EP10: Is Equality of Opportunity Not Valuable? (On Stephan Kershnar’s Attack on Equality of Opportunity)

Academic Edgelords

This week we have one of our first encounters with the Academic Edgelord final boss, Stephan Kershnar. We enter the Kershnar-sphere by looking at his argument against equality of opportunity. For this edgelord — who is author of papers on adult-child sex, slavery, and more — its actually one of his milder takes. It’s from Why Equality of Opportunity is not a Valuable Goal, in the Journal of Applied Philosophy.

We also read a response in the same journal from John O’Dea. We’ll look at Kershnar’s case, and ask what it misses about good equality of opportunity arguments. Plus: what exactly is he doing? We discuss whether Kershnar is a kind of useful gadfly, a dishonest ideologue, or just a petulant troll.

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