Fair Equality of Opportunity, Basic Liberty, and the Constitution of the Person

Abstract Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity requires that ‘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’. How should we understand this principle once we recognize that talent and motivation are developed in social settings, especially the family, that are different for each person? One approach holds that equality of opportunity must be constrained by a prior principle of equal basic liberty, which includes the right to a private family life, allowing parents to confer unequal advantages on their children. However there is no warrant in Rawls himself for this approach, nor is it plausible. Instead we need to distinguish between factors (including family influences) that are constitutive of the person as such, and factors that provide opportunities (or lack of them) for the person so constituted. The paper distinguishes between four ways in which parents can enhance their children’s prospects: through genetic transmission, ability enhancement, motivation, and opportunity enhancement. Given that these processes are difficult to separate in practice, how should the demands of fair equality of opportunity best be understood?