Rawls IV:
Wrapping-up
PHIL 2345
Original position,
cont. of discussion
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Exclusion of prejudices while contracting in
the OP:
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'One excludes the knowledge of those
contingencies which sets men at odds and allows
them to be guided by their prejudices' (TJ, p. 19).
Convincing?
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E.g. if you are a religious fundamentalist?
Convinced that some races are superior/inferior to
others? Would you suspend this view if you
believe it to be a fact?
Key points from last lecture
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Ahistorical account of human rights
Principles 1 & 2
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Definition of injustice:
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‘absolute weight’ for P1 liberties
‘inequalities that are not to the benefit of all’ (62);
So inequality as such is not unjust (P2).
Rejects trade-off b/w liberties (P1) and economic
gains (P2)
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E.g. economic development prioritsed over personal
freedoms, e.g. right to free assembly;
Slavery would be ultimate version of this trade-off.
Readings on human rights
Micheline R. Ishay, ed., The human rights reader : major
political essays, speeches, and documents from ancient
times to the present, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge,
2007.
E-book available.
Intro to Question re: 2 P’s
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Rawls's two principles of justice are derived from a more general
conception of justice, i.e., all social values should be distributed
equally unless the unequal distribution is beneficial to everyone.
Among all social values, Rawls distinguishes between basic liberties on
the one hand, and all other values like wealth and income on the other
hand.
Rawls then defines his two principles in such a way that the
first principle--which protects an equal distribution of basic
liberties-should always be satisfied before the second principle which ensures any unequal distribution be beneficial to all-- is
satisfied. In other words, basic liberties of citizen are always
equally distributed, and any unequal distribution of basic liberties
is not granted even if it is beneficial to all citizens. I
In Rawls's view, basic liberties – e.g., political liberty, freedom of
speech, freedom of thought, right to hold property etc.--are given an
"absolute weight" with respect to all other social values.
Question
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Rawls believes it is reasonable for us not to
exchange our liberties for any social and economic
advantages whatsoever.
My question is, why should we give liberties such an
"absolute weight"? Is it due to our intuition?
Indeed, protection of these liberties conforms to our
intuition, but how can we ensure that our intuition is
correct?
Questions re democratic equality
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"A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more
them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the
situation of the least favored would be improved. How unjust an
arrangement is depends on how excessive the higher
expectations are and to what extent they depend upon the
violation of the other principles of justice” (TJ, 79).
Expectation cannot easily to be measured in this case; how can
we know if/that it is a higher expectation.
Also, who will decide whether the expectation is excessive or
not? The meaning of excessive expectation is different for the
well off versus the others.
In this case, there is a possibility that the well-off may think the
others have excessive expectations.
Question re: most just economic system
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What kind of economic regime is more
compatible with Rawlsian justice, private
ownership or social ownership of the means
of production?
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I.e., which works better in achieving the justice
goals set by Rawls's principles?
Intro to Q. re: human nature and acting
justly
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According to Rawls, most traditional doctrines hold
that as a matter of degree, human nature requires
people to act justly when we have lived under, and
benefited from, just institutions.
To the extent that this is true, Rawls said that a
conception of justice is psychologically suited to
human inclinations. And this conception of justice is
justice as fairness as argued by Rawls. But I am not
sure why it is the case.
Cites case from M.B.E Smith:
Acting justly, cont.
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We can generalize that considerations of fairness show that when cooperation is
perfect and when each member has benefitted from the submission of every
other, each member of an enterprise has an obligation to obey its rules when
obedience benefits some other member or when disobedience harms the
enterprise. If a member disobeys, he is unfair to at least one other
member or maybe all the members.
However, if a member disobeys when his obedience would be beneficial to no
other member and when his disobedience does not harm, his moral situation is
surely different.
If his disobedience is unfair, then it must be unfair to the group, but
not to any particular member. According to Smith, this is impossible because
despite the fact that the moral properties of a group are not always a simple
function of the moral properties of its members, it is evident that one cannot be
unfair to a group without being unfair to its members. From this, we see that
even in a perfectly cooperative enterprise, considerations of fairness do not
establish that members of such enterprise have acted justly to one another. So,
does Rawls’s position still hold?
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