Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book identifies some of the problems and challenges arising out of an oversimplified understanding of talents’ multifaceted nature and a distorted characterization of their overall distributive value. It situates the discussion over talents by presenting the ‘standard’ egalitarian conception of equality of opportunity and the associated idea of fairness embedded in it. The book elucidates the multifaceted nature of talents and their anatomy. It provides conceptions of talent arising out of the literature on social justice. The book emphasizes the importance a full theory of talents would have for both education and distributive justice in general. It identifies two different approaches associated with the notion of talent in relation to questions of distributive justice. The book outlines ‘how the justificatory function of talent is seen, in recent liberal debates on distributive educational justice’.