seriously propose equality of outcome as a political ideal ( 2002 , 2 ). 2 Perhaps
because equalizing outcomes has come to be viewed as a politics of envy that
denies choice (see Phillips 2004 , 1 ), the liberal egalitarian literature is character-
ized, with a very few exceptions, not by a debate between equality of opportunities
and outcomes, but on diVerent sorts of equality of opportunity. This debate
about varieties of equality of opportunity is framed nicely by Adam Swift’s three-
fold typology of minimal, conventional, and radical (Swift 2001 , 99 ).
2.1 Equality of Opportunity
On a minimal conception of equality of opportunity, ‘‘a person’s race or
gender or religion should not be allowed to aVect their chances of being
selected for a job, of getting and good education, and so on’’ (Swift 2001 , 99 ).
What matters are their skills and their talents. The conventional conception,
on the other hand, holds that in addition to the minimal concern with
relevant competences, one should also be concerned to ensure that everyone
has an equal chance to acquire the relevant competences, skills, and qualiWca-
tions. In a society that is characterized by widely divergent levels of wealth,
this requirement may entail restricting parents’ ability to buy education for
their children and redistributing resources to the children of the less well oV
families to ensure that they receive an education equal to that of children of
rich parents. Removing the inXuence of social background altogether may be
a forlorn task, but this approach seeks to limit the constraints on the
acquisition of skills for all. In this way, as Swift rightly points out, the
distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome looks
vulnerable: securing equality of opportunity will require some redistribution
of resources in order to compensate some for social disadvantage. By con-
trast, the radical conception of equality of opportunity challenges the as-
sumption, implicit in the two approaches above, that inequality is perfectly
acceptable as long as it is based on talent alone, rather than social or cultural
factors. On the radical conception the talented and untalented should be
equally entitled to rewards. For, if it is unfair that children who happen to be
born to rich parents get superior opportunities (and therefore rewards) to
those who happen to be born to poor parents, it is also unfair—advocates of
this approach suggest—that children who happen to be born talented get
2 Although Anne Phillips does precisely this in her article, ‘‘Defending Equality of Outcome’’ ( 2004 ).equality and difference 473