Abstract
In Japan, the discourse pertains to the fair distribution of educational opportunities without sufficiently addressing the complexities surrounding it, such as the trade-off between equality of educational opportunities and freedom of educational choice. Given this circumstance, this study aims to address these issues by drawing on the discussions accumulated in political philosophy, especially in distributive justice. More concretely, this study examines the benefits and concerns of sufficientarianism, which demands ensuring a sufficient level of education for everyone, as an alternative norm to egalitarianism, which demands more radically to guarantee equal chance substantially. After examining three benefits in chapter 2 and two concerns in chapter 3, this study discusses the challenges of restricting freedom of educational choice in a philosophically justified manner and, therefore, the difficulty of demanding as the norm more than what sufficientarians demand. Next, this study proposes the possibility of daring to adopt sufficientarianism as the norm of distribution of educational opportunities, considering its benefits. This study does not aim to adjudicate between sufficientarianism and egalitarianism; rather, it seeks to clarify the difference between these two norms and to systematicallu articulate the concept of equality of educational opportunities, which may yield diverse implications. Keywords: justice of educational policy, sufficientarianism, equality of educational opportunity, freedom of educational choice, positional goods
