Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-fnl2l Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-22T13:07:32.290Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

OPPORTUNITY AS MUTUAL ADVANTAGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2010

Robert Sugden
Robert Sugden*
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper argues that measurements of opportunity which focus on the contents of a person's opportunity set fail to capture open-ended aspects of opportunity that liberals should value. I propose an alternative conception of ‘opportunity as mutual advantage’ which does not require the explicit specification of opportunity sets, and which rests on an understanding of persons as responsible rather than rational agents. I suggest that issues of distributive fairness are best framed in terms of real income, and that meaningful measurements of real income are possible if opportunity as mutual advantage is ensured.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 47 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Arneson, R. 1989. Equality of opportunity for welfare. Philosophical Studies 56: 77–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, J. M. 1968. The Demand and Supply of Public Goods. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Carter, I. 1999. A Measure of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. 1989. On the currency of egalitarian justice. Ethics 99: 906–944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, R. 1981. What is equality? Part 2: Equality of resources. Philosophy and Public Affairs 10: 283–345.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1948. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jones, P. and Sugden, R. 1982. Evaluating choice. International Review of Law and Economics 2: 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A., eds. (2000). Choices, Values, and Frames. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Russell Sage Foundation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, M. H. 2003. The Quality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1859/1972. On Liberty. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1869/1988. The Subjection of Women. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, P. 2006. Preference, deliberation and satisfaction. Philosphy 81 (Suppl. 59): 131–153.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roemer, J. E. 1998. Equality of Opportunity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1999a. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1999b. Reason before Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steiner, H. 1983. How free? Computing personal liberty. In Of Liberty, ed. Phillips-Griffiths, A., 73–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strotz, R. H. 1955–56. Myopia and inconsistency in dynamic utility maximisation. Review of Economic Studies 23 (3): 165–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 1998. The metric of opportunity. Economics and Philosophy 14: 307–337.Google Scholar
Sugden, R. 2003. Opportunity as a space for individuality: its value, and the impossibility of measuring it. Ethics 113: 783–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 2004a. The opportunity criterion: consumer sovereignty without the assumption of coherent preferences. American Economic Review 94: 1014–1033.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 2004b. Living with unfairness: the limits of equal opportunity in a market economy. Social Choice and Welfare 22: 211–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 2006a. What we desire, what we have reason to desire, whatever we might desire: Mill and Sen on the value of opportunity. Utilitas 18: 33–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 2006b. Taking unconsidered preferences seriously. Philosophy 81 (Suppl. 59): 209–232.Google Scholar
Sugden, R. 2007. The value of opportunities over time when preferences are unstable. Social Choice and Welfare 29: 665–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 2009. Market simulation and the provision of public goods: a non-paternalistic response to anomalies in environmental evaluation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 57: 87–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wicksell, K. 1896/1958. A new principle of just taxation. In Classics in the Theory of Public Finance, ed. Musgrave, R. and Peacock, A.. London: Macmillan. Original publication in German.Google Scholar