Bryan,

Another Political Philosopher who has taken up Rawl’s theme is Michael Sandel:

http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/jmr/

He gave the BBC 4 Reith Lectures this year that are also worth listening to or reading.

One of the challenges of living in a ‘post-religious’ society is that there is no universal moral code you can fall back on to make your arguments.

Not the old “God is dead, so everything is permissible” argument again! I thought that we moved on from that decades ago!

Joanna – Thanks for sharing that link. He’s definitely on my list of people to read. That said, it’s a cheesy advertising campaign by Harvard, isn’t it? You’d think their staff complement is so strong they don’t need engage in a telemarketing campaign.

Steve – I can definitely buy the idea of justice being something that’s innate in part, even biological. That’s not the whole story, but I’m not surprised that a monkey’s sense of justice resembles ours.

JD – That wasn’t my point. My point was that without a single compelling moral force, without some code that everyone subscribes to, it is difficult to come to a consensus on things like values. Pluralism, not just the ‘death of religion’, also contributes to this state of affairs.

Robespierre – Again, thanks for that link. That’s a fascinating. FG wouldn’t have struck me as a party to lead a social democratic revolution.

Liam – Rawls is a liberal egalitarian, but his idea of justice allows for inequality – so long as that inequality benefits the least well off. Part of the reason for that was the recognition of the role motivation plays and that if those who do more aren’t rewarded, they might stop.

Also, Rawls says in the preface to his book that his theory isn’t all that original but borrows heavily from the philosophy of contractarians. He leans most on Kant. He definitely is in steps with some philosophical giants.

Have you read Nozick’s State, Anarchy and Utopia? I looked at one chapter – on distributive justice – for my course. As I read it Liam, I kept thinking about you. Seriously. Two things came to mind. First, that online relationships are as real, though very different in nature, to ‘real life’ relationships. And Second, that as attractive as the Libertarian position appears to be at times, in the end, it places (in my opinion) way too much stock in the sanctity of property rights and ownership and not nearly enough on the condition of those whose freedom it guarantees. So while I think Nozick’s work is dazzling, genius at times, and a source of credible challenges to aspects of Rawls’ view of things, it doesn’t seem to always add up and it makes for a cold world if you don’t have any property to protect.

I havnt Brian but I am aware of this quote from the book

“There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up. (Intentionally?) To use a person this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his life is the only life he has. He does not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and no one is entitled to force this upon him-least of all a state or government that claims his allegiance (as other individuals do not) and that therefore scrupulously must be neutral between its citizens.”

How do you define property? It starts with freedom of the individual. If you see demonstrators in a tin pot dictatorship shouting slogans , the cry will be “freedom” . The dangers of moving away from this basic principle get exponential the further one moves away from it. I’m not sure why this should appear to be cold. Surely the state needs to look back at the body counts , persecution and other actions against individuals which continue to this day. I think it’s a fallacy that the state can pull everyone up by their bootsraps

Well at last we have got to the moral debate.

so to add my tuppence worth I will take that quote you use above above Liam which comes from from Nozick’s book “To use a person this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his life is the only life he has” and I would add this.

It might seem ridiculous at first but the question: What is a person? is not as simple as we think. The so called western mind holds a very egocentric conception of personhood as distinct to a sociocentric conception which is common in many cultures and dominant in African philosophy. The Yoruba and Akan conceptions of personhood are cases in point. In African thinking the starting point is social relations – selfhood is seen and accounted for from this relational perspective.

The sociocentric conception of personhood would probably not lead Nozickto to the line of thinking you quote in your post above.

So although it seems a far remove from the debate it underpins it in that what is at stake here is the way of conceptualising, of understanding human reality.

Ultimately this is where we differ on the “puzzled” thread: our different understanding of human reality and the way we conceive of the “person”. The talk of self-interest, economics, law etc. exposed our disagreements but to really understand those disagreements we need to dig to this deeper level. And Bryans recourse to Rawls cleverly led us to dig deeper.

Patrick
Bangkok

Another problem I have with Rawl’s “difference” idea is that it stops at the country border? in logical terms why? is it an easier pill to swallow for his audience if a rich country doesnt have to support its less productive neighbour? on the flip side why cant an ethic for countries not be scaled back to the individual level?

I agree with Patricks post that at some level any political theory needs to understand what an individual is so that basic assumptions about rights can be determined. I’m not familiar with the African examples mentioned , no doubt more traditional societies might have different concepts of the person. It is obvious that one cant have a theory of propery rights and voluntary exchange in a hunter gatherer society,

Brian just to say I appreciate the work you put into this blog, great topics always. You are making me regret that I didnt study philosophy!

jimmy , I think you are missing the point of the quote. Its absolutely possible to increase welfare possibly even over unitary by implementing X policy. However the question is, is it just?
As for power imbalances, most that I can see are the creation of the state in the first place. A free society with a rule of law based on indivdual and secure property rights would not need a regulator. The individual actions of people would ensure that the best services be it airlines or heathcare rise to the top. I know I wouldnt like to live in a cuban style society even if it could be shown to be “fair”. As it stands even in Ireland how much better would our health service be if the medical business had to chase after the custom of everyone instead of the other way round.

Eoin – I’m sorry about the technical issues. Hopefully that won’t happen again. And thanks for persisting, especially since your comment is so encouraging.

Liam – I can’t come close to some of the responses others have posted to that quotation. All I can say is that I hope you read Nozick’s book. It is brilliant, genius even, in part. But on the whole, (the chapter I read anyway) had inconsistencies that brought his argument crashing down. Worse, Rawls went back and defended his theory, and even altered it in part following the criticism he received. Nozick never responded to his critics. I can’t help but wonder if that wasn’t because he realised he couldn’t.

And thank you so much for those very kind words. I really appreciate it. The work is fun when you have really bright people willing to honestly engage with you and each other on such a wide variety of topics. So thank you for contributing so much.

getoffmycloud – On Nozick, I must plead insufficient knowledge to be able to give you a worthy response. On Rawls, I’m still a beginner, but hopefully I’ll be able to come back to you sooner rather than later.

Patrick – Thanks. Where do we go from here? Do we accept that there are very different conceptions of being out there and walk away with a better understanding of why we sometimes differ. Or do we try to learn about those different conceptions, debate and argue them out, and hope to reach a Rawlsian ‘reflective equilibrium’? The latter sounds like slow, ridiculously hard work, but potentially very rewarding.

Jimmy1 – thank you. I largely agree with your take on that quotation.

Robespierre – Is the distribution of capabilities the focus on Sen’s writing on justice? I’m curious Robespierre, which views on justice do you subscribe to?

Liam,
I got that. My point was that Nozick doesn’t have much by way of an argument (to show that an increase in welfare which interferes with the liberty of some citizens is ipso facto not just). In particular, I think he misrepresents what it is to take someone else’s life seriously. I don’t think it means to just leave them alone – it involves helping them to get the best out of their capacities. What I’m objecting to is the assumption that what’s just is determined largely or entirely by negative liberty.

As for your point about power, that’s a very limited take on things. Look at the power created by wealth, for example. Your view of a ‘free society’ is quite naive, simply because it ignores the way in which wealth and other power differences can distort a free market.

When Liam says he wouldn’t choose a society like Cuba, it reminded me of another common criticism of the veil of ignorance. Even if someone has no knowledge of their own social status, race etc. the decision will still depend upon how risk adverse the individual is. Somebody who is risk-loving might choose Russia as their choice of society on the basis of the small chance of them becoming a wealthy oligarch. A particuarly risk adverse person would choose a socety with guaranteed egilitarianism, however. I guess it’s a bit of a technicality, but this means therefore, that the veil may not guarantee that people make choices based on the “common good”.

Brian you could be right about Nozick , I was reviewing a few articles about him on the Mises site and he seems to get mixed reviews, there is a much stronger preference for Murray Rothbard who even Nozich was inspired to some extent by.

Anyway it looks like I will have to delve into some of the old chinese classics

“if someone can recognize an act of unjust aggression when it is perpetrated by one individual against another, but not when the same act is perpetrated by an organized group of individuals, such a person must be confused about right and wrong” Mo-tzu

Bryan

One thing to take into account these days with politics and politicians is the vast difference between its actual important the real economy vs. its importance in shaping society.

Thirty years ago the two were much more closely aligned everywhere as central spending was a much greater contributor (proportionately) to national wealth. If the government spent 10bn in an Ireland with a GDP of 30bn then it is clear that it was central to economic activity as well as determining the societal climate.

I know a few very capable young politicians both under 32 who are in the Dáil. They are talented and would succeed inside or outside politics. Really creative people however are choosing to operate in the private sector and the relative liberty one can enjoy there rather than entering the obscure arcana of the corridors of power and ending up waiting to one day, possibly, have a chance to have some limited legislative impact on the way we live.