In Defense of Rawlsian Fair Equality of Opportunity

Richard Arneson argues that Fair Equality of Opportunity (FEO) should be rejected, since it is not only too weak and too strong, but also problematically meritocratic. The paper aims to defend FEO, and argues that it is not too weak, since, pace Arneson, it does apply to the problem of stunted ambition. The argument from meritocracy is shown to be based on a conflation of different senses of meritocracy. Finally, it is shown that FEO, correctly interpreted, gives intuitive answers to the examples put forward to bolster the too strong charge. It is concluded that Arneson's refutation of FEO fails.