Meritocracy Reconsidered Through Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics
Meritocracy Reconsidered Through Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

Summary/Abstract: The categories of merit and meritocracy have received a lot of attention by political philosophers, especially during the second half of the 20th century. They appeal to merit as a criterion of legitimacy to rethink the distribution of wealth and resources in our society. From a superficial perspective, meritocracy is presented as open competition based on personal qualities and effort to determine how rewards are distributed. It is often seen as highly attractive and intuitively fair. In this article, we intend to analyze whether contemporary meritocracies help citizens to develop themselves, to be better citizens and better persons, to be more virtuous and to fulfill themselves, or, on the contrary, these meritocracies lead citizens to become less virtuous and therefore worse individuals. Furthermore, by extrapolating what happens to individuals, we can consider how meritocracies impact institutions and societies as a whole. For this purpose, we will draw on various philosophical perspectives, from Aristotle to the political thinkers of the 21st century. These authors offer ethical frameworks connecting the good life of the individual with personal and social development. Meritocracy may appear to emphasize the achievement of excellence by individuals, making it seem like a good match for virtue ethics. However, this article argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics is actually at odds with the raw meaning of contemporary meritocracies and may also lead to a society which is not cohesive, which is also contrary to the notion of a virtue society for Aristotle.

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