4 ms·

Genuine question: Isn't this equivalent to equity vs equality?

giantg2 5y ago
Exactly. There's a good fence and box example in here. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/equality-vs-equity-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/equality-vs-eq...
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Genuine question: Isn't this equivalent to equity vs equality? Not generally, no; “equity” generally refers to fairness of treatment (as distinct from non-differentiation in equality); while concepts of fairness vary, equivalence of outcomes not the moat common understanding pursued under the banner of “equity”. Which is not to say that the two are never (especially in particular narrow domains) the same, but they aren’t in general the same.
slg 5y ago
In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome". Equity is closer to "equality of opportunity" than "equality of outcome". "Equality" is neither of those things because it doesn't correct for differences in opportunity and therefore obviously doesn't yield an equal outcome.
- oftenwrong 5y ago
  >In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. I call it Harrison Bergeron: https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...
- yamellasmallela 5y ago
  People who use "equity" really do mean equality of outcome, and that is a huge problem. Equality of outcome is undeniably evil.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  > Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome" There are certainly many people advocating for explicit "equality of outcome" policies e.g. various quota systems that mandate granting unequal opportunities for otherwise equally suitable applicants in order to achieve an equitable outcome for various groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity, caste, etc) the applicants represent.
  - slg 5y ago
    >various quota systems that mandate granting unequal opportunities for otherwise equally suitable applicants in order to achieve an equitable outcome for various groups This is the problem in your definitions. Are you talking about equity of outcome at the individual or group level? You are mixing the two there. No on is advocating equity of outcome at the individual level. People are using equity of outcome at a group level as a measure of equity of opportunity at the individual level because there is an assumption that when two large groups of people have similar opportunities they will have similar normally distributed results at the individual level. If you argue otherwise, you quickly start getting into areas of bigotry by saying that a certain group is not willing or capable to make the most of opportunity.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      I'm quite explicitly talking about outcome at the group level and opportunities at the individual level (as you correctly note, it does not make much sense otherwise). But there seems to be a "definition mismatch" about what "equality of opportunity" means - I'm talking about equality of opportunity and equal treatment for individuals as they are right now at any particular decision point; and this is substantially different from what's measured by, as you say, "equity of outcome at a group level as a measure of equity of opportunity at the individual level" because that essentially measures an "integral" of all lifetime opportunities for all these individuals. The key difference is whether we consider that "equal opportunity" should include or exclude compensating of earlier unequal opportunities. In general we're talking about specific decisions or policies that unavoidably come after some unequal opportunities e.g. the socioeconomic status of the family you're born in, which correlates with almost every measure of success. I would define "equal opportunity" as a "background blind" system that looks at the relevant attributes of individuals despite of or because of whatever earlier life they had - but it's clear that equal opportunity right now won't result in equal outcomes at the group level, since those would be influenced (and probably dominated) by all the differences accumulated before that. And vice versa, if you're trying to compensate for that, then you might get an equality of outcomes for the groupo, but at this moment you would be granting unequal opportunities to these individuals, even if they actually accurately compensate for other, earlier unequal opportunities to the same specific individuals and not just the groups to which these people happen to belong.

Exactly. There's a good fence and box example in here. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/equality-vs-equity-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/equality-vs-eq...

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Genuine question: Isn't this equivalent to equity vs equality? Not generally, no; “equity” generally refers to fairness of treatment (as distinct from non-differentiation in equality); while concepts of fairness vary, equivalence of outcomes not the moat common understanding pursued under the banner of “equity”. Which is not to say that the two are never (especially in particular narrow domains) the same, but they aren’t in general the same.

slg 5y ago

In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome". Equity is closer to "equality of opportunity" than "equality of outcome". "Equality" is neither of those things because it doesn't correct for differences in opportunity and therefore obviously doesn't yield an equal outcome.

oftenwrong 5y ago
>In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. I call it Harrison Bergeron: https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...
yamellasmallela 5y ago
People who use "equity" really do mean equality of outcome, and that is a huge problem. Equality of outcome is undeniably evil.
PeterisP 5y ago
> Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome" There are certainly many people advocating for explicit "equality of outcome" policies e.g. various quota systems that mandate granting unequal opportunities for otherwise equally suitable applicants in order to achieve an equitable outcome for various groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity, caste, etc) the applicants represent.
- slg 5y ago
  >various quota systems that mandate granting unequal opportunities for otherwise equally suitable applicants in order to achieve an equitable outcome for various groups This is the problem in your definitions. Are you talking about equity of outcome at the individual or group level? You are mixing the two there. No on is advocating equity of outcome at the individual level. People are using equity of outcome at a group level as a measure of equity of opportunity at the individual level because there is an assumption that when two large groups of people have similar opportunities they will have similar normally distributed results at the individual level. If you argue otherwise, you quickly start getting into areas of bigotry by saying that a certain group is not willing or capable to make the most of opportunity.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    I'm quite explicitly talking about outcome at the group level and opportunities at the individual level (as you correctly note, it does not make much sense otherwise). But there seems to be a "definition mismatch" about what "equality of opportunity" means - I'm talking about equality of opportunity and equal treatment for individuals as they are right now at any particular decision point; and this is substantially different from what's measured by, as you say, "equity of outcome at a group level as a measure of equity of opportunity at the individual level" because that essentially measures an "integral" of all lifetime opportunities for all these individuals. The key difference is whether we consider that "equal opportunity" should include or exclude compensating of earlier unequal opportunities. In general we're talking about specific decisions or policies that unavoidably come after some unequal opportunities e.g. the socioeconomic status of the family you're born in, which correlates with almost every measure of success. I would define "equal opportunity" as a "background blind" system that looks at the relevant attributes of individuals despite of or because of whatever earlier life they had - but it's clear that equal opportunity right now won't result in equal outcomes at the group level, since those would be influenced (and probably dominated) by all the differences accumulated before that. And vice versa, if you're trying to compensate for that, then you might get an equality of outcomes for the groupo, but at this moment you would be granting unequal opportunities to these individuals, even if they actually accurately compensate for other, earlier unequal opportunities to the same specific individuals and not just the groups to which these people happen to belong.