 One response would be to uphold the substantive equality of opportunity component of Rawlsian FEO as itself a strict deontological requirement and one that trumps careers open to talents. Another response would be to defend affirmative action on the ground that its judicious deployment would be likely to increase the extent to which FEO is fulfilled in the long run. Here the idea presumably would be that the existence of quotas would unsettle expectations and lead to changes in socialization and belief formation. The factual claims on which this type of justification rests might be disputed. But disputes might also pit the two components of FEO, formal and substantive equality of opportunity, against each other. To settle such disputes would require a definitive assessment of the conceptions of equality of opportunity and an authoritative determination of the weight that equality of opportunity on its various construals should have against other justice values.