Dirac's Dilemma of the Economy of Inheritance: Parental Care, Equality of Opportunity, and Managed Inequality

Abstract

In a brief reflection on the principles of human society, P. A. M. Dirac articulated a structural tension between two widely affirmed norms: that it is good and natural for parents to improve the prospects of their own children, and that justice requires that all children have equal opportunities in life. These principles, each compelling on its own, cannot be fully realized together. This paper reconstructs Dirac's dilemma, connects it to the dynamics of compounding advantage and inheritance, and situates it within the broader history of political philosophy, including the work of Rawls, Dworkin, Cohen, Brighouse and Swift, Nozick, Murphy and Nagel, and others. The paper argues that attempts to eliminate the resulting injustices entirely risk damaging the non--zero--sum structures that generate general prosperity, and defends a position of "managed inequality": a robust social floor and real mobility, combined with limits on extreme dynastic accumulation and an explicit acceptance of some residual, but constrained, inherited advantage.