Self-study
P1
The following passage is adapted from a journal article.
P2
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Intro topic ·
Rawl's theory of justice
We first need to understand what Rawls was reacting to.
What Rawls was reacting to ·
Utilitarianism
Philosophy that emphasized maximizing fulfillment of people's preferences. Utilitarianism led to strange results -- it supported executing an innocent person as long as the action increased total satisficaction.
Rawls's criticism ·
Utilitarianism wrongly endorses violating the liberty of the few for the good of the many
P3
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Rawls's alternative to utilitarianism ·
Justice is whatever arises from a fair procedure
(The author calls Rawls's theory "ingenious." This suggests a positive attitude.)
P4
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Elaborate on fair procedure ·
The veil of ignorance
If a child must cut a cake into slices to be divided among others, but doesn't know who will get which slice, he'll likely divide the cake into equal slices. In this way, ignorance about who gets which slice leads to a fair process for dividing the cake.
P5
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Elaborate on veil of ignorance ·
If people were ignorant about their own personal qualities, they'd devise a system where nobody loses
This arrangement would be a just system.
P6
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Assumptions underlying Rawls's theory ·
People want primary goods, and would agree that everyone should get a minimum of these goods
People in the "original position" -- the state of ignorance about their own personal qualities -- wouldn't want to lose out on the bare minimum level of primary goods. (The author says that this "unfortunately" is redistributionist. So, there's an aspect about Rawls's theory that the author doesn't like.)
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
6.
Which one of the following ██████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ █████ ██
a
Most people value ███ ███████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████████
This just tells us people are self-interested. But Rawls’s theory already assumes that. So it doesn’t help undermine the highlighted aspect of Rawls’s theory.
b
It is impossible ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ ███████
This just means Rawls’s original position is impossible to implement. But we’re just talking about philosophy here — in theory, if people could be in the original position, what would they agree with? What’s possible in practice doesn’t matter to this question.
c
Some people would ██ ███████ ██ ████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ █████
This undermines the highlighted claim by providing a reason to think that some people in the original position might be OK without having a minimum amount of primary goods. They might be OK risking a complete loss of a primary good in exchange for a large amount of another primary good. (In other words, they might be willing to gamble, and so wouldn’t necessarily agree that everyone should have a safety net, because they would rather have a higher chance at getting more.)
d
Few people believe ████ ████ █████ ██ █████████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████
This just shows that most people want more than the minimum amount. But it doesn’t help show that some people might be OK without getting a minimum amount (in other words, getting less than the minimum amount or even zero).
e
People tend to ████████████ ███ █████████ █████████ ███ ████████████ ███ ██ █████████████ █████ ███ ██████
This doesn’t help show that some people might be OK without getting a minimum amount. In fact, if they tend to overestimate the resources available to distribute, they might be more likely to want everyone to get a minimum amount, because they think there are enough resources to satisfy this distribution to everyone.