Equality of Opportunity and Religion

Equality of opportunity is a popular ideal, both for assessing access to specific goods, such as jobs, education, and health, and as a more general principle of distributive justice. This chapter provides an overview of existing discussions of equality of opportunity in relation to religion. Many of these discussions have proceeded under the heading of multiculturalism, where minority religious practices have often been the focus of debate, for example, in a discussion of religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. The focus is on conceptions of equality of opportunity involved in such debates and on possible ways in which religion might raise issues relevant for the understanding of equality of opportunity as a general principle. Distinctions are made between different ways in which religion and equality of opportunity might relate to one another. Religion and equality of opportunity can be viewed as possible obstacles to each other. The chapter provides examples of this but focuses on other types of relations where considerations concerning the status of religion contribute to the understanding of what equality of opportunity requires as an ideal. Religion is then viewed as a distinct class of opportunities, which people should have equal access to, or as a factor affecting what equal access means, for example, because access to some types of opportunities carries special weight. The most prominent positions regarding these debates are presented and linked to debates about the theoretical status of religion in liberal political philosophy.