Alain Renaut, philosopher, professor in Paris-Sorbonne, wonders in this work on the possibilities of achieving equal real opportunities, which fulfills the promises of compensatory justice.
Alain Renaut, philosopher, professor in Paris-Sorbonne, wonders in this work on the possibilities of achieving equal real opportunities, which fulfills the promises of compensatory justice. Our justice requirements cannot be satisfied with only formal equal opportunities, which gives everyone the right to participate but without real chances of success. Nor can they rely on belief in equality of results, which A. Renaut affirms that it is utopian and unrealizable. It is therefore necessary to work on a more successful form of equal opportunities: this consists in implementing a preferential policy of positive discrimination, which takes into account the qualities of the recipients without however fixing quotas on a criterion of ethnicity.
It is at university that. Renaut strives to apply these compensatory justice principles. The republican elitism in force in higher education produces blatant inequalities in matters of success. To remedy this, it is necessary to differentiate the lessons, in particular by groups of directed works adapted to the difficulties encountered. This is the only example proposed by A. Renaut. We can deplore that the author thus completes an interesting reflection on the imperatives of modern compensatory justice by reforms which seem to be more common sense or an elementary educational concern.