Fernando De-Los-Santos-Menéndez

Equality of opportunity is an ambiguous concept. To remove its ambiguity, the chapter identifies three gaps that need filling: equality among whom, opportunities for what, and when in people’s lives. Gap 1 is among whom should opportunities be equal. The main response explored is that opportunities should be equal among the similarly talented, regardless of their socioeconomic background. The chapter examines four reasons in its support. It explains why the so-called formal equality of opportunity, consisting of the principles of nondiscrimination and merit, is important but incomplete. Real or effective equality of opportunity also requires a level playing field. This egalitarian claim finds a limit in the family: the chapter mentions various reasons for respecting certain parental prerogatives over children’s education despite their inegalitarian effects. Gap 2 of the ideal of equality of opportunity is its currency: what are opportunities for? The chapter offers some guidance to respond. It considers a key distinction between positional and nonpositional goods of education. Gap 3 is when in life opportunities should be equal. One response is that people should enjoy equal opportunities at the point in life from which they are held responsible for their choices. Nonetheless, the chapter offers some reasons to mitigate the cumulative effects of past choices and to secure adequate opportunities throughout people’s lives. Finally, the chapter warns of the risk of hiding behind equality of opportunity to whitewash or legitimize an unduly competitive society. Reasons against such competitiveness are explained, and ways to reduce it are suggested.

In this article we aim to provide insights about the challenges stakeholders in Portugal and across the globe may face throughout the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic to reorganize coach training programs and suggest strategies to help coaches learn. Such reflection may help stakeholders across socio-cultural contexts consider the consequences of the changes made to coach training programs, the rationale for these decisions and the need to acknowledge existent challenges such as lower course completion rates, pressures to deliver the curriculum and dilemmatic decisions about course format. Furthermore, we also suggest pathways for stakeholders to develop strategies that consider contextual variables and contribute to meaningful learning. Based on the Portuguese context, several issues are discussed.

The paper discusses two ways to understand political liberalism. On the one hand, political liberalism may rely on the existence of an overlapping consensus among all reasonable comprehensive views present in our society. On the other hand, we may ground political liberalism on the moral value of equal respect for everyone. The dilemma between a factual identification of an overlapping consensus and a normative appeal to moral values arises at two levels. First, when we fill the content of our political conception of justice. And second, when we require impartiality to fill that content. In the former case, we may argue for a particular conception of justice through normative argument with moral premises, or our political conception of justice might be the area where all reasona-ble comprehensive views overlap. Similarly, we require that citizens offer impartial public reasons because this is what people holding different comprehensive views do think ap-propriate, or because they should consider it so. The author argues that we should define our political conception of justice through impartial normative argument, and that we should ground the demand of impartiality on the moral value of equal respect.