Joseph Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199812141
- eISBN:
- 9780199395576
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812141.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter proposes a new way of thinking about equal opportunity: opportunity pluralism. The idea is that, instead of literally attempting to equalize opportunities, we ought to work to broaden ...
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This chapter proposes a new way of thinking about equal opportunity: opportunity pluralism. The idea is that, instead of literally attempting to equalize opportunities, we ought to work to broaden the ranges of opportunities open to people at all stages in life to pursue paths that lead to human flourishing. To achieve this, the chapter argues that we ought to loosen the bottlenecks in the opportunity structure: the narrow places through which people must pass in order to reach a wide range of paths that open out on the other side. The chapter argues that we ought to build a society with a wide plurality of values, in which many of the goods people value are not positional goods, and where there are many competing sources of authority over both the opportunity structure and questions of value.Less
This chapter proposes a new way of thinking about equal opportunity: opportunity pluralism. The idea is that, instead of literally attempting to equalize opportunities, we ought to work to broaden the ranges of opportunities open to people at all stages in life to pursue paths that lead to human flourishing. To achieve this, the chapter argues that we ought to loosen the bottlenecks in the opportunity structure: the narrow places through which people must pass in order to reach a wide range of paths that open out on the other side. The chapter argues that we ought to build a society with a wide plurality of values, in which many of the goods people value are not positional goods, and where there are many competing sources of authority over both the opportunity structure and questions of value.
