1. The meritocratic thinking

Meritocracy has long been considered by many an ideal or just social and political arrangement where inequalities among individuals are not based on morally arbitrary factors such as blood and birth, class, gender, race, etc., but are reflections of individual’s merit, broadly conceived of as involving a person’s talent and hard work. In a fully meritocratic society, inequalities in a society are not inherently wrong and intolerable; rather, they are justified by individual differences in merit.

Central to Meritocracy are two interconnected ideas: individualism and equality of opportunities. The former requires us to see people not as members of particular social or cultural groups, but first and foremost as individuals who have irreducible interests, values and can make rational choices for themselves. This dissociation of individuals from group memberships allows us to recognize individuals as “ends in themselves” and to fight forms of social discrimination based on social class, race, gender, religion, political affiliations that are preventing individuals from competing with each other on an equal standing. Hence the equality of opportunities. It is thought that once there is equal opportunities for every individual to succeed and thrive, then the outcomes, which surely involve inequalities, are due to individuals’ differentiated merits and are thus “just” or “fair”.

In a truly meritocratic society, individuals’ successes and failures are seen as their own doing, as things they themselves are fully accountable for. Successful people can take pride in themselves because they have reason to believe that their successes are due to their talents, hard work and good choices they made–and therefore fully deserve them. Those who end up at the bottom of society also make this type of judgment of deservingness: they deserve the failures because they are just not good enough, didn’t work hard or make good choices, and they have no one else to blame but themselves. As a corollary, they experience the emotion of humiliation or shame.

This strong sense of personal accountability, and the associated emotions of pride (for winners) and shame (for losers) are clearly not possible without the existence of both individualism (in the sense of dissociation from group membership) and a belief in equality of opportunities. Individualism clears up the ground for individuals to compete for and on behalf of themselves, rather than the social groups they belong to. But if one doesn’t believe that the society he lives in actually gives everyone an equal opportunity to succeed, he has no good reason to see himself as accountable for his successes and failures. For example, instead of blaming himself he can blame the society.

I said “belief in equality of opportunities” rather than “equality of opportunities” itself, simply because the latter arguably has never been fully realized whatsoever. Thus, it is worth emphasizing meritocracy is an aspiring ideal, not an actuality. One might say that some societies are closer to true meritocracy than others, but all will find that there have always been inequalities of opportunities in any real human societies.

2. What is merit?

Under meritocracy social inequalities are tolerated and justified because they reflect individual differences in “merit”. But what exactly is “merit”?

Morally arbitrary versus non-arbitrary

To consider this question, first let’s recall that merit is meant to replace factors that are “morally arbitrary” such as blood and birth, class, sex, race or ethnicity. But why are these factors thought of as “morally arbitrary”? In pre-modern or feudal societies, for instance, it was not seen as unfair or unjust to not give slaves, women, immigrants equal access to certain political rights (e.g., voting) and equal educational resources. Quite the contrary, it was perceived as just or fair, because these people were considered “inferior”, i.e., less rational, lacking certain desirable traits, etc. Only until the prevail of the moral conviction that all humans are equal did they become “morally arbitrary”. Besides, the equality of humans is now not merely a moral conviction but arguably a scientific truth.

The only thing that remains non-arbitrary or relevant to determining an individual’s fate, or where one ends up in life, is one’s own merit. It is now thought that one creates one’s own life, or one’s life should be a product made by oneself, rather than determined by things one cannot control. “Blood and birth” (including class, sex, race) are such things that are beyond one’s control, and to let them determine individuals’ lives, or have our well-being subject to these “morally arbitrary” factors to a great extent, is a deep form of injustice.

Is merit our own doing?

But is merit something we have full control over? Typically, what is referred to as merit includes a person’s natural talent, hard work and the good choices or decisions one has made.

The latter two seem unquestionably things we can control. It is our deepest intuition and a default way of thinking that we humans have free will in that we can make choices, good or bad. This distinguishes us from the natural-physical world characterized by determinism. Whether to work hard or not, and how hard we should work, also seem to depend on ourselves. In front of challenges and setbacks, we can choose to and have usually been told to, persist until desirable results.

But how about natural talent? It seems to be the very opposite of hard work and not something we can control. Some people are born geniuses. Talents are not made or pursued, but simply fall upon us, without our effort or even consent. If we are not responsible for our talents, then why do we deserve successes that are due to them? Similarly, it seems reasonable to say that people do not deserve a poor life that is largely caused by their lacking talents. One more note on talent: one might be born with a talent that is not valued in his time or the society he lives in. (think of LeBron James born in Renaissance). Apparently not all “talents” are valued equally, and what specific talents are valued at a particular time and location is to some degree a matter of contingency.

Let’s come back to hard work and good choices. Although a full denial of free will is certainly not in place, one can perhaps start by noticing that a lot of other factors–factors that are beyond one’s control–are also involved. For example, how hard one is willing to work often depends on the likelihood of success. If one sees no hope of succeeding, the motivation to work hard fades. People with talents compare themselves to others, and they often tend to work hard because they realize that they have a very high chance of excelling. Second, “hard work” assumes that one has a clear vision or know exactly what his goal is, however, it is also normal in life that people’s goals and visions change, that we can step back and reflect upon our exiting goals, or even spend years in our life trying to figure out what is worth pursuing. There is chance, however, that one finds fulfillment and meaning in a lifestyle on which the society, or the market does not place very high value. Here again, the match or mismatch between one’s goal (or what one works hard for) and what the society values and rewards is much of a contingency beyond the control of any particular individual.

How about good choices? Yes, everyone can make choices. But as long as we think there are good and bad, rational or irrational choices, we are talking about the ability to make good choices, and as an ability it is not equally distributed among individuals. Some individuals are equipped with this ability but others are not. One might argue that each of us can deliberately learn or cultivate this ability, but one can also contend that a big part of it comes from our raw talent over which we have no control. Moreover, “choice” is a flimsy notion just in general. I’ll provide two brief examples here. First, it is not an uncommon experience that we don’t really get to “choose” what we love, whether it’s people or certain activities. Instead, “love”, and our deepest interests, values and commitments, feel more like a kind of necessity than deliberate choice, and yet these things powerfully shape our decisions and behaviors. Second, the options we can choose from are also restricted by external circumstances. One can choose to broaden his horizon by travelling around the world and the state is not preventing him from doing so, but one may still lack the means to afford international trips. Or, although it is often wise to insure oneself against accidents or physical disease, failure to do so might be due to “having no choice” rather than a mark of “bad choice”.

Taken together, this is to suggest that upon closer examination merit does not look like something of our own doing or we are fully responsible for, as assumed by the commonsense conception of merit.