On the equivalence between welfarism and equality of opportunity

A welfarist way of allocating resources consists in 1) equipping individuals with comparable indices of their well-being and 2) applying a unique aggregation rule to individual well-being levels. An equality of opportunity way of allocating resources consists in 1) making the distinction between personal characteristics which are under and beyond individuals’ control, and 2) decreasing inequalities due to differences in characteristics beyond individuals’ control. We show that under the proviso that indifferent individuals should not influence social judgements, welfarist and equal opportunity judgements on resource allocation are equivalent. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004