Peeking through the veil of ignorance again
June 08, 2010
Posted by kris at June 8, 2010 08:55 AM
The trackback entry for this page is : http://www.inthehat.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1872
I read a lot of political philosophy back in college. I distinctly remember disliking the work of John Rawls mostly because I thought it created a society that was basically unfair in the name of social justice. But, that was years ago. When I come across things like this I always wonder if time has changed my opinion.
Rawls' philosophy is based on the idea of the veil of ignorance, which says that if you didn't know what role you'd have in society and whether you'd be rich, poor, smart, dumb, etc. you'd choose a society that provided most equally for everyone regardless of your advantages or disadvantages.
Rawls' idea of an original position also goes on to state:
Rawls specifies that the parties in the original position are concerned only with citizens' share of what he calls primary social goods, which include basic rights as well as economic and social advantages. Rawls also argues that the representatives in the original position would adopt the maximin rule as their principle for evaluating the choices before them. Borrowed from game theory, maximin stands for maximizing the minimum, i.e. making the choice that produces the highest payoff for the least advantaged position. Thus, maximin in the original position represents a formulation of social equality.
I think this all sounds well and good, except for two things:
1. People don't make choices with the assumption that they'll be the loser. They choose thinking they'll be the fortunate one. See: the lottery.
2. Making the highest payoff for the least advantaged position is not necessarily to the advantage of society at large. See: the progressive income tax.
To me, I still think Rawls' political philosophy crushes the individual and mires a society in sluggish mediocrity. It implies that all advantages or disadvantages within society can be somehow quantified and are unearned. It implies that all benefits are derived from the government rather than derived from nature. It implies that people are completely self-interested and society has to be built to force a charitable nature. I see in Rawls the genesis of things like affirmative action and the cult of the victim that violate my basic sense of fairness.
So, yeah, in review, still not a fan of Rawls. I do hope that I find my opinion changed about a few political philosophers.
Posted by kris at June 8, 2010 08:55 AM
The trackback entry for this page is : http://www.inthehat.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1872
| Trackback Entries |
Comments
| # June 8th, 2010 12:02 PM james |
| I don't see how your criticisms of Rawls' original position follow. Are you asserting that people will make lotteryesque (criticism #1) decisions even behind a veil of ignorance? |
| # June 8th, 2010 12:18 PM kris |
| Yes, I think they will. But, even if they did make a choice like Rawls thinks they would, I don't think it's an appropriate way to frame the social contract.
For example, let's say there was a veil of "almost" ignorance and it said that there's a 99.99% chance that you're white and a .01% chance that you're black. If you're white you get everything and if you're black you're resigned to slavery. I think most people would take the chance that they're white and so under Rawls we'd frame society to that - we'd choose the best for the most people here because that's the ratinonal/reasonable choice - much like the veil of ignorance leads to Rawls' conclusion. But what's missing is the sense that there's something wrong with that and that a black person has a natural right to liberty that can't be taken away by the social contract. |
| # June 8th, 2010 12:40 PM james |
| You're right, if the people in the veil of ignorance had information about which group they'd be likely to be in, they may take the chance that they'd be in the better-off majority. But that isn't Rawls' theory - his is one of total ignorance, right? So your criticism is neither here nor there.
|
| # June 8th, 2010 1:01 PM james |
| And that's all assuming that it's desirable to be in the majority. Apply this concept to economics, where 1% of the people own most things. I doubt that most people would take the chance of being in that select group. |
| # June 8th, 2010 1:19 PM kris |
| No, you're right, but honestly, the whole veil of ignorance concept isn't really what I'm criticizing the most. I guess what I was trying to illustrate is that I disagree with his basic concept that mortality comes from our decision under a veil of ignorance and that's what we should use to build a society. I think morality is what it is and the decisions we make under the veil of ignorance have nothing to do with what society decides is right or just. |
| # June 8th, 2010 1:22 PM BVBigBro |
| There are all sorts of flaws in Rawls, not the least of which are the assumption of a society that assigns roles, the disregard for taste, and the assumption that people focus and choose based on outcome.
The other obvious reply to Rawls is to say that confronted with a veil of ignorance you would not choose society at all. |
| # June 8th, 2010 1:28 PM james |
| I don't know a lot about Rawls (I know only what I read in that wikipedia article you linked), but isn't he using this example as a basis (original position) from which to reason?
If you accept that we all have natural rights as individuals, then you must accept that those rights are necessarily balanced with the rights of society as whole. The original position framework helps to define that balance. I rather like the concept - it removes a lot of intrinsic bias from the equation. |
| # June 8th, 2010 1:47 PM kris |
If you accept that we all have natural rights as individuals, then you must accept that those rights are necessarily balanced with the rights of society as whole. The original position framework helps to define that balance. Right - I mean that's Rawls' opinion and the basis for his political philosophy, but I just feel that he swings too far in favor of society as a whole. I think he crushes the individual in favor of trying to create a more utopian society. I think that he thinks too much about the affect of his ideas on society as a whole and too little about what that means for any given individual. What's fair from a social justice perspective may be very unfair to a given individual person. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:02 PM james |
| He may, I don't know a lot about him.
But I think it's a sound approach - when presented with a situation, isn't it fair to ask oneself, "If I was shown the rules of this society before I was born, and if I had a choice, would I have agreed to enter the society?" If the answer to that question is "No," then is the system really fair? I think people deserve a fair chance. Bias, nepotism, and prejudice all play a role in shaping our lives. I've had more opportunities than a lot of people, and others have had more opportunities than I've had. That doesn't make a system unfair. What would make it unfair is if I'd had no opportunities. It's like the BCS. I wouldn't call the BCS an injustice - it's just harder for some teams than it is for others. That's life. But if a school like Boise State had _no_ chance to play in a BCS game, that would be patently unfair. So the rules are structured such that schools like Boise State do have a chance. Isn't that all Rawls is saying? |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:09 PM kris |
| No, Rawls would take it a step further and say that not only are the rules of the BCS unfair to Boise State but also it's a social injustice that a team like Boise State has less money for its program than a school like Ohio State. And, since they're not starting from the same place, maybe Ohio State and other big schools should get initial negative points in the computer polls or something.
Basically, think of Rawls more like the NFL and revenue sharing. Which, I admit, works well in the NFL for the fans, but you could also make the Jerry Jones argument that why should he be punished for have a well-marketed team and making good personnel decisions, etc. The other thing about Rawls is that I think he also underestimates the power of our own morality. We do things that are against are interests because they're the right thing to do, you know, not just because of the whole "there by the grace of god go I" argument. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:15 PM kris |
| Now, of course, you could also say that the OSUs, etc. have such a huge, inherently unfair reputation advantage in the human polls that knocking them in the computer polls is only evening the playing field.
Hmmm, I LIKE this way of looking at Rawls. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:21 PM james |
| I don't think many people would be paying big bucks to see the Dallas Cowboys scrimmage the Dallas Cowboys week in and week out. Whether he wants to admit it or not, Jerry Jones owes a great deal of his team's success to the NFL's revenue sharing model.
Would Rawls really say that Boise State's revenue share is an injustice? Or would he say that the inequality of revenue is just evidence of injustice, and that we can only determine if it is unjust by revisiting the original position and contemplating whether Boise State would have agreed to the BCS system if they didn't know which team they'd end up being? That's my understanding, anyway. (From my admittedly short reading.) |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:22 PM james |
| I like using sports leagues in all matters of philosophy. They're excellent microcosms of a rule-based system. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:24 PM kris |
| Does it matter? My opinion is that Boise State's relative lack of revenue actually ISN'T an injustice or at least may not be an injustice. Is it an injustice that OSU has more revenue or does OSU have more because they've earned it? |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:25 PM james |
| I don't think it's an injustice. From what I've read of Rawls, I don't think he would think so either. That's all I'm saying. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:28 PM kris |
I just had an aha moment based on this:
ould Rawls really say that Boise State's revenue share is an injustice? Or would he say that the inequality of revenue is just evidence of injustice, and that we can only determine if it is unjust by revisiting the original position and contemplating whether Boise State would have agreed to the BCS system if they didn't know which team they'd end up being? Rawls might agree with you, but my point is just that something is either just or unjust, its unjustness isn't determined by what you would decide in the original position. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:30 PM kris |
| Sports leagues as political philosophy:
Hmmm...all I really have is horse racing as anarchy. The problem with sports leagues is the draft. Right off of the bat they all completely obliterate the rights of the individual. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:36 PM james |
| Individuals are free to choose to enter the league or not enter the league. In doing so, individuals agree to give up some autonomy in exchange for the benefits provided by the league. Since people keep entering, they must find the deal acceptable. |
| # June 8th, 2010 2:40 PM kris |
| Hmmm, now I want to read Flood v. Kuhn |
| # June 8th, 2010 3:03 PM james |
| >Rawls might agree with you, but my point is just that something is either just or unjust, its unjustness isn't determined by what you would decide in the original position.
I don't know that I agree. Sure, there are always unforeseen circumstances that you may not have agreed to "had-you-known," but in that case you just return to the original position & reformulate. If you're saying that you believe people in the original position, with omniscient knowledge of all possible outcomes but absolutely no knowledge of which role they will play won't make balanced decisions, then yeah, I guess you disagree with Rawls. I think people will make balanced decisions, though. That isn't to say that I think people will strive for an equal division of everything under the sun. On the contrary, I think people would agree that things like effort and innovation should earn a premium, and that all folks, regardless of starting position, deserve a chance at success. You and I might play a game of Monopoly, using the standard rules. At the end of that game, one person would win, one would lose. Regardless of what happened in the game, we'd agree that we both had a fair chance at winning. It gets interesting when we start changing the rules. For instance, we might devise a system in which one player starts with a lot more cash, another with property ownership. Maybe it costs one player 50% more for hotels, or the other gets 2 turns in exchange for accepting less money each time he passes "Go." Or maybe one player can't buy houses, but he is eligible for a lottery when the other player isn't. We could come up a bizarre set of rules and starting positions, and if we both agreed that it was "fair" before starting, it shouldn't matter to either of us which position we started in. Right? |
| # June 8th, 2010 3:58 PM kris |
| I actually just reject the original position as a legitimate basis for formulating fair rules of society.
For example, we can make whatever rules we want for our monopoly game and that's fair because there's no sense of natural rights involved in monopoly. But, when we move to the game of life (not Life :), even if we decide together to make a rule that says "If you are born as X, you get Y" that doesn't make the rule right or fair. It just makes it a rule. |
| # June 8th, 2010 7:05 PM james |
| I don't see a conflict with morality or natural rights. Why would anyone agree to anything immoral as part of the original position? If a law is immoral, then it conflicts with original position doctrine, no? |