Bottlenecks : a new theory of equal opportunity / Joseph Fishkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fishkin, Joseph.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Discrimination--Law and legislation--United States--Philosophy.

Discrimination.

Equality--Philosophy.

Equality.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (290 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Equal opportunity is a powerful idea, and one with extremely broad appeal in contemporary politics, political theory, and law. But what does it mean? On close examination, the most attractive existing conceptions of equal opportunity turn out to be impossible to achieve in practice, or even in theory. As long as families are free to raise their children differently, no two people's opportunities will be equal; nor is it possible to disentangle someone's abilities or talents from her background advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, given different abilities and disabilities, different people

Contents:

Cover; Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity; Copyright; CONTENTS; Introduction; A. How We Think about Equal Opportunity; B. Opportunity Pluralism; C. Implications of the Theory; I Equal Opportunity and Its Problems; I.A. Conceptions of Equal Opportunity; I.A.1. Rawlsian Equal Opportunity and Starting-Gate Theories; I.A.2. Tests, Bias, and "Formal-Plus"; I.A.3. Luck Egalitarianism and Natural Talents; I.A.4. Talent, Luck, and Dworkin; I.B. Beyond Distributive Justice: Opportunities and Flourishing; I.C. Four Problems for Equal Opportunity; I.C.1. The Problem of the Family

i. Parental Advantagesii. Mitigation and Compensation; iii. Families and the Principle of Fair Life Chances; I.C.2. The Problem of Merit; i. An Admissions Example; ii. Merit for Luck Egalitarians; iii. Roemer's EOp Proposal and the Limits of Merit; iv. Merit and Self; I.C.3. The Problem of the Starting Gate; i. Limits of the Ex Ante Perspective; ii. Compounded Advantage and the Concatenation of Opportunities; iii. Focus on the Youngest?; iv. Them That's Got Shall Get ; I.C.4. The Problem of Individuality; i. Schaar's Nightmare and Nozick's Dream

ii. Toward a Different Kind of Equal OpportunityII Opportunities and Human Development; II.A. Natural Difference in Political Theory; II.B. Intrinsic Differences, Nature, and Nurture; II.B.1. Intrinsic Difference Claims; II.B.2. Models of Nature and Nurture; II.B.3. Not Even Separate; II.C. The Trouble with "Normal"; II.C.1. There Is No "Normal"; II.C.2. The Flynn Effect: An Object Lesson in the Role of Environment; II.D. An Iterative Model of Human Development; II.D.1. Developing Capacities; II.D.2. Interaction with Family and Society; II.D.3. Interaction with the World of Employment

II.E. The Trouble with "Equal"II.E.1. A Simple Equalization Problem; II.E.2. What if We Don't All Have the Same Goal?; II.E.3. The Endogeneity of Preferences and Goals; II.E.4. Essential Developmental Opportunities; III Opportunity Pluralism; III.A. Unitary and Pluralistic Opportunity Structures; III.A.1. Individuality and Pluralism; III.A.2. Positional Goods and Competitive Roles; III.A.3. The Anti-Bott leneck Principle; III.A.4. Who Controls the Opportunity Structure?; III.B. The Dynamics of Bottlenecks; III.B.1. Types of Bottlenecks; III.B.2. Legitimate versus Arbitrary Bottlenecks

III.B.3. Severity of BottlenecksIII.B.4. How Many People Are Affected by this Bottleneck?; III.B.5. What to Do about Bottlenecks; III.B.6. Bottlenecks and the Content of Jobs; III.B.7. Situating Bottlenecks within the Opportunity Structure as a Whole; III.B.8. Bottlenecks, Efficiency, and Human Capital; III.B.9. Potential Benefits of Bottlenecks; III.C. Flourishing, Perfectionism, and Priority; III.C.1. Equal Opportunity without a Common Scale; III.C.2. Thin Perfectionism and Autonomy; IV Applications; IV.A. Class as Bottleneck

IV.A.1. Fear of Downward Mobility: A Parable about How Inequality Matt ers

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-063943-1

0-19-981215-2

OCLC:

865508351