It describes a chain of reasoning that would lead the parties in the original position to choose utilitarianism. For each key term or person in the lesson, write a sentence explaining its significance. However, the argument's oblique relation to the original position construction may give rise to doubts of another kind. For them, constructiveness, systematicity, and holism may all be symptomatic of a failure to attach sufficient moral importance to the separateness of persons. In making such determinations, we may do well to employ deliberative rationalityto reflect carefully, under favourable conditions, in light of all the relevant facts available to usbut there is no formal procedure that will routinely select the rational course of action. Although classical and average utilitarianism may often have similar practical consequences (TJ 189), and although those consequences will coincide completely so long as population size is constant, Rawls argues that the two views are markedly distinct conceptions whose underlying analytic assumptions are far apart (TJ 161). He also suggests that part of the attraction of monistic accounts, and of teleological theories that incorporate such accounts, may derive from a conviction that they enable us to resolve a fundamental problem about the nature of rational deliberation. They have as much reason to assume the the probabilities of being any particular person are equal as they do for assuming they are unequal. Up to a point, then, Rawls and the utilitarian are engaged in a common enterprise, and it is against the background of what they have in common that Rawls takes utilitarianism as his primary target of criticism in Theory. In 1803, the Lewis and Clark Expedition left from St. Louis, Missouri, to begin an 8,000 -mile journey, during which the explorers would gather information about the huge territory of the Louisiana Purchase. Surely, though, this is not why rape is wrong; the pleasure the rapist gets shouldnt be counted at all, and the whole thing sounds ridiculous. Cited hereafter as TJ, with page references given parenthetically in the text. . Since the impartial spectator identifies with and experiences the desires of others as if these desires were his own, his function is to organize the desires of all persons into one coherent system of desire (TJ 27). <> x\wHnrA1lf7n;gkDTu}''oE7bD`/3O T:%3?*e Fp=wWZ8*|RvT90dy,1{|3D-gE{[*] V|+5Y(F=2gxcZ}IQh6\9;;bsMzal{z )TreGw$a'J6sm~O#|f7$k2Sb1_OGrm%b[Cmx(d-&M- Rawls gives distinct arguments against two forms of utilitarianism: the classical version and the principle of average utility. We saw this when talking about libertarianism. He thinks this is true of those teleological theories he describes as perfectionist, of certain religious views, and also of classical utilitarianism in so far as its account of the good is understood hedonistically. WebHe thinks that Rawls rejects utilitarianism primarily because it lacks a fait principle ofdistribution and argues that a demand for justice and fair distribution does not yield any . Perhaps one might even say that it is precisely because he agrees with utilitarianism about so much that Rawls is determined to provide an alternative that improves upon it in the respects in which it is deficient. In Rawlss lingo, we have a highest order interest in the development of our two moral powers, the powers to have a rational plan of life and a sense of justice. Since he also believed that personal and political liberty are needed for personal and moral self-development, he thought that the parties would give priority to individual liberty over other goals, such as increasing economic opportunity or wealth. @free.kindle.com emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. This extension to society as a whole of the principle of choice for a single individual is facilitated, Rawls believes, by treating the approval of a perfectly sympathetic and ideally rational and impartial spectator as the standard of what is just. All it means is that formal principles play a limited role in determining such choices. Significantly, Nozick classifies both the utilitarian and the Rawlsian principles of justice as endresult principles. Given his focus on this new task, utilitarianism is relegated largely to the periphery of his concern. In other words, we normally think that it is reasonable for a single individual to seek to maximize satisfaction over the course of a lifetime. T or F: Libertarians reject inheritance as a legitimate means of acquiring wealth, T or F: The phrase "the declining marginal utility of money" means that successive additions to one's income produce, on average, less happiness or welfare than did earlier additions, T or F: Robert Nozick uses the Wilt Chamberlain story to show the importance of economic re-distribution, T or F: Rawls's theory of distributive justice is a form of utilitarianism, T or F: The United States leads the world in executive pay, T or F: According to John Rawls, people in the original position do not know what social position or status they hold in society, T or F: According to the "maximin" rule, you should select the alternative under which the worst that could happen to you is better than the worst that could happen to you under any other alternative, T or F: Distributive justice concerns the morally proper distribution of social benefits and burdens, T or F: According to Mill, to say that I have a right to something is to say that I have a valid claim on society to protect in the possession of that thing, either by force of law or through education and opinion, T or F: In his Principles of Political Economy, J.S. The justice or injustice of assigning a particular benefit to a given individual will depend, for utilitarians, on whether there is any other way of allocating it that would lead to an overall distribution with greater (total or average) utility. So if they choose rules that allow slavery in their society, they do not know how likely it is that they will wind up as slaves. for if we take Utilitarianism to prescribe, as the ultimate end of action, happiness on the whole, and not any individuals happiness, unless considered as an element of the whole, it would follow that, if the additional population enjoy on the whole positive happiness, we ought to weigh the amount of happiness gained by the extra number against the amount lost by the remainder. Critics of utilitarianism, he says, have pointed out that many of its implications run counter to our moral convictions and sentiments, but they have failed to construct a workable and systematic moral conception to oppose it (TJ viii). Yet the most important of those arguments can also be formulated independently of the original position construction and, in addition, there are some arguments that are not offered from the vantage point of the original position at all. Within contemporary political philosophy, this tendency receives what is perhaps its most forceful expression in Nozick's work, and it is noteworthy that a resistance to distributive holism appears to be part of what lies behind his objection to endresult principles.30 These principles are said to assess the justice of a given distribution or sequence of distributions, solely by seeing whether the associated distributional matrix satisfies some structural criterion, rather than by taking into account historical information about how the distribution came to pass. Unless there is some one ultimate end at which all human action aims, this problem may seem insoluble. @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Utilitarians are all about increasing happiness, after all, and assaulting peoples self-esteem or pushing them to regard social life as unacceptable are very strange ways of maximizing happiness. The classical utilitarian, Rawls argues, reasons in much the same way about society as a whole, regarding it as legitimate to impose sacrifices on some people in order to achieve greater advantages for others. Indeed, the point goes further. Since theyre on the same scale, you could compare them and even make up for deficits in the one with an excess of the other. Unless the decision facing the parties in the original position satisfies those conditions, the principle of average utility may be a better choice for the parties even if it is riskier, since it may also hold out the prospect of greater gain (TJ 1656). However, the characterization of classical utilitarianism as the ethic of perfect altruists seems puzzling, given the fact that the classical view is said to conflate all persons into one. stream Rawls sounds a similar note toward the end of Chapter One, where he observes that the several variants of the utilitarian view have long dominated our philosophical tradition and continue to do so, and this despite the persistent misgivings that utilitarianism so easily arouses (TJ 52). 10 0 obj In this essay, I will begin by reviewing Rawls's main arguments against utilitarianism. In effect, then, an intuitionist conception of justice is but half a conception (TJ 41). Heres the second question. If we tell them that they have non-utilitarian interests, then will choose non-utilitarian principles. they are formed simply by an, This week we are covering textbook topics found in Chapter 4, "The Nature of Capitalism," (beginning on page 117) and Chapter 5, "Corporations," (beginning on page 156). [the original position] irrespective of any special attitudes toward risk (TJ 172). Finally, critics have argued that there is a fundamental obscurity in Rawls's account of the way that the parties assess risk. Or, if TV isn't enough, do something else pleasurable: go to the opera, drink beer, master the piano, read Jeremy Bentham, etc. It is Rawls, after all, who says that a distribution cannot be judged in isolation from the system of which it is the outcome or from what individuals have done in good faith in the light of established expectations, and who insists that there is simply no answer to the abstract question of whether one distribution is better than another. One of the few times he has anything substantial to say about it is when he includes classical utilitarianismthe utilitarianism of Bentham and Sidgwick, the strict classical doctrine (PL 170)among the views that might participate in an overlapping consensus converging on a liberal political conception of justice, the standard example (PL 164) of which is justiceasfairness. This is the sort of argument that Samuel criticized earlier. In view of the inevitable diversity of reasonable comprehensive doctrines in a modern democratic society, Rawls argues, this is not a realistic assumption and hence the test of stability is inadequate. % With them came Sacagawea's baby, Jean Baptiste, to whom she'd given birth eight months before. . The answer is that they would choose average utilitarianism if the following conditions were met: The handout shows how this combination would lead to average utilitarianism. Viewed in this light, the argument's significance as a contribution to the criticism of utilitarianism is easier to appreciate. To save content items to your account, (Indeed, he claims that the design of the original position guarantees that only endresult principles will be chosen.) 4 0 obj They say that shows that I make trade-offs between TV and my childs future, so I must be able to compare them.). We know her best as the Native American guide who accompanied endobj His aim is to develop this theory in such a way as to offer an alternative systematic account of justice that is superior . Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 80. T. M. Scanlon, Rawls' Theory of Justice, H. L. A. Hart, Between Utility and Rights, in. In light of this assessment of the utilitarian conception of the good and his own defence of a pluralistic conception, Rawls's comment in section 15, that utilitarianism and his theory agree that the good is the satisfaction of rational desire (TJ 923) seems misleading at best. Yet, as noted above, Rawls explicitly states that an overlapping consensus is deep enough to include such fundamental ideas as the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation (PL 149, 15860, 1646), and the suggestion that classical utilitarianism might support the political conception as a workable approximation does not explain what attitude the utilitarian is now supposed to have toward that idea.32. Around the year 1788, a Shoshone girl named Sacagawea, also known as Bird Woman, was born. Of course, as Rawls recognizes, utilitarians frequently argue that, given plausible empirical assumptions, the maximization of satisfaction is unlikely to be achieved in this way. WebRawls rejects utilitarianism because a. he saw it as a threat b. it might permit an unfair distribution of burdens and benefits c. governments wanted it d. it values moral purity it The first is that all people's lives are of equal value and importance. In other words, neither believes that the principles of justice can appropriately be applied to a single transaction viewed in isolation (TJ 87). It is reasonable, for example, to impose a sacrifice on ourselves now for the sake of a greater advantage later (TJ 23). Why arent we talking about maximizing utility, period? In other words, section 29's appeals to psychological stability, selfrespect, and the strains of commitment are all intended as contributions to the overarching enterprise of demonstrating that Rawls's principles would provide a satisfactory minimum whereas the principle of average utility might have consequences with which the parties would find it difficult to live. And the third is the fact that both the Rawlsian and the utilitarian accounts of distributive justice are, in a sense to be explained, holistic in character. In both cases, the parties are said to fear that their own interests might be sacrificed for the sake of the larger utilitarian goal. Thoughts about God, culture, and the Real Jesus. WebQuestion: John Rawls rejects utilitarianism because: 1) that maximizing the total well-being of society could permit an unfair distribution of burdens and benefits. If a radically inegalitarian distributioneither of satisfaction itself or of the means of satisfactionwill result in the greatest total satisfaction overall, the inequality of the distribution is no reason to avoid it. Yet Rawls had said quite explicitly in A Theory of Justice that classical utilitarianism does not accept that idea (TJ 33). I began by summarizing a section of the book that I did not ask you to read. This possibility arises, Rawls suggests, because utilitarianism relies entirely on certain standard assumptions (TJ 159) to demonstrate that its calculations will not normally support severe restrictions on individual liberties. to the dominant utilitarianism of the tradition (TJ, p. viii/xviii rev.). In this way, we may be led to a monistic account of the good by an argument from the conditions of rational deliberation (TJ 556). Nor, he maintains, does the irreducible diversity of our ends mean that rational choice is impossible. Each sentence below refers to a numbered sentence in the passage. WebRawls and utilitarianism Notes for October 30 Main points. Rawls believes that, of all traditional theories of justice, the contract theory is the one which best approximates our considered judgments of justice. As Rawls says: The parties . Often, for example, we seem prepared to say that an individual deserves or has a right to some benefit, and that it is therefore just that he should get it, without inquiring into the larger distributional context. Well, thats a good utilitarian reason to avoid having anyone lose out. If you were an atheist, what kind of ethical system would you appeal to? Instead, Rawls offers a contractualist, proceduralist account of Rawls assumes that if the parties had to choose between plain old utilitarianism and average utilitarianism, they would prefer the latter. Yet in Social Unity and Primary Goods, where he builds on an argument first broached in the final four paragraphs of Section 28 of TJ, Rawls contends that even contemporary versions of utilitarianism are often covertly or implicitly hedonistic. Sacagawea proved her value to the expedition on many occassions. But this makes it even less clear why classical utilitarianism should be associated with perfect altruism. In other words, the arguments of section 29 are intended to help show that the choice confronting the parties has features that make reliance on the maximin rule rational. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings These people will inevitably conclude that his criticisms of utilitarianism do not go far enough, and that his own theory exhibits some of the same faults that they see in the utilitarian view. <>/Metadata 864 0 R/ViewerPreferences 865 0 R>> Rather, it appears to play a role in motivating the design of the original position itself. Utilitarianism, in Rawls's view, has been the dominant systematic moral theory in the modern liberal tradition. The veil of ignorance assures us that people in the original position will be, inequalities are only justified if they benefit the least advantaged, In association with labor and capital, Mill had contrasting views of, Who is more likely to be sympathetic with the idea of reducing the disparities of income in society, The first principle of Nozick's entitlement theory concerns the original acquisition of, To the libertarians, their concept of liberty includes a commitment to, it might permit an unfair distribution of burdens and benefits. Consequently, Rawls reasons, it makes no sense to take the riskier rather than the safer option. x[K#A?. T or F: Libertarians would find it immoral and unjust to coerce people to give food or money to the starving, T or F: John Rawls's second principle of justice states that insofar as inequalities are permitted -- that is insofar as it is compatible with justice for some jobs or positions to bring greater rewards than others -- these positions must be all open, Chapter 3- Justice and Economic Distribution, AICE Thinking Skills Midterm 2022 - Fallacies, John Lund, Paul S. Vickery, P. Scott Corbett, Todd Pfannestiel, Volker Janssen, The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric, Lawrence Scanlon, Renee H. Shea, Robin Dissin Aufses, Byron Almen, Dorothy Payne, Stefan Kostka, T3L18: Primary and Secondary Dyslipidaemias:. There is still a problem, of course, given his insistence in Theory that neither classical nor average utilitarianism can put fundamental liberal values on a sufficiently secure footing. The idea that the distribution of natural talents should be regarded as a common asset is not the idea of an aggregate good that takes precedence over the goods of individual human beings. Moreover, if there is indeed a dominant end at which all rational human action aims, then it is but a short step to construing that end as the sole intrinsic good (TJ 556) for human beings. Rawls contends that people would find losing out in this way unacceptable. However, utilitarians reject the publicity condition. Rawls does, of course, offer an additional argument to the effect that the parties in the original position would reject the classical view. Herein lies the problem. "useRatesEcommerce": false The first is almost certainly wrong: the parties do know the chances of being any particular person are equal to the chance of being anyone else.
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