Inequalities of choice and circumstance
Topic: Equality and Social Justice · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 3 "Equality"
Meaning
This is a way of sorting inequalities by where they come from. Many theorists now prefer it to the old split between "natural" and "social" inequality, because that line is blurred. Some inequalities come from a person's own choices. These are acceptable. Others come from the family or situation a person is born into. These are not the person's fault, so society should try to reduce them. The philosopher Dworkin (1981) put the idea this way: distribution should respond to ambition but not to endowment (what you are born with).
Example
Two children grow up in the same town. One chooses to study hard and becomes a doctor. The other chooses not to. The gap in their incomes is an inequality of choice. Now take a child born into a poor family who cannot afford school. That child falls behind through circumstance, so the state should step in with free schooling, such as under the RTE Act 2009.
Don't confuse with
- Natural vs socially produced inequalities: that older split asks whether an inequality comes from inborn ability or from society. This newer split asks whether the person chose it.
Related concepts
- Equality of opportunity
- Equality of outcome
- Meritocracy
- Natural inequalities
- Socially produced inequalities