[PEN-L:32573] Re: John Rawls

["Michael Hoover" <HooverM@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Eric N. wrote:
 He was not claiming that we should look at actually existing societies as if they were the product of a social contract. Rather, Rawls asked "what would society look like IF it was designed from scratch by people who did not know what position they would have in this newly designed society when it came into being." The resulting "social contract," Rawls suggests, should be the blueprint of the society we should construct. This society would, arguably, have no classes. This blueprint has NOT
guided the construction of the actual societies we see in front of us (with classes, injustice, etc).

Louis P writes:
I don't understand how you can be proposing the abolition of class society while still being a proponent of liberalism. Rawls's whole notion of redistributive justice reminds me of nothing less than Victorian era middle-class pieties, Charles Dickens's
"Christmas Carol" in particular.
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rawls used social contract to develop so-called ethical theory as alternative utilitarianism...  his notion of 'justice as fairness' is premised upon belief about what folks would ostensibly favor if they were placed behind 'veil of ignorance' (rawls' language) preventing their having knowledge of their own social position and status...

rawls held that social inequality is justified only when it works to benefit of least advantaged... he favored equality ('egalitarianism') on presumption that people working together for mutual advantage should have equal claims to
'fruits of their cooperation' *and* they should not be penalized
because of factors - gender, race, inheritance - beyond their control...  welfare and redistribution 'just' on grounds that they conform to what rawls thought would be widely-held sense of
fairness...

ultimately, rawls' theory comes down to view that people are likely to prefer living in egalitarian society because desire - however strong - to be rich will be outweighed by fear they have of being poor...   michael hoover

above refers to rawls' second principle (which he called 'difference principle'), his first principle reflects conventional liberal 'formal equality' - each person is entitled to greatest possible liberty compatible with like liberty for all...