lthough I do not directly see a reason to bar a successful entrepeneur to earn many times more if I were an unsuccessful entrepeneur, please note that the agent is voting for his principals not himself and he is in fact dehumanised to a large extent. He is for instance immortal and has no interests of his own so that agents can represent future interests as well. It is in the tinkering with what the agent is that Rawls personal idea of fairness becomes clear. (Such as no undue burden on later generations).

Of course, after the original position we start with the second part of his theory and that is his reflexive equilibrium, which everybody seems to be missing, and which actually encompasses and may modify the original position. Rawls was much more of a pragmatist than the dreamer and fantast he's made out for in these forums recently.

Benkei wrote:
Ok, I made another mistake. Never trust my own notes again.

The agents are aware of their own interests and those of his principals but not of other principals and agents. They vote anonomously and they can veto any proposition put before them. They are therefore required to vote in their own self-interest.

Sorry for all the mistakes, it has been seven years since last I read him.

litkey wrote:
Is is 'fair' that a person be a slave? No, when it comes to this answer we understand that we ourselves would not want to be a slave, and would find it unfair and degrading to our person. - so we outlaw slavery.

Benkei wrote:
They don't come to the same choice for almost everything and Rawls counts on it. The slave owners' agent will vote in favour for a slave society but since there are also slaves, their agent will veto any proposed society that contains slavery.

7 wrote:
I am no Rawls scholar(I'm more of a logic/language type), but we studied him a little in a class I took on political philosophy, and I think that your criticism is valid. Rawls wants to allow parties in the original position only the most non-controversial beliefs, such as that people tend to like others who are kind to them, parents want to care for their children, etc. He doesn't let them, for instance, have particular religious beliefs that might lead them to favor a theocratic aristocracy. I believe that this does wrongly stack the deck. Basically, Rawls decides what we value most for us and rules out other considerations that might lead parties behind the veil to select undemocratic political systems.

Another problem that you bring up which we have not really discussed is that of cultural influence. Rawls is obvoiusly picking and choosing which he likes but it's pretty obvious that his argument is based in large part on the audiences cultural beliefs. For example, slavery has been taboo for some time now but if you presented Rawls experiment to people from the ancient world their attitudes toward it would be quite different. They might well opt for slavery if it meant a higher expected standard of living (as would be the case where allowing slavery was an economic advantage) or if they had a higher appetite for risk.

Benkei wrote:


Again something Rawls already was aware of.

For Rawls all ethico-political justification is political rather than epistemological. It is based on an overlapping consensus of the main substantive ethico-political doctrines current in a community. Without such a basis for consensus, there is no possibility of discovering, via reflective equilibration, principles of justice which can effectively regulate interactions between and distributions to the members of the community. And since such disagreement would make improbable any uncoerced acceptance of some epistemologically sanctioned set of principles, no voluntaristic basis for social justice could be found in this community--even if an objective basis could be.

In other words, the thought experiment will fail if it is not performed by people with a similar background and any original position (barring the two principles of freedom and equality) will be different for each community that have substantive diffrent consensus.

litkey wrote:
What Rawls wants to say, is that we will answer in a self-interested way, to protect our bodies, our rights, and property - even though we are ignorant of specifics.

unrealist42 wrote:
The rational man of the economists is constricted to the sphere of economics and so his irrationality is in a strictly economic sense. Since many people do not put economic value at the top of their list when making decisions such irrationality is normal to everyone but a few exceptionally greedy people and an entire host of economists.
It is economics that is irrational, not people.

unrealist42 wrote:
What Rawls is exploring is the natural inclinations of people unconstrained by socio-economic/political condition. A far more meaningful exploration than that of the economists and their rational man.

unrealist42 wrote:
The fact is that no one ever has full knowledge of their situation and so decision making is always the result of some frantic processing of alternative expediences carried out on an incomplete data set. To believe, especially in this day and age, that you have all the facts necessary to make a rational decision is an insane position. Similar to the position that the charity of greedy men will suffice for meeting the needs of the poor.

litkey wrote:
I'm at amiss to what this has to do with the above...

litkey wrote:
Nowhere will you find Rawls advocating socialim; his project, and one that I have an inclination toward, is the idea that power/wealth are contingent - on birth, on luck, on History. What he is asking -in light of the subject that Nozick actually raised (The Native Indians)- is how to rectify fairness? You either i) Do not understand the word "Contingent" or ii) Don't give a damn. If the latter, then you seem to be an opportunist, or a "free rider."

cortes wrote:



Well, if oppotunism is a crime, I plead guilty. Life is an opportunity for those who are willing to seize it. Life is a gift, nobody ever earned it. (And nobody is entitled to anything for the great accomplishment of being born.) You are lucky to be alive, taking up space and sucking air. Period.

Now obviously circumstances vary but in large part that is a consequence of the uneven efforts of our ancestors and their own uneven circumstances. One of my goals in life is to bestow whatever advantage I can on my own descendants.

The core socialist belief is that there is some moral duty to rectify this uneveness (this so-called "unfairness"). To smooth things out in one way or another. I previously granted that Rawls had offered a novel twist on the old socialist ideas but they are at their core still socialist as is obvious from the design of his thought experiment and the fact that Rawls attracts socialists to his philosophy not to mention your own blindness to the very possibility of a different opinion.

I'm not trying to change your opinion, just trying to explain to you that your position is not rational and that not everyone shares it. Get a clue.