They talk about equality of opportunity and not equality of outcomes.
But what can you do?
You're phenotype is mostly determined by stuff you can't control.
If you have low conscientiousness and a low IQ, you're basically f*cked and you can't control this either.
Even if you're high on openness and have a average to high IQ, you're still playing a high risk game.
Equality of opportunity does not rule out a proper socialist system. You give everyone the same opportunities at life and work by e.g. affordable health care and insurances for everyone, but also scholarships for everyone so they can follow what they want to do instead of be restricted by e.g. what their parents earn. And if you can't work because of whatever reason, you don't have to end up on the streets.
Equality of opportunity gives everyone the chance to graduate university; equality of outcome gives everyone a university degree regardless. I'm probably misinterpreting it.
But give everyone the opportunity, and there will be enough social mobility so that people now born in poverty can grow up to become e.g. software developers, and pay that little equal opportunity was paid for them during their education back tenfold within just a couple years of working in that industry.
That's my experience anyway, my dad was a not-greatly-paid metalworker with a high interest mortgage (as was the times back then) and three kids, I'm a college graduate and my first job paid almost as much as his.
Sure, you shouldn't give any idiot a degree without doing something for it and yes, you shouldn't make it harder for intelligent people to get degrees, just because their parents are poor or something.
But if you have low conscientiousness and low IQ, that was also given to you without asking. It's playing on the same level as poor parents.
With your proposed change (which is already done in countries like Germany, we have almost free healthcare and education) you still have 50% of the population that has a IQ below 100.
Often for quite dumb jobs too.
Sounds like a systemic problem.
The point about IQ is definitely worth worrying about. But the idea of moralizing a person with low conscientiousness as particularly f-cked (implying that they have gotten an injust dessert) seems odd to me. I have seen several sociological studies linking high conscientiousness with high income and other good economic/ health outcomes. To me it seems that not having the characteristic trait of "wishing to do what is right, especially to do one's work or duty well and thoroughly" would have predictable bad outcomes, and there is nothing other than changing your approach that would result in anything otherwise. There is no injust dessert; there is only reality here.
Even with government/charitable intervention that is both well-intentioned and well-designed, those who are not conscientious will lag behind.
Edit: this particular comment has led me to a fair bit of introspection. Perhaps a Utilitarian formulation would be a good way to state the problem. Let's build a hypothetical world with two (otherwise equal) groups. A Utilitarian might explain the two populations (the conscientious and the unconscientious) as follows: a group that has a high utility associated with (aka highly values) good outcomes, and a group that has a low utility associated with (aka does not highly value) good outcomes. This definition is of course viewed through the lens of what we define as a good outcome.
If we let the two groups act out their personalities over time, one could say that the resulting outcomes are simply the two groups expressing their preferences. When the unconscientious group sees that the conscientious group has built better outcomes for themselves, how do we express the morality of this situation?
If you are open and smart (openness+high IQ) you are creative and can do things people without these traits can not.
Such people can have low conscientiousness.
But even if they don't show up at 9 o clock, they could still be helpful to society.
