7(4): 488–497.
——— (2008) ‘Equality of Opportunity’, in E. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition).
Brighouse, H. (2008) ‘Moral and Political Aims of Education’, in H. Seigel (ed.)
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2006) ‘Equality, Priority, and Positional Goods’, Ethics,
116(3): 471–497.
——— (2008) ‘Putting Educational Equality in Its Place’, Education Finance and
Policy, 3: 444–466.
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132 Constantin Stroop
Burbules, N. (1990) ‘Equal Opportunity or Equal Education?’, Educational Theory,
40: 221–226.
Burbules, N. and Sherman, A. (1979) ‘Equal Educational Opportunity: Ideal or
Ideology?’, Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society: 105–114.
Burbules, N., Lord, B. T. and Sherman, A. (1982) ‘Equity, Equal Opportunity, and
Education’, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 4(2): 169–187.
Frankel, C. (1971) ‘Equality of Opportunity’, Ethics, 81(3): 191–211.
Giesinger, J. (2007) ‘Was heißt Bildungsgerechtigkeit?’, Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 53:
362–381.
——— (2011) ‘Education, Fair Competition, and Concern for the Worst Off’,
Educational Theory, 61(1): 41–54.
Gosepath, S. (2004) Gleiche Gerechtigkeit: Grundlagen eines liberalen Egalitarismus,
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Heise, M. (2001) ‘Choosing Equal Educational Opportunity: School Reform, Law,
and Public Policy’, The University of Chicago Law Review, 68(3): 1113–1136.
Howe, K. R. (1989) ‘In Defense of Outcomes-based Conceptions of Equal
Educational Opportunity’, Educational Theory, 39(4): 317–336.
——— (1990) ‘Equal Opportunity Is Equal Education (within Limits)’, Educational
Theory, 40: 227–230.
Jencks, C. (1988) ‘Whom Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to be
Equal?’, Ethics, 98(3): 518–533.
O’Neill, O. (1976) ‘Opportunities, Equalities and Education’, Theory and Decision,
7(4): 275–295.
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
——— (2001) Justice as Fairness, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sachs, B. (2012) ‘The Limits of Fair Equality of Opportunity’, Philosophical Studies,
160(2): 323–343.
Satz, D. (2007) ‘Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship’, Ethics, 117(4):
623–648.
Schaar, J. (1967) ‘Equality of Opportunity and Beyond’, in J. R. Pennock and J. W.
Chapman (eds.) Equality, 1st edn, New York: Atherton Press.
Scheffler, I. (1985) Of Human Potential: An Essay in the Philosophy of Education,
Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Schouten, G. (2012) ‘Fair Educational Opportunity and the Distribution of Natural
Ability: Toward a Prioritarian Principle of Educational Justice’, Journal of Philosophy
of Education, 46(3): 472–491.
Sen, A. (2010) The Idea of Justice, London: Penguin Books.
Sugden, R. (2003) ‘Opportunity as a Space for Individuality: Its Value and the
Impossibility of Measuring It’, Ethics, 113(4): 783–809.
Tesconi, C.A. and Hurwitz, E. (1974) ‘A Sort of Equality: A Description of the
Educational Opportunity Conflict’, in C.A. Tesconi and E. Hurwitz (eds.)
Education for Whom? The Question of Equal Educational Opportunity, New York:
Harper & Row.
Weitz, B.A. (1993) ‘Equality and Justice in Education: Dewey and Rawls’, Human
Studies, 16: 421–434.
Westen, P. (1985) ‘The Concept of Equal Opportunity’, Ethics, 95(4): 837–850.
Chapter 8
Educational justice and
talent advancement
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Kirsten Meyer
Is the advancement of those who are said to be more talented than others
compatible with or even required by demands of educational justice? In Germany,
for example, the school system separates children into different types of school
after 4th or 6th grade. This separation is supposed to be based on talent. In the
public discourse, this selection is often justified with reference to supposed needs
of the talented. It is argued that they might be prevented from developing their
talents in a less exclusive learning environment. In addition, current public and
scientific opinion speaks in favour of the promotion of the highly talented. There
are various demands from different sides to increase the promotion of the gifted,
for example by offering them special courses and special activities.
What are the arguments in favour of supporting the talented, and how
convincing are these arguments with regard to considerations of educational
justice? In order to answer these questions, I will start with a short survey of
relevant positions on (educational) justice (section 1). I will then scrutinise the
concept of talent (section 2) in order to next consider various arguments in
favour of promoting the talented. To that effect, I will first consider whether, and
if so how, others may benefit from the promotion of the talented (section 3).
Then I will discuss whether we owe such a promotion to the talented themselves
(section 4). I will finally argue that from the perspective of all relevant positions
of educational justice, there are good reasons to be sceptical about the demand
for a strong promotion of the talented (section 5). As a more general lesson,
these thoughts will reveal how questions of educational justice are interwoven
with considerations about the good or flourishing life.
1. Principles of (educational) justice
According to the meritocratic conception of educational equality, prospects
for educational achievements may be a function of an individual’s talents
and efforts, but should not be influenced by her social class background
(Brighouse and Swift, this volume: Ch. 1, p. 15). By referring to this conception,
one might demand to spend more resources on educating children from
lower socio-economic backgrounds than on children from more advantaged
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134 Kirsten Meyer
backgrounds, in order to equalise their prospects for educational achievement.
The meritocratic conception, however, is consistent with concentrating resources
on those who have high levels of talent, with the aim of producing very high
levels of achievement for them. Thus the meritocratic conception condemns
inequalities of educational achievement that reflect social class, but it allows for
inequalities of achievement that reflect talent.
With respect to these inequalities, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift cast some
doubts on the meritocratic conception of educational equality. First of all, they
mention ambiguities in the notion of talent and state that ‘a child’s social class
background may itself influence her level of “talent” ’ (Brighouse and Swift, this
volume Ch. 1, p. 16). Secondly, they point out that ‘people are no more
responsible for having the talents or defects they were born with than for the class
background into which they are born’ (Ibid: 17). In addition, they amend the
meritocratic conception and emphasise that considerations concerning
educational equality should also be based on another egalitarian principle which
focuses on the prospects for all-things-considered flourishing of those who
flourish least in a society. In this context they defend a version of John Rawls’s
difference principle (see Brighouse and Swift 2006 and this volume: Ch. 1, p. 20).
Those who argue for the priority of the worst off think that the educational
system should be designed in a way that focuses on the prospects of the least
advantaged. They might therefore argue that the majority of the resources
available should be spent on the education of those who have more difficulties in
learning than others. These additional resources could improve their level of
education. This, in turn, could improve their life prospects, for example with
regard to their job opportunities and their prospective financial situation.
In contrast to this line of thought Rawls seems to justify the promotion of the
better endowed (rather than those who are less talented) with the following
reasoning:
[T]he better endowed (who have a more fortunate place in the distribution
of native endowments they do not morally deserve) are encouraged to
acquire still further benefits – they are already benefited by their fortunate
place in that distribution – on condition that they train their native
endowments and use them in ways that contribute to the good of the less
endowed (whose less fortunate place in the distribution they also do not
morally deserve).
(Rawls 2001: 76)
Rawls holds that encouraging the better endowed might be justified if it meets
the requirements of the difference principle, which states that social and economic
inequalities have to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of
society. Encouraging the better endowed meets the difference principle if the less
endowed benefit from the achievements of the better endowed. For example, this
condition might be fulfilled if encouraging the better endowed leads to a higher
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Educational justice and talent advancement 135
economic growth, from which the less endowed also benefit economically. Rawls
does not explicitly argue in favour of a promotion of the better endowed in the
educational system in the quote cited above, but the educational system seems to
be a natural starting point for encouraging the talented and for thereby promoting
economic growth.
With regard to promoting the talented in the educational system we might also
consider another principle of justice endorsed by Rawls, namely the principle of
fair equality of opportunity. The principle of fair equality of opportunity is
similar to the meritocratic conception of educational equality (as stated by
Brighouse and Swift, this volume), even though its scope is broader (for the
differences in scope, see Stroop, this volume). In A Theory of Justice, Rawls
emphasises that the principle of fair equality of opportunity is lexically prior to the
difference principle (Rawls 2003: 77).
However, even under the assumption that Rawls’s principle of fair equality of
opportunity is the prior principle, this principle does not speak against providing
additional educational resources for the more ‘talented’ or those who are
considered to be ‘better endowed’. For Rawls, equality of opportunity is satisfied
when all individuals who have the same native talent and the same ambition will
have the same prospects of success. Rawls sensibly acknowledges that differences
in ambitions might also be traced back to different social backgrounds. And he
also acknowledges that natural talents are ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’
(Rawls 2003: 447). Both points, however, strengthen the importance of the
difference principle. They are not meant to be included into the principle of fair
equality of opportunity. Instead, this principle is still restricted to equal chances
for those who have the same native talents and the same ambitions.
Rawls’s difference principle can be seen as an example of a relational account:
we should focus on the worse off because they are worse off than others. What
we owe to them does not just depend on how badly off they are in absolute
terms. The same holds true for the meritocratic conception of educational
equality. According to this conception, we should spend more resources on
educating children from lower socio-economic backgrounds if their prospects for
educational achievement are worse than those of children from more advantaged
backgrounds. By contrast, non-egalitarian accounts refer to a certain threshold.
They also consider inequalities to be problematic, but only insofar as they
negatively affect some people in ways that take them below a threshold of
adequacy. In the following, I will point out what these accounts have to say
with regard to educational justice and discuss whether there are good reasons for
or against the promotion of the talented that can be formulated from such
accounts.
This short survey of the relevant positions should suffice in order to put the
following discussion into context. In what follows, I will consider different
arguments in favour of supporting those who Rawls calls the ‘better endowed’.
Rawls is talking about native endowments, and he uses this term interchangeably with the term ‘talents’. In the following, I will also use the term
136 Kirsten Meyer
‘talents’. I will, however, raise some serious doubts concerning the intelligibility
of such notions like ‘natural talents’ and ‘native endowments’ in the next
section.
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2. Talents
How much sense does it make to speak of the ‘better endowed’, of ‘native
endowments’ and ‘natural talents’ as often done in philosophy? The ‘better
endowed’ have a potential for certain valuable achievements, which can be
actualised under certain circumstances. These achievements are valuable for the
talented themselves, for example with regard to their prospective income. This is
why Rawls emphasises that they have already benefited from the natural lottery.
However, Rawls also emphasises that the better endowed can train their native
endowments and use them in ways that are beneficial to others. Talents are thus
potentials for certain achievements from which the talented themselves as well as
others can possibly benefit.
However, in the pedagogic and psychological literature (in contrast to the
philosophical literature) it is widely agreed that talents are not to be equated with
native endowments (Heller et al. 2005, Mönks and Katzko 2005). This holds,
too, for the closely related concept of general intelligence, which is therefore
worth a brief discussion. General intelligence is a widely accepted criterion for the
identification of the highly talented (see Deary 2012, Rost 2008). Even the
psychological literature almost always refers to the IQ as a measure of giftedness.
However, psychology does not attribute general intelligence exclusively (and
sometimes not even essentially) to native endowments. So what is measured in an
IQ test can be traced back to a considerable extent to the social environment.1 In
addition, proof of a high IQ is not sufficient for identifying an individual’s
potential for great achievements. Therefore, high intelligence is not sufficient for
identifying so called ‘talents’, if we define talents in terms of potential achievements.
Talents are potentials for high achievements, but these potentials do not depend
solely on a high IQ. Instead, they also depend on several non-cognitive and
motivational character traits, the development of which, in turn, depends strongly
on the social environment.
Taking into account the results from sociological and psychological research
and combining them with an analysis of the notion of talent thus shows that we
should be very careful with the talk of ‘native endowments’ or ‘natural talents’.
First, there is a controversial debate about the extent to which genes indeed
influence measurable intelligence. Second, there are other factors besides
intelligence that determine the probability of excellent achievements. All of these
factors strongly depend on the social environment. Third, it is not possible
to support only those aspects of a talent that are native, since it is not possible to
isolate them epistemically from other social influences. Thus when I will use the
term ‘talent’ in the following, I will not refer to allegedly natural talents, but
simply to potentials for valuable achievements.
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Educational justice and talent advancement 137
So far, I have raised doubts about the references to ‘native endowments’ or
‘natural talents’. The public discussion (and partly the philosophical discussion as
well) constantly overestimates the influence of native endowments on talent.
Now we can turn to the question of whether these doubts about natural
talents have implications for how we should approach the problem of social
justice. Does it matter whether or not we think of talents as native endowments?
Are there particular arguments against supporting those who are already
advantaged due to their social environment? Or should we simply support these
children, because they have a potential for reaching excellent achievements,
irrespective of its origin? What are the arguments in favour of particularly
promoting the talented in the educational system? In the following, I will first
turn to a discussion of one possible answer to the last question: the claim that we
should promote the talented for the benefit of others.
3. Promoting the talented for the
benefit of others
When people currently call for the promotion of the talented in Germany,
they often argue that in order to bring about more excellent performances we
need to tap the full potential of the existing talents. Modern technologies,
the cultural wealth of society and the political efficiency of democracy allegedly
depend upon our ability to recognise the existing talents and to promote
them (Holling et al. 2004).
However, can we indeed expect to achieve positive results such as mastering
new technologies and enlarging the economic and cultural wealth by promoting
the talented? And can the less talented also (and in particular) be expected to
profit from these effects of the promotion of the talented? Both questions address
empirical issues that cannot be tackled here.2 Notwithstanding, there are some
more general points that philosophers can indeed contribute to.
Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz made some illuminating points regarding
the second question, when they specified the conditions under which the less
talented actually could gain from the promotion of the talented. In particular, the
group of persons who will potentially occupy influential social positions should
(later) take into account the interests of all members of the society. In order to
develop the necessary social awareness, this group should be composed of people
from all social groups of society (Anderson 2007: 614, Satz 2007: 637).
Therefore, equality of opportunity is important for promoting the talented. It
contributes to a heterogeneous composition of this group. But note that this
argument does not refer to an enhancement of the educational opportunities of
the less talented. It only focuses on the educational opportunities of those who are
said to have the same talent, but a different social background. In addition,
this line of argument even seems to justify worse educational opportunities for
the less talented. They are justified by referring to the benefits of a promotion
of the talented – supposedly benefits for everyone. Anderson explicitly claims
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138 Kirsten Meyer
that ‘we should conceive of the asymmetrical distribution of human knowledge
and talents as a public good and arrange social institutions so that this distribution
functions as a resource that benefits everyone’ (Anderson 2007: 621).
It is extremely difficult to estimate whether the invention of new technologies
indeed depends upon, or at least profits from, policies that focus on promoting
the talented. In addition, it is difficult to estimate whether it is true that everyone
in a society profits from these developments. Do those who are held to be less
talented also profit from a promotion of the talented? A positive aspect might be
that it provides them with additional goods if the promotion of the talented leads
to a more productive society and if these benefits are radically redistributed in
a progressive tax-system. Whether or not this is expected to happen is a complicated empirical question. Philosophers cannot answer this question. But
philosophers can point to the variety of values that are at stake here. For example,
Satz stresses that there are numerous ways a person can benefit from the cultivation of other people’s talents beyond the levels provided for by public funds. For
example, it can make life more interesting and stimulating. And it might give us
‘a new sense of what human beings can achieve’ (Satz 2007: 632–633).
However, the sense of what human beings can achieve is itself a matter of
education. For example, if a person admires an opera singer, she might get
enthusiastic about what human beings can achieve. Thus she clearly benefited
from the cultivation of the opera singer’s talent. Yet, in order to be able to value
the achievement of the opera singer she needs to be educated herself. She needs
an understanding of opera in order to value the achievement of the opera singer.
Therefore, a focus on the good life might also reveal potential losses for those
who are considered to be less talented. They may only be able to appreciate and
participate in the cultural life if they received an appropriate amount of education
themselves. Thus with regard to values, we should not just ask what human
beings can achieve but also what they are able to value. Education essentially
enables us to value things. Brighouse and Swift call this the ‘nonpositional’ value
of education (Brighouse and Swift 2006: 482) or the ‘intrinsic’ value of education
(Brighouse and Swift 2008: 462–463). The intrinsic value of education goes
beyond its contribution to job opportunities and their value. Education enables
us to flourish in ways that have nothing to do with our competitiveness in the
labour market: ‘The educated person has a world of culture, complexity, and
enjoyment opened to her, engaging in which is valuable in ways that are not
competitive’ (Brighouse and Swift 2006: 482).
Thus we should focus on the overall gains of education, including its intrinsic
benefits.3 In order to specify what educational justice demands, a reference to the
overall well-being is needed. And this is not merely influenced by the prospective
income, but also by the intrinsic benefits of education. For example, we should
not forget the enjoyment that accompanies the development of our individual
talents and which does not necessarily enlarge our prospects on the job market.
However, it seems that one could argue in favour of promoting the talented
with just this line of reasoning. One could argue that we owe everyone the full
Educational justice and talent advancement 139
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development of their individual talents. Michael Merry takes such a claim to be
quite common:
In the last 30 years or so, a growing number of mostly white, middleclass parents have expressed outrage at the failure of public schools to
adequately challenge their children. Gifted children, the argument runs, are
underserved, are being ‘held back’, and are being asked to pull others up
without being challenged themselves. [. . .] Many of these parents have
demanded that states and/or the federal government appropriate funds for
separate gifted and talented programming as a matter of equity and equal
opportunity.
(Merry 2008: 48)
Accordingly, the question arises of whether or not these parents are right in
claiming that promoting the talented is a matter of equity and equality of
opportunity.
4. Promoting the talented in favour of the talented
To begin with, let us have a closer look at the above parents’ demand. These
parents seem to argue for their position by referring to the following principle:
Schools should provide equal opportunities to develop individual talents. They may
hold this to be a version of the more general demand for equality of opportunity.
However, claims to equality of opportunity are notoriously difficult to interpret.
So how should we interpret the above parent’s demand? Let me suggest two
possible interpretations:
(a) Schools should develop each child’s talents to the fullest degree.
(b) Schools should provide each child with the same educational input.
However, both lines of thought are not convincing. Let us start with the first
interpretation (a). Amy Gutmann has convincingly rejected such demands for
being ‘maximalistic’ (Gutmann 1987: 131). If someone tries to argue for the
promotion of the talented by claiming that we owe everyone the full development
of their individual talents, then one can reply in two ways.
Firstly, this would demand too much of the educational system: we would have
to transfer an extreme amount of resources to the educational sector. This would
imply a redistribution of resources that cannot be justified. For instance, public
investments into health compete with investments into education. Health,
however, is not less important for a good life than education.
Secondly, the setting of the school system determines whose talents are
developed in the highest degree, and we have to make a decision here. We cannot
escape this decision when we are confronted with different possibilities to set up
this system. For example, a separated school system (like the German one) is said
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140 Kirsten Meyer
to be second best for those who are judged to be less talented. For the maximum
development of their talents, they should learn together with those who are said
to be more talented. This is because children learn from each other. Talents can
at least partly be traced back to the fact that life at home has prepared those who
are said to be more talented for the school environment. Peers affect each other’s
aspirations and each other’s learning habits and the disadvantaged child is thus
likely to do better in a more integrated school. In contrast, a maximum
development of the talented might require a more exclusive learning environment
for them.
The second interpretation (b) is not convincing, either. Let me first clarify this
demand: In which sense should schools provide each child with the same
educational input? One could suggest that what is demanded is equal time and
attention devoted to each child by equally qualified teachers. Now it might be
claimed that within a comprehensive school, the talented receive less attention
than others by their teachers who concentrate primarily on those who are
considered slower learners. In addition, the talented are unduly being asked to
pull others up without being challenged themselves.
First of all, I doubt that this is really the case. But I do not want to tackle
empirical questions. Rather, I am interested in the underlying claim that schools
should provide each child with the same educational input. I do not think this
claim is justified. At first glance, it sounds like an egalitarian demand. However,
egalitarian considerations tend to speak in favour of promoting greater educational
resources for students with less educational potential.
This might be justified by referring to the difference principle. If priority
should be given to improving the prospects of enjoying a flourishing life of those
whose prospects are worst, it might well be that students who are said to be less
talented should receive more educational resources. Alternatively, and besides
referring to the difference principle, one might directly reject objections of
fairness that seem to speak in favour of promoting the talented. It could be stated
that it is unfair if the less talented receive more educational resources than others.
This objection can be rejected with an extended understanding of educational
resources which also includes educational inputs outside school. It is not unfair
that less able students receive more resources in school if those who are judged
to be more talented already received more educational resources in their early
childhood and still receive more from their parents and social environment. Thus
despite its justification by the difference principle, it would not even be unfair if
they now received less educational input than others in school. In addition, an
extended understanding of educational resources within school reveals that
children are resources for each other. Those who received less educational input
than others outside school are thus likely to do better in a more integrated school.
Moreover, Satz points out that in promoting others who are less talented, a
teacher can even change the order of the queue: ‘If a teacher devotes more time
to her less able students and less time to her more able students, then she too can
affect the meritorious abilities of her students and thus change the order of the
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Educational justice and talent advancement 141
queue. Merit, therefore, cannot tell us what the order of the queue should
be [. . .]’ (Satz 2007: 630).
Thus it is not at all clear how one could justify (b). I will therefore turn to
other possible arguments for the above parents’ demand to promote their talented
children. Sometimes the demand for a particular promotion of the highly talented
is justified by referring to the problems that they would otherwise face in regular
classes. In this context, some authors refer to the danger of underachievement.
The so-called underachievers are those whose performances in school fall far
below what could be expected from their IQ. In addition, it is claimed that the
underachievers tend to show problematic behaviour due to the neglect of their
special needs (Sparfeldt et al. 2006, West and Pennel 2003; for an overview see
Reis and McCoach 2000). Therefore, these children are said to represent a ‘risk
group’ in the same way as children with classical learning disabilities (Giesinger
2008). In order to fight these problems, schools are encouraged to focus on
promoting the talented more than they have done so far.
However, a deeper look into the psychological literature reveals that only a
small percentage of the gifted shows these kinds of problems more often than
other subgroups, who similarly reach performances in school that fall below or
exceed the performances which could be expected from their IQ (Hanses and
Rost 1998). In addition, one would have to look in more detail at the kinds
and the causes of the stated problems. For this argument in favour of promoting
the highly talented is only convincing, if the adjustment of their performances
to their potential does effectively lead to the removal of their problems. Take
for example timidity, emotional unstableness or social problems. It is by no
means obvious that these problems are the effect, but not the cause of the
underachievement.
At this point, it might be argued that it is also a problem in its own right if a
person falls back behind her possibilities and achieves less than she could achieve.
This assertion, however, needs clarification, because one needs to spell out the
nature of this problem. On the one hand, it might be regrettable for others if
someone achieves less than she could achieve, because others could possibly gain
from these achievements. On the other hand, this could be regrettable for the
talented persons themselves. We might say that an appropriate promotion of their
talents is likely to promote their good life. But this provokes a further question:
To what extent should the public education system contribute to the promotion
of the good life? What does the public education system owe everyone in this
respect? In the following, I will focus on those considerations that answer
this question by referring to a broadly perfectionist account. Perfectionists
hold that the state and its institutions (e.g. the educational system) shall promote
the flourishing of the citizens or shall at least ensure that everyone reaches
a threshold of human flourishing.
For example, Merry (2008) justifies the promotion of the gifted with such an
approach. He explicitly refers to human flourishing in arguing for a promotion
of highly talented children. Merry concedes that only a small number of truly
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142 Kirsten Meyer
exceptional children are likely to require extraordinary educational provision. He
calls these children ‘gifted’. Merry believes that not to adequately challenge these
children is to fail them. Accordingly, he demands a special educational provision
for these children, where special provision involves spending more on their
education than on the education of ‘normal’ children.
Merry argues that gifted children are generally denied educational justice, if
they fail to receive an education that adequately challenges them. This is because
an adequately challenging education is supposed to be essential to human
flourishing. In his account, human flourishing is spelled out with a reference to
autonomy. Merry states that ‘flourishing entails the capacity to freely act upon
one’s choices and live them from the inside’ (Merry 2008: 58). Thus:
Flourishing in this sense is closely related to at least a weak form of autonomy:
those who are adequately challenged are more likely to explore and reflect
upon the merits of various options and pursuits, and are in that sense
autonomous and more likely to lead flourishing lives.
(Merry, 2008: 59)
A reference to autonomy, however, is not helpful with regard to the question of
whether gifted children are denied educational justice. Merry ties the concept of
autonomy to critical reflection. Those who are able to explore and reflect upon the
merits of various options and pursuits are in that sense autonomous. This understanding of the concept of autonomy is indeed valuable for a discussion of various
issues in the philosophy of education. For example, a reference to the importance
of critical reflection may be a reason for scepticism towards home schooling.
Autonomy is a subject of discussion within this debate. But in the context of promoting the talented, a reference to the importance of critical reflection seems to
be out of place. This is because the talented are not especially in danger of not
being able to develop the ability to critical reflection. They are not less likely than
others to explore and reflect upon the merits of various options and pursuits.
The concept of autonomy often also entails a reference to an adequate range
of options and pursuits that are indeed available (and not just a possible object of
critical reflection on their alleged value).4 Thus Merry might refer to another
aspect of the concept of autonomy: the adequate range of choices that should be
available to all. However, here and elsewhere, the concept of autonomy does not
imply what exactly (or even roughly) an adequate range of options entails. For
example, it is not clear whether or not it entails the option to play a musical
instrument for those with an extraordinary musical talent. Therefore, the pure
reference to autonomy cannot tell us what we owe to the talented. In order to
spell out the adequate range of choices, we have to argue more directly for the
value of particular opportunities and we have to show why (if at all) we owe these
opportunities to someone.
Thus, a reference to the concept of autonomy is of no help in justifying special
support for the gifted. Are there other references to educational adequacy that
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Educational justice and talent advancement 143
could speak in favour of the promotion of the gifted? Could we justify special
support for the gifted by adopting a (broadly) Aristotelian perfectionism? Within
such an approach, Randall Curren (this volume) refers to psychological needs
such as ‘vitality’ and ‘meaning’. He refers to these needs as ‘felt Aristotelian
necessities’ which we should regard as universal requirements of human wellbeing grounded in human nature. Their satisfaction and the related fulfilment of
human intellectual, social, and productive potentials are central to human
flourishing. Thus the practices into which students are initiated in schools should
be ones through which the pupils can fulfil their human potentials and experience
the satisfaction that goes along with this.
Let us focus on the intellectual potentials. According to Curren, their fulfilment
is central to human flourishing. Accordingly, it should also contribute to the
flourishing of the gifted if they receive extra educational support. But do we owe
them this extra-support? Do we owe it to them, because if they did not receive it
they would miss the goal of human flourishing? This question should be denied
if one adopts a classical Aristotelian perspective. From such a perspective, we
should focus on the development of specifically human (and not just individual)
potentials. If we now say that without extra support the talented were forced to
live below a threshold of human flourishing, everyone else would be stated to live
below this threshold, too. This is because the talented are already better off than
others with respect to the development of their cognitive abilities. Thus they are
already ahead with regard to their human flourishing.
Curren, however, focuses on ‘felt’ Aristotelian necessities: on the satisfaction
and the related fulfilment of human intellectual, social, and productive potentials.
Current points out that ‘[t]he qualifier “felt” signifies that these are not only
necessary conditions for living well or flourishing, but that people exhibit and
experience less well-being when these conditions are not met [. . .]’ (Curren, this
volume: Ch. 5, p. 93). Given this understanding, we might say that the talented
are in special need with regard to their intellectual environment and experience
less well-being when certain conditions are not met. For example, they are getting
bored in school if they do not receive additional educational input.
Nevertheless, it is not at all obvious why the talented should fall beyond a
threshold of human flourishing if they do not receive this additional input. One
might instead argue that the talented would surely profit from additional
educational resources. Pupils who are said to be less talented, however, may also
profit from additional educational resources. These resources make their life
more vital and meaningful, too. In addition, they may even need these additional
resources to develop capacities that enable them to fully participate in a democratic
society.
At this point those who refer to educational adequacy instead of subscribing to
an egalitarian approach might still say that from their perspective nothing speaks
against the promotion of the talented under certain circumstances. They may, as
Gutmann (1987) suggests, leave it simply to the democratic society how much
meritocracy it intends to endorse – as long as education guarantees everyone’s
144 Kirsten Meyer
ability to effectively participate in the democratic process. Therefore we should
now focus more closely on the arguments against promoting the talented.
5. Against the promotion of the talented
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I will argue that within an adequacy account (a) as well as from an egalitarian
perspective (b) there are good reasons against a stronger promotion of the
talented.
(a) First of all, the less talented need additional resources for even participating in
the social life. For example, we need to ensure that no one is excluded from the
working world. In this respect, the individual well-being of those who are judged
to be less talented is much more threatened than that of the more talented. Thus
a proponent of an adequacy approach should express reservations against the
demand to promote the talented. The worry should be that promoting the
talented would prevent those who did not get enough in the past from getting
enough in the future. Of course, one first needs to ask how much enough is. A
proponent of an adequacy approach needs to consider which aspects of the good
life are relevant and of what importance each of them is. I have already suggested
that referring to the value of autonomy is of no help in answering these questions.
A more plausible answer, which is stressed for example by Satz, builds on the
idea of social participation. Satz points out that citizenship requires a threshold
level of knowledge, and that the empirical content of this threshold itself depends
on the distribution of skills and knowledge in the population as a whole (Satz
2007: 636). At this point we can assume that the promotion of the already
privileged, very probably, tends to widen the social gap. In addition, the
promotion of the already privileged may be detrimental to Satz’s requirement
that ‘everyone with the potential have access to the skills needed for college’
(Satz 2007: 638). It seems that by referring to ‘potentials’ she refers to ‘natural
talents’ here. If, however, we depart from such a focus on natural talents (as
I think we should), an adequacy approach does not at all speak in favour of
a separated promotion of those with the higher potentials within the public
school system.
Proponents of an adequacy approach should also remain sceptical concerning
demands of fair equality of opportunity. They have criticised this principle for
giving too much weight to merit, and they have criticised the underlying assumption
that those who are naturally more talented should enjoy greater prospects for
positions of advantage (see, for example, Anderson 2004). However, Satz claims
that we should not dismiss the idea of fair equality of opportunity, since she takes it
to be central to the idea of a democratic society of equals. She suggests to ‘conceive
of fair equality of opportunity as a critical tool that is aimed at identifiable injustices
in the ways that people are treated’ (Satz, this volume: Ch. 2, p. 41). Applying this
critical tool, we should ask whether each person has a reasonable chance of a decent
life in which they can relate to others in terms of equality.
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Educational justice and talent advancement 145
Satz thinks that referring to the principle of fair equality of opportunity helps
ensuring that the educational gap between the least advantaged and the middle
class is not so large that it undermines the conditions for equal citizenship.
However, if the idea of equal citizenship guides the scope of fair equality of
opportunity (as Satz suggests), this scope radically changes the content of the
principle, because it can then no longer include the assumption that it is justified
to restrict this principle to those who are said to be ‘equally talented’ (see also
Stroop, this volume: Ch. 7). In addition, a proponent of an adequacy approach
should explicitly criticise the reference to the concept of (supposedly) natural
talents. She should criticise it because it contributes to the false belief that the
social gap is unchangeable, independent of how the school system is organised.
Johannes Giesinger (this volume) emphasises that focusing on educational
aims leads to an account of justice that is clearly distinct from the meritocratic
idea. On his account, the aim of education is also spelled out in terms of an
adequate education for all. In addition to Satz, however, he attempts to enrich
the civic conception of education and focuses on determining to what extent the
civic account can justify those aspects of education that go beyond the preparation
of students for the labour market and the competition for social status. In this
context, he claims the following: ‘One reason for initiating students into cultural
practices such as literature and art is that future citizens should be enabled to feel
at home in the cultural world they live. This is a precondition for conceiving of
oneself as a fully-fledged member of the political community’ (Giesinger, this
volume: Ch. 4, p. 74). This, however, again highlights the necessity to promote
those who are said to be less talented, because they are especially in need of being
initiated into certain cultural practices.
Depending on how the school system is organised, resources and measures in
favour of the talented have negative effects on the less achieving students. This
may be the case, either because resources are altogether restricted, because of
the fact that education is a positional good, or because a segregated school system
may be beneficial for the more advantaged, but worse for those who would
profit from a more inclusive learning environment. Nevertheless, we could try
to promote the talented by certain means that do not have a negative effect on
others. We could, for example, think of forms of individualised but still mutual
learning, from which ultimately all benefit. If this were indeed possible, the whole
discussion about a possible justification for promoting the talented within
the public school system would be pointless. Unfortunately, however, the above
stated trade-offs are not fully avoidable. Promoting the talented does not come
for free. This, of course, is also a relevant point for egalitarians.
(b) From what I have said so far, it follows that the promotion of the talented can
be criticised with reference to the principle of equality of opportunity. The idea
of equality of opportunity (in the educational system) is tied to the claim that
the social background of an individual should have no influence on his or her
educational prospects. If there are strong reasons to assume that the apparently
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146 Kirsten Meyer
natural talents can be essentially traced back to a person’s social background, the
promotion of the talented undermines the demand that the social background of
an individual should have no influence on his or her educational prospects.
In addition, it might not even matter whether, or to what extent, the allegedly
natural talents of an individual can be traced back to his or her social background.
Egalitarians quite frequently mention (sometimes with uneasiness) that luck
egalitarians might be pulled into a more radical version of equality of opportunity
by their own premises (Brighouse and Swift, this volume: Ch. 1). Luck egalitarians
refer to brute luck, but natural talents are no less a result of brute luck than the
social background. Thus there are two reasons for denying that promoting
the talented is a matter of equality of opportunity. Firstly, it is reasonable to
assume that different talents can be traced back to a different social background
to a large extent. And secondly, from the luck egalitarian perspective, it may not
even make a difference whether we explain talents by nature or nurture, since
both can be traced back to brute luck and are not the result of option luck.
Thus even if an egalitarian thinks that fair equality of opportunity has priority
over distribution principles in the economic sphere, she should argue against
especially supporting the talented in the educational system.5 Moreover, it is
precisely this lexical priority of equality of opportunity that many egalitarians do
not find plausible.6 For why should the good ‘opportunities’ be infinitely more
important than other goods? Let us thus suppose that the egalitarian holds the
difference principle to be lexically prior. With regard to the question of talent
advancement, the result will still be the same: a reference to this principle also
speaks against, rather than in favour of, a stronger promotion of the talented.
Egalitarians ought to be sceptical about promoting the talented, if this worsens
the educational or life prospects of those who are already worse off.
In this context it is important to see that education is valuable not only for
competitive reasons, but independently improves individual’s lives by enabling
them to engage in valuable pursuits, such as reading good literature and socialising
with people who speak other languages. This, however, does not only extend
the meritocratic conception with regard to the value of education for those in less
favourable social conditions, but can also be applied to those who are said to be
‘less talented’. Education is directly valuable for them, and the direct value of
education for those who are said to be more talented may not justify the provision
of additional educational resources for them, if one should rather concentrate on
those who are least advantaged. This is a further reason why concentrating
resources on those below the median level of talent is more likely to benefit the
least advantaged. For an egalitarian, this should speak against the promotion of
the talented.7
In addition, egalitarians should be sceptical about the demand to promote the
talented for a further reason. Talking of talents often seems to legitimise avoidable
differences in educational prospects in the case of a different social background
by tracing these differences back to different natural endowments instead of
tracing them back to social background (see Borland 2005, Vopat 2011). This
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Educational justice and talent advancement 147
reasoning is implicitly based on the assumption of a static concept of talent, which
presupposes that the educational achievements resulting from these talents are
unchangeable. And if they are unchangeable – so the reasoning seems to go – it
is nobody’s fault that some children learn much less than others. A different
school system could not change this. But a deeper examination of the concept of
talent reveals the deficiency of such reasoning. The assumption that the so-called
‘natural’ talents or endowments are actually responsible for the educational
achievements is mistaken.
Consequently, egalitarians who think that the educational prospects should
not depend on the social background should criticise this talk of natural
endowments. It contributes to undermining the fulfilment of their demands.
They should be sceptical concerning the talk of the promotion of the talented,
since this suggests that high intellectual or otherwise valuable performances can
be attributed to natural endowments. And, maybe even more importantly, they
should use the concepts ‘natural endowments’ and ‘natural talents’ more carefully
themselves.
To avoid misunderstandings, egalitarians should also be more careful concerning the alleged distinction between a more radical principle of educational
equality, which demands equalising the educational opportunities due to talent
and social circumstances, and a more moderate principle, which demands
equalising the educational opportunities due to social circumstances only (see
Brighouse and Swift, this volume: Ch. 1). This distinction suggests a problematic
notion of talent. If different talents can only be traced back to different social
circumstances or if we at least cannot epistemically distinguish between the
natural and the social side of a talent, this speaks against the distinction between
these allegedly two kinds of egalitarianism.
In conclusion, egalitarians and non-egalitarians alike should be sceptical about
the reference to natural talents and about the call for an increased promotion of
the talented. In addition, questions of the good life are central for both egalitarian
and non-egalitarian considerations. As Rawls has already pointed out, ‘resources
for education are not to be allotted solely or necessarily mainly according
to their return as estimated in productive trained abilities, but also according to their worth in enriching the personal and social life of citizens, including
here the less favored’ (Rawls 2003: 92). If one focuses on the different ways in
which educational resources enrich the personal and social life, it turns out that
we should not especially promote the ‘talented’ and thus those who have already
benefited, but rather the less favoured. This holds true both for egalitarians and
for those who endorse an adequacy account of educational justice.
Notes
1 The literature on the heritability of intelligence is inconclusive. However, today
there seems to be an agreement that individual differences in IQ are at least partly
148 Kirsten Meyer
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2
3
4
5
6
7
genetically determined (e.g. Bouchard 2004). While the estimates of heritability of
IQ amount to approximately 0.7–0.8 for adults, the number is much lower for
children (around 0.5). Characteristics of the family environment are estimated to
have an effect on childhood IQ of about 0.25–0.3. The heritability of intelligence
is further questioned by the results of the survey of Turkheimer et al. (2003). They
show that the genetic determination of IQ can only be proven for children with a
high socio-economic background, but not for children from poor families. TuckerDrob et al. (2010) confirm this result.
For a criticism concerning the underlying empirical assumptions in justifying
education for the gifted, see, for example, Bull 2000.
Rawls already warns against concentrating on material goods (Rawls 2003: 92).
For such a reference to an adequate range of choices, see for example Raz (1988).
Gosepath (2004: 446) also points this out.
See critically e.g. Pogge (1994: 99f.), Brighouse and Swift (2006: 483), Arneson
(1999).
We should also consider the practical consequences of our views for educational
justice in public education and our demands for their implementation. Accordingly,
we should not exclude the possibility that a lack of justice in a certain respect might
turn out to be better for everyone, given the concrete conditions in our society.
This is also a relevant consideration with regard to the promotion of the talented in
the private school system: an increased promotion of the talented within the public
school system (UK: the state schools) could prevent wealthy parents from sending
their children to private schools. If they are dissatisfied with the public system they
might send their children to elitist private schools. This, in turn, is likely to harm
those who stay in the public school system. Thus, a promotion of the talented
within the public system could be the smaller evil for the less talented (at least as
long as we think that we should not, or are not able to, prohibit the expansion of
private schools). In this respect, and compared to the British system, the German
public school system could just be the lesser evil. It is a divided public school
system, but at least most children visit state schools. Nevertheless, it is still important
to point out that justice nevertheless demands a less divided public school system,
and that justice demands a focus on the promotion of those who did not already
benefit.
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Index
academic education see education
achievements 121, 136 see also
educational achievements;
achievement gap 15; versus
opportunities 46, 123
adequacy: Debra Satz 3–4, 27, 29, 70,
113, 114, 119, 122, 143–5; educational
3, 27–30, 31n22, 46, 70, 86, 113,
114, 122, 127–8, 143–5; Elizabeth
Anderson 27, 28, 29, 31n24
admission (to school, college) 43, 48
agents: finite 83; rational 83, 84–5, 87
ambition (stunted) 38, 39–40, 46–7,
58–9, 61–2
Anderson, Elizabeth 6, 20–1, 95n8,
137–8; on adequacy 27, 28, 29,
31n24
anti-discrimination (and equality of
opportunity) 105–6, 115
Aristotle: ‘Aristotelian necessities’ 88,
89, 90, 92, 93, 143; and citizenship
84; eudaimonism (flourishing) 88–9,
90–1; liberal education 81, 90;
Politics 88; on schooling 84, 90
Arneson, Richard 27, 39
autonomy 9–10, 75, 142; of children
75; political versus ethical 74, 77n10
barriers (to higher education) 4, 58 see
also hurdles (to higher education)
Bildung (development/education) 55,
65, 67, 73, 76n2, 102
Brighouse, Harry 41–2, 124; with
Adam Swift 7, 66, 69, 71, 113, 114,
122–3, 127, 129n1, 133–4, 138;
critique by Debra Satz 25–6; intrinsic
value of education 125
Brown v. Board of Education 36, 46
careers 41, 42
chance (fair) 114, 115–17
children: and achievements 121;
autonomy of 75; consent of 73;
gifted 139, 141–2; motivation of 38;
as recipients of distribution 126; talents
37
citizenship 144; and Aristotle 84; and
education 9, 46, 47; equal 45, 48, 74,
75, 84, 95n8; and equality of
opportunity 6, 8, 120, 121; and
respect 84; T.H. Marshall 45
civic equality 45, 70–1, 74, 75, 76n9,
95n8
civic friendship 84
common good 82, 88
comparative justice 53, 56
compensation 125–6, 130n24; for fair
equality of opportunity 109
competencies 46
competition 66, 121; and comparative
justice 54; competitive traits 42; and
education 55, 57, 61, 67, 123, 124,
126–8; fair 66, 67, 68, 116, 122;
open 117; opportunities 128–9; social
1; unfair 43
crime see incarceration
Curren, Randall 2, 10, 77n7, 143
Cuypers, Stefaan 66, 71
Deci, Edward (with Richard Ryan)
93
democratic societies 40, 46; Rawls’ idea
of 38, 45
development of children see education
and individual development
developmental care (for juvenile
offenders) 87
152 Index
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difference principle see Rawls, John
discrimination see anti-discrimination
(and equality of opportunity)
distribution: children as recipients of
126; of education 117–18, 120–1,
123, 124, 139, 140; and
egalitarianism 5, 146–7; equal 52;
levelling down 22, 29, 44
education see also philosophy; private
schooling: academic 57; and
application of justice 9, 56; basic
10–11, 102–3; Bildung 55, 65, 67–8,
73, 76n2, 102; and citizenship 9, 46,
47; and competition 55, 57, 61, 66,
123, 124, 126–8; concept of 65;
distribution (unequal) 36, 45–6;
distribution of 117–18, 120–1, 123,
124, 134; diverse quality of 58; as
economic asset 57, 58; effect on
prospects 22; eligibility criteria 58;
equality of opportunity 4–5, 57, 58,
118; equality of outcome 102; in
Germany 63n8, 67–8; higher
education 56, 57–8, 61–2;
importance of 15, 36; and individual
development 55–6; and injustice 51;
intrinsic value of 68–9, 71, 72, 125,
138; justification of 65–6, 68–9,
70–2, 76; levels of 101–3; liberal 81,
85–6, 90; non-instrumental value of
68–9; obligation by state 46; school
102; versus training 54–5, 56–7; value
of 25–6, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 107,
138, 146
educational achievements 57–8, 66;
effect of social class 21, 66;
inequalities in 134; racial issues 34–6;
and social background 134; in United
States 34–6
educational equality 24–6, 114 see also
meritocratic conception (of
educational equality); concept of 36;
disparities in 34–6, 119; fairnessbased 15, 36; objections to 18–20;
racial issues 34–6
educational institutions see schools
educational justice 1, 9, 65, 100–1, 103,
119, 138, 140, 148n7; adequacy view
of 70, 119, 122; and equality of
opportunity 113–14, 127; and gifted
children 142; and governance 81–2;
and meritocratic conception (of
educational equality) 66–7, 68, 123,
133–4; outcome-based 118; principles
of 133–4
effort: inequalities of 68; radical
conception (of educational equality)
17; and talent 17–18
egalitarianism 3, 5, 12, 52, 56, 146–7;
egalitarian justice 52–3, luck
egalitarianism 104–11
elitism 88
employment 42, 49n12; distribution of
positions 104, 108, 109
equality see also equality of opportunity:
civic 45, 70–1, 74, 77n9, 95n8;
educational see educational equality;
free and equal persons (Rawls) 126;
of outcome 102; political 45; social
45
equality of opportunity 11, 16, 35–48,
57–8, 62, 86, 102, 104–5, 111n6,
119–21, 127–9, 135 see also
comparative justice; opportunities;
and anti-discrimination 105–6; and
citizenship 8, 120, 121, 144–5; and
compensation 108–9; in education
4–5, 57, 58, 118; and educational
justice 113–14; and fair chance 114,
115–17; formal 106; forms of
105–10; for positions versus for
education 126–7; and promotion of
talent 145–6; social 109; and social
inequality 113, 118; and talent 137
eudaimonism (flourishing) 88–9, 90–1
fair chance 114, 115–17, 122 see also
competition
fair competition see competition
fairness-based equality: in education 15;
and meritocratic conception (of
educational equality) 123–4, 127; of
opportunities 16, 127; of social
competition 127
family 39 see also parents; importance of
relationships 23–5; influence of 4, 37,
40, 100–2; responsibility of 101;
values 25
Feinberg, Joel 51; Social Philosophy
(1973) 53
fiduciaries see parents as fiduciaries
Fishkin, J. 37
flourishing (life) 2, 21, 89–91, 141–3;
responsibility of schools 94, 140
Foot, Philippa 88
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freedom (also see liberty): Aristotle 90;
individual 4, 23, 45–6, 78n14, 82; and
justice 4; negative 106; opportunity
129; parental 29; rights 9, 45–6, 74,
95; from state imposition 19
Fuller, Lon 85
Fullinwider, Robert (with Judith
Lichtenberg) 35
gender inequality 39–40, 106
Germany: education 63n8, 67–8; and
promotion of talent 137; schools 133,
139–40
Giesinger, Johannes 9, 124–5, 129n5,
130n24, 145
Glazer, Nathan 19, 23
good see common good; human good
goods (essential) 89, 91–2
Gosepath, Stefan 10–11
governance 81–2, 84
Gutmann, Amy 27, 139
happiness 82, 93
health 22
high school education 103–4
Hirst, Paul (with Richard Peters) 80–1,
92
Holling, H. 137
human good 6–7, 69, 70, 76
hurdles (to higher education) 58, 60
impartiality 51–2
incarceration 34
income 41, 53–4; classes 37; and
well-being 22
inequality 68; legitimate 7, 15;
Jonathon Kozol 47; social 37, 113
injustice (in education) 51
integration 41, 46–7
intelligence 136, 147
intrinsic value: of education 68–9, 71,
72, 125, 138; and rationality 87
IQ see intelligence
Jencks, Christopher 35
justice 81 see also educational justice;
basic principle of 52, 62n1;
comparative 53, 56; comparative
versus non-comparative 51, 53–4, 58,
60–1; distributive 65; egalitarian
52–3; and impartiality 51–2; noncomparative 51; procedural 118;
Rawls’ theory of 37; social 41
justification (of education) 65–6, 67,
68–9, 70–2, 76; perfectionist 66,
71–3, 75, 76
Kant, Immanuel 83–4
Kozol, Jonathon: on inequality 47; on
parental liberty 19
law 85–6; Brown v. Board of Education
36
learning processes 65
‘less advantaged’ (in society) 7, 18–19,
20–1, 22, 25, 45
levelling down distribution 22, 29,
44
liberal education 81, 85–6
liberty (see also freedom) 74, 84;
John Stuart Mill 55–6; parental 14,
19, 23, 25; Rawlsian basic 44–5,
53
Lichtenberg, Judith (with Robert
Fullinwider): Leveling the Playing
Field (2004) 35
‘living well’ see flourishing (life)
longevity (and inequality) 22
mainstream society 41
Marshall, T.H. 45
merit 58, 141
meritocratic conception (of educational
equality) 15–17, 66–7, 68, 70,
76–7n4, 103, 113, 114, 122–3, 125,
126; and educational justice 123,
133–4; and fair equality of
opportunity 123–4, 127
Merry, Michael 139, 141–2
Meyer, Kirsten 12, 72
morality 83–4
motivation 37, 38–9, 82, 93, 94,
108–9, 111n6
narrative imagination 74–5
native endowments 135–7, 147 see also
talent
necessities (‘Aristotelian’) 88, 89, 93
needs (psychological) 93
non-comparative justice 51
Nussbaum, Martha 74–5, 78n14, 89
objectivism 72
offenders, juvenile 87
opportunities 146 see also equality of
opportunity; versus achievements 46,
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123; comparative versus noncomparative equality of 58, 60–1;
competition opportunities 128–9;
educational 123, 128; freedom
oppportunities 129; measurement of
45; objects of 126; pedagogically
versus justice-orientated 128;
provision by the state 44
parents: as fiduciaries 24; parental liberty
19, 23, 24–6; parental partiality
24–7; parental support 60; and
private schooling 21, 23; promotion
of talented children 141; rights of
24–6
Patterson, Orlando 41
perfectionism 66, 71–3, 75, 76
Peters, Richard 65–6, 68, 71, 80; Ethics
and Education (1966) 65; with Paul
Hirst 80–1, 92; ‘The Justification of
Education’ (1973) 65
philosophy (of education) 2, 80, 95n2,
95n4
political equality 45
potentialities (for success) 89, 93
poverty 34
private schooling 19, 21, 24–6
procedural justice 118
psychological needs (universal) 93
psychology 82, 91; eudaimonistic 93;
positive 92; Self-Determination
Theory (SDT) 92–3
punishment 87
quality (of education) 58
quality of life 75
racial issues 19, 34, 35–6, 40–1, 60, 63
radical conception (of educational
equality) 17
rational agents 83, 84–5, 87
rationality 85, 87
Rawls, John 16, 76–7n4, 107, 147;
careers open to talent 36; critique of
his theories 38–41; democratic
societies 38, 45; difference principle
36, 43, 116, 125, 134–5, 140; fair
equality of opportunity 36–48, 86,
114, 115–18, 120–1, 126, 135; free
and equal persons 126; native
endowments 135, 147; Original
Position 91, 92; Political Liberalism
74, 77n10; relationship with
meritocratic principle 123; on talent
124, 134, 135; theory of justice 37,
40, 53; Theory of Justice (1996) 44
resources (distribution of) 26–7, 28–30,
47, 139, 140
respect 82, 84, 87
responsibility 85–6, 87
rights 86, 87, 102–11; Aristotle 91,
–civil 11, 104, 109; equal 36, 45, 62,
74, 105; human right to education
102–3 liberty and property 84;
parental 23–4, 101; participatory 45,
74, 95;
Ryan, Richard (with Edward Deci) 93
Satz, Debra 7–8, 25–6, 76n77, 95n8,
120, 137–8, 140, 144; on adequacy
3–4, 27, 29, 70, 113, 114, 119, 122,
143–5; on citizenship 74, 95n8, 120,
121, 144–5; social participation 120
Sen, Amartya 129
schools 10–11, 93, 140, 145; Aristotle’s
idea of 84; and essential goods 91–2;
and flourishing life 94; Germany 133,
139–40; and promotion of talent 139,
140; reforms 80, 92; separated 139
Schramme, Thomas 8–9
Self-Determination Theory (SDT)
92–3
social background 1, 39, 68, 107,
122–3 see also social class; and
educational achievement 57–8, 134;
and educational competition 124,
127; effect on achievements 115–16;
effect on talent 106; and rights 101;
and talent 134, 137, 140, 145–7
social class, see also background: and
distribution of resources 28–30; effect
on achievements 15, 16, 21, 58, 66,
103; effect on talent 16–17; and
effort 17; integration versus
segregation 29–30, 31n26
social condition 114
social equality 45
social inequality 37, 113
social origin 38, 39, 40, 41, 43
social participation 120–1
social structures 37–8, 42, 43, 57, 106,
109, 118
society: democratic 40, 46; equality in
95n8; ‘less advantaged’ 7, 20–1, 22,
25, 35, 43, 123, 134; mainstream 41;
modern 15
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Index 155
state: intervention by 4, 6, 101;
provision of education 46–7, 70, 73,
86, 101–2; and provision of
opportunity 44
statistical data 60
stigma 40
Stroop, Constantin 11
stunted ambition see ambition
subjectivism 72
success: and Aristotelian necessities 89;
and living well 88, 89
sufficientarianism 28–9, 113
Supreme Court (US) 36, 46
Swift, Adam see Brighouse, Harry
Switzerland 67–8
talent 19, 37, 39, 44, 108–9, 111n6,
116, 124, 126, 133–5, 147; better
endowed 134, 136; cultivation of
102–3, 124–5; and effort 17–18;
and equality of opportunity 137,
145–6; and genes 136; gifted
children 139–41; and influence of
family 37; less talented 137–41,
144; meritocratic conception
(of educational equality) 15–17;
versus native endowments 136–7,
147; natural 135, 137, 145, 147;
natural versus developed talent
16–17; promotion of 12, 137–44,
147; against promotion of 144–5;
in schools 139; and social
background 137, 140, 145–7;
and social class 16–17, 134;
underachievers 141
teaching (quality of) 94
Tooley, James 27
training (versus education) 54–5
underachievers 145
United States 47; achievement gap 15;
educational inequality in 34–6;
incarceration 34; poverty 34; racial
issues 34, 35
universities see education
value of education see education
value of the familiy see family
virtue (and happiness) 82, 89
well-being 22 see also happiness
Williams, Bernard 107
women see gender inequality
work see employment