Wednesday, March 22, 2006 PHL105Y

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Wednesday, March 22, 2006PHL105Y

• For Mondays class, read Jean-Paul Sartres Bad
  Faith pages 499-510 in the Pojman volume.
• For Fridays tutorial, answer one of the
  following questions
• 1.What is the original position, and why are
  agreements reached in it guaranteed to be fair,
  according to Rawls?
• 2. What is the difference principle, and how does
  Rawls try to justify it?

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John Rawls A Theory of Justice

• Liberal Egalitarianism

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Justice and welfare

• Rawls argues that justice grants each person
  something that society cannot legitimately
  override justice does not allow that the
  sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the
  larger sum of advantages enjoyed by the many
  (427)
• You cant violate the rights of a few people,
  even to create large advantages for many others

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Justice and welfare

• For Rawls, justice comes first our pursuit of
  social welfare has to respect the principles of
  justice.
• If something really is a right secured by
  justice, then youve got to respect it, even when
  doing so is expensive and awkward.

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Justice and welfare

• Imagine a city in which people have the right to
  a fair trial. Lets say there is a sudden crime
  wave, which has heavy social and economic costs
  for the city. A curfew is imposed, but curfew
  violators continue looting, etc. Lets say the
  crime wave could be stopped by instructing the
  police to shoot on sight anyone out after curfew
  

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Justice and welfare

• Imagine a city in which people have the right to
  a fair trial. Lets say there is a sudden crime
  wave, which has heavy social and economic costs
  for the city. A curfew is imposed, but curfew
  violators continue looting, etc. Lets say the
  crime wave could be stopped by instructing the
  police to shoot on sight anyone out after curfew
  Rawls police shouldnt shoot.

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Justice and welfare

• The primacy of justice over welfare is for Rawls
  based on a fundamental moral principle, a basic
  idea about what people are and what kind of worth
  they have
• Each person posesses an inviolability founded on
  justice. (427)

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Which principles of justice?

• What are the right principles of justice?
• What sort of liberties should be protected? What
  sort of rights should a good society have?
• How should we even make decisions about such
  matters?

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Which principles of justice?

• Rawls claims that the right principles of justice
  are
• the principles that free and rational persons
  concerned to further their own interests would
  accept in an initial position of equality as
  defining the fundamental terms of their
  association. (427)

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The idea of a social contract theory

• What kind of society would we choose, if we were
  ideal choosers given the choice?
• Rawls has a name for the hypothetical scenario in
  which free and rational people are set up in an
  initial position of equality to think about what
  principles of justice to choose its the
  original position

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The original position

• Imagine not knowing any of the following facts
  about yourself
• Your place in society, your class position/social
  status, your natural talents, IQ, strength, your
  race, your conception of the good life, any
  feature of you that is due to natural chance or
  contingent social facts
• Rawls thinks the best principles of justice are
  those we would choose from behind such a veil of
  ignorance. (Why?)

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Why the veil of ignorance?

• Since all are similarly situated and no one is
  able to design principles to favor his particular
  condition, the principles of justice are the
  result of a fair agreement or bargain. (428)
• Rawls dubs this justice as fairness.
• The original position is Rawlss idea of the
  right baseline to work from.

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Fairness and the voluntary

• No society is really a voluntary scheme you are
  born into some particular place in a society,
  with some particular set of talents and
  opportunities, whether you like it or not (and
  without your consent)
• But if your society satisfies the justice as
  fairness principles, then it will be as close to
  voluntary as can be (why?)

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The 2 principles of justice

• What principles would people choose from behind
  the veil of ignorance? Rawls thinks exactly
  these two
• 1. Everyone will have an equal right to the most
  extensive basic liberties compatible with similar
  liberty for others.
• 2. Social and economic inequalities must satisfy
  two conditions (a) They are to the greatest
  benefit of the least advantaged (the difference
  principle) and (b) they are attached to
  positions open to all under conditions of fair
  equality of opportunity.

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The first principle

• greatest possible liberty compatible with
  similar liberty for others
• Rawls sees this as covering the right to vote and
  hold public office, hold property, freedom of
  speech, freedom from arbitrary arrest, etc.

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What kind of inequalities are just?

• Rawls There is no more reason to permit the
  distribution of income and wealth to be settled
  by the distribution of natural assets than by
  historical or social fortune. (429)

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The difference principle

• Social and economic inequalities must be to the
  greatest benefit of the least advantaged
• So in society A, everyone makes 1000 per month
  (egalitarian) in society B, there are managers
  who make more (2000 per month), and thanks to
  their managerial work everyone is more productive
  (so all the other workers earn 1200 per month)
  Society B has inequalities, but comes out
  justified (why would you agree to it, in the
  original position?)

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The difference principle

• Social and economic inequalities must be to the
  greatest benefit of the least advantaged
• What the difference principle rules out (taking
  as our baseline society A where everyone earns
  1000 per month)
• Society C 99 of the population earn 6000 per
  month, 1 of the population earns 800 per month
• Society D 1 of the population earns 100,000
  per month, 99 of the population earns 1000 per
  month

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The difference principle

• Social and economic inequalities must be to the
  greatest benefit of the least advantaged
• Which would be chosen on the basis of the
  difference principle?
• Society E 80 of the population earns 5000 per
  month, 20 earns 1100 per month, or
• Society F 80 of the population earns 1200 per
  month, 20 earns 1150 per month

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The difference principle

• Social and economic inequalities must be to the
  greatest benefit of the least advantaged
• Which would be chosen on the basis of the
  difference principle?
• Society G 80 of the population earns 5000 per
  month, 20 earns 1100 per month
• Society H 80 of the population earns 9000 per
  month, 20 earns 1150 per month

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The difference principle

• Rawls argues that in the original position you
  would allow inequalities as just as long as they
  were to the advantage of the least well off
• Why exactly does he think so? What is it about
  inequalities justified that way that should make
  them OK? (Note that he excludes envy as a factor
  why?)

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The difference principle

• Is Rawls right that the correct way to look at
  inequalities is from the perspective of the least
  advantaged member of the society?

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The difference principle

• Is Rawls right that the correct way to look at
  inequalities is from the perspective of the least
  advantaged member of the society?
• If you are trying to keep your society as
  voluntary, as freely chosen as possible, you want
  even the low man on the totem pole to be able to
  say I like it this way!

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Deserving things?

• Do the well-off deserve their advantages whether
  or not those advantages are to the benefit of
  others?
• Rawls under what conditions does talk of
  deserving things even make sense?
• Does the person born clever or beautiful
  deserve it?

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Deserving things?

• Rawls argues that talk of desert only makes sense
  when we have a cooperative scheme in place you
  deserve something when you have a legitimate
  social expectation of it.

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Do you deserve more because you tried?

• Does the person with greater natural endowments,
  or greater character, deserve more than others?
• Where does character come from?

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Rawls and Nozick

• Does Rawls believe in patterns? Does he believe
  in freedom? What kind of freedom?
• What would Nozick say?

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Rawls on distribution

• There is no more reason to permit the
  distribution of income and wealth to be settled
  by the distribution of natural assets than by
  historical and social fortune.. It is impossible
  in practice to secure equal chances of
  achievement and culture for those similarly
  endowed, and therefore we may want to adopt a
  principle which recognizes this fact and also
  mitigates the arbitrary effects of the natural
  lottery itself (429)