Equality of opportunity requires that individuals should be selected for positions of advantage on the basis of relevant qualifications and that the ability to acquire these qualifications should not depend on the economic status of a person’s family. This chapter offers an institutional account of the moral basis of the first of these requirements. This account presupposes that positions of advantage are justified by the benefits they produce when they are held by individuals with the relevant abilities. The notion of ability relevant to considerations of procedural fairness therefore depends on the aims that justify the institution in question and on the way it is organized to promote these aims. The chapter relates this idea of fairness to the ideas of equal concern and non-discrimination and discusses the implications of procedural fairness for affirmative action.
