Rawls' Moral Universe - Essay Example

?Ethics Exam 13 [ID Rawls' definitions of the Two Values are key to his establishment of human beings as generally being equal and part of the same moral universe. “John Rawls develops a conception of justice from the perspective that persons are free and equal. Their freedom consists in their possession of the two moral powers, "a capacity for a sense of justice and for a conception of the good." (PL,19) Insofar as they have these to the degree necessary to be "fully cooperating members of society," they are equal” (Garrett, 2005; Rawls, 2001; Rawls, 1971). Rawls defines the capacity for a sense of justice as “the capacity to understand, to apply, and to act from the public conception of justice which characterizes the fair terms of cooperation”, which includes “a willingness...to act in relation to others on terms that they also can publicly endorse” (Garrett, 2005; Rawls, 1971; Rawls, 2001). There are two important elements here. First: To comply with this standard only requires conventional morality, knowing and obeying society's norms (Kohlberg, 1958; Crain, 1985). Postconventional morality, or the ability to think independently of society and question its norms, is not necessary. Second: Rawls is not saying that one always has to act on that willingness and capacity. A criminal could steal food knowing about society's norms but rejecting them for some higher good, or even steal money out of callousness, and still not lose their position as equal members of the community necessarily. Thus, many criminals and deeply flawed people are still part of Rawls' moral universe. Similarly, Rawls defines the conception of good as some idea of a goal or what is good in life and what is valuable, which usually is expressed as “a more or less determinate scheme of final ends, that is, ends [goals] that we want to realize for their own sake, as well as attachments to other persons and loyalties to various groups and associations” (Garret, 2005; Rawls, 1971). This is even less restrictive than the other condition. To satisfy this condition, one merely need have some idea of the good at some level of sophistication. One can disagree sharply with society and with Rawls and still be part of the moral universe. These ideas are important to later elements of Rawls' arguments about ethics because they express highly unrestrictive notions of who deserves to be treated as part of the community that nonetheless provide some discriminatory power above and beyond simply saying that all human beings are exactly equal. An utter sociopath with no capacity for morality and a stunted notion of what is good may not qualify for community membership and thus not be entitled to all of the rights of the community, for example. Rawls' idea of blind society design and the difference principle are also supported by this notion of the two goods. Rawls' moral psychology is connected to this notion in that it establishes a sort of species characteristic of moral and justice intuition. “The moral sentiments are a normal part of human life. One cannot do away with them without at the same time dismantling the natural attitudes as well” (Rawls, 1971). These elements were never fully completed, not least because the psychological evidence for them is limited and hard to establish, but later Rawlsian theorists like Baldwin did continue in that vein (). Baldwin argues that Rawls' notion of moral psychology has an inextricably social character: For Rawls, social behavior and rules are part of our innate moral intuitions. Rawls was far from alone in assuming that there is an innate psychological predisposition to moral concerns: Hume and Chomsky share this notion. “What's the source of such moral truisms? We don't know much more than David Hume did 250 years ago when he pointed out that our moral judgments are so rich and complex, and apply so readily to new cases, that they must derive from some fixed principles, and since we cannot acquire these from experience, they must be part of our nature (14). Rather like language. Or any other structure or capacity of an organism. To find out what these principles are, however, is a very hard task, and there has been very little progress, beyond rather elementary observations” (2004). This idea of moral psychology is important to Rawls' development because it establishes a commonality to human needs and behaviors. If human beings varied too widely, then it would be impossible to make universal moral judgments; and if morality were entirely arbitrary or purely socially constructed rather than partially restricted, then it would be impossible to discuss ideas of rights. By arguing for and postulating a notion of moral psychology, Rawls makes his theory of justice defensible and universalizable, while also being able to account for variation and difference. John Rawls' Two Principles of Justice are important to establishing his defense of liberal democratic institutions and his basic structure. “Rawls offers his notion of justice as fairness as an illustration of a political conception of justice. In its mature form (PL 291), this notion affirms the following principles: I. Each person has an equal right to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties which is compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for all, II. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions. First, they must be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society” (Garrett, 2005). It is important to note that John Rawls' advocacy of the difference principle, something like pareto optimality, implies that if some degree of inequality raises the standards of the poorest people, then it is justified above a more equal but perhaps less productive system. This is essential to understanding the second Principle and why Rawls can defend institutions that do predictably create some degree of political and economic inequality. If, say, having the role of Senator does give some people cushy and empowering positions but this tends to advance the needs of the poorest, that is acceptable to Rawls. However, note that advancing even the bulk of society at the cost of the poorest members is not just under Rawlsian systems. Rawls postulates that societies have basic structures, an intersection of social, cultural, economic, political, governing and domestic institutions (Garrett, 2005). It is of course often difficult to tell where a basic institution begins and a “superstructure” institution, as a Marxist puts it, ends. Is the nuclear family a basic structure? A corporation? What if corporations change in their average behavior over time? Rawls is not terribly concerned with these admittedly important issues: He simply wants to identify that, while not every part of society must be scrupulously fair or follow his notions of justice (e.g. a sports game doesn't have to protect the needs of the weakest participants, and a college class doesn't need to give everyone As), its basic institutions of opportunity, access and governance emphatically do. A dictatorship is unfair at the basic level because it presumes the supremacy of an autocrat or an autocratic elite who have markedly different rights, in violation of the two Values and the two Principles, and because the dictator would be terribly unlikely if the roles of society were redistributed suddenly to want to be anyone but the dictator. But a liberal democracy could be fair because a President doesn't have so much more power than anyone else that s/he is in a different category and because the President might not find being a lawyer or a doctor that much worse or that much more onerous. Essentially, then, for society to be just, its basic structure must follow the Two Principles. Consider closely the first principle, roughly, “?Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others”. Does Rawls successfully defend this position in defence of liberal political institutions? Rawls' theories here are a good place to start, but they fail to analyse or answer serious questions about liberal political institutions. First: Let us take a race where every athlete has no impositions, no unfair limitations, and the loser is shot. Is this race grotesque? It doesn't violate the above maxim, and it doesn't even truly violate the difference principle. (It does violate the notion of role-blindness, of course, since no one wants to be shot, but the broader principle is still applicable). Ideas of “equal opportunity” and capacities, then, need to be compared against an idea of an absolute minimum standard of treatment. Second: Rawls too easily dismisses inequality as a concern. It is true that inequality is not the ultimate evil: Some inequality is necessary to be fair, since not everyone works as hard or at as onerous of positions. But inequality is a toxic factor that leads to jealousy, resentment, and breakdowns in social unity as people are put into sharply different categories. Sharp inequality also makes impossible any just remuneration norms. Albert (2004) proposes the idea of remuneration for effort and sacrifice, and this is a fair notion. Rawls' theories are a good place to begin, but we have a long way to go before we truly understand human intuitions and moral psychologies about justice, and until we have created a society that fits Rawls' dreams. Even modern societies do not match his minimal standards, and his standards themselves will undoubtedly in the future be viewed as barbarically limited rather than enlightened. Works Cited Alexander, J. Capabilities and social justice: the political philosophy of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Ashgate Publishing. 2008. Alkire, S. 2002, "Dimensions of Human Development." World Development 30(2): 181– 205. Alkire, Sabina. 2005b. "Why the Capability Approach." Journal of Human Development 6(1): 115–33. Anand, P. 2011, "New Directions in the Economics of Welfare." Journal of Public Economics, in press. Anand P and Santos C, 2007 Violence, Gender Inequalities and Life Satisfaction, Revue d'Economie Politique, 117, 135-60. 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