IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v14y2015i1p53-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Rawlsian autonomy to sufficient opportunity in education

Author

Listed:
  • Liam Shields

Abstract

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not equality. The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision.

Suggested Citation

  • Liam Shields, 2015. "From Rawlsian autonomy to sufficient opportunity in education," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 14(1), pages 53-66, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:14:y:2015:i:1:p:53-66
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X13505413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X13505413
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X13505413?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shields, Liam, 2012. "The Prospects for Sufficientarianism," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 101-117, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anders Herlitz & David Horan, 2016. "Prioritizing the “worse off” under attainability constraints: An indeterminacy problem for distributive fairness," Working Papers 201608, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    2. Martens, Karel, 2018. "Ageing, impairments and travel: Priority setting for an inclusive transport system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 122-130.
    3. Rita Vasconcellos Oliveira, 2018. "Back to the Future: The Potential of Intergenerational Justice for the Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, February.
    4. Bramka Arga Jafino & Jan H. Kwakkel & Frans Klijn, 2022. "Evaluating the distributional fairness of alternative adaptation policies: a case study in Vietnam’s upper Mekong Delta," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 1-20, August.
    5. Heindl, Peter & Kanschik, Philipp, 2016. "Ecological sufficiency, individual liberties, and distributive justice: Implications for policy making," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 42-50.
    6. Wouters, S. & van Exel, N.J.A. & Rohde, K.I.M. & Vromen, J.J. & Brouwer, W.B.F., 2017. "Acceptable health and priority weighting: Discussing a reference-level approach using sufficientarian reasoning," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 158-167.
    7. Zoltán Hermann & Márta Péntek & László Gulácsi & Irén Anna Kopcsóné Németh & Zsombor Zrubka, 2022. "Measuring the acceptability of EQ-5D-3L health states for different ages: a new adaptive survey methodology," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(7), pages 1243-1255, September.
    8. Katharina Bohnenberger, 2020. "Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-30, January.
    9. Anders Herlitz & David Horan, 2017. "A Model and Indicator of Aggregate Need Satisfaction for Capped Objectives and Weighting Schemes for Situations of Scarcity," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 413-430, September.
    10. Herlitz, Anders & Horan, David, 2016. "Measuring needs for priority setting in healthcare planning and policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 96-102.
    11. Daoud, Adel & Herlitz, Anders & Subramanian, S.V., 2022. "IMF fairness: Calibrating the policies of the International Monetary Fund based on distributive justice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    12. Joachim Peter Tilsted & Anders Bjørn, 2023. "Green frontrunner or indebted culprit? Assessing Denmark’s climate targets in light of fair contributions under the Paris Agreement," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(8), pages 1-22, August.
    13. Cooper, Erin & Vanoutrive, Thomas, 2022. "Is accessibility inequality morally relevant?: An exploration using local residents' assessments in Modesto, California," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:14:y:2015:i:1:p:53-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.