[PEN-L:32580] RE: Re: John Rawls

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:32578] Re: John Rawls

Eric writes:>This might be a possible assumption about how people would
choose in this artifical situation, but I don't think this is the only
possible assumption about how people would act and other possible
assumptions about human motivations would lead to the Rawlsian solution.
The focus on avoiding risk might--or might not--be a neoclassical
interpretation of such a situation.<

risk aversion is precisely the terms in which neoclassicals interpret Rawls. As I understand them, they reject Rawls because of his (alleged) implicit assumption of total risk aversion when the individual is in the original position under the veil of ignorance.

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: enilsson@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:enilsson@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:47 AM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:32578] Re: John Rawls
>
>
> Jim D wrote,
>
> > My point was that this seems pretty individualistic. It
> >doesn't recognize that people care about the fates of
> >others even without doing the "putting myself in the
> >other guy's shoes" routine.
>
> Rawls artifical situation (where you didn't know what place you would
> have in the society being designed) doesn't necessarily have any
> relationship to the assumption that people _don't_ care about others.
>
> If people were 60% purely self interested and 40% caring
> about others,
> their choice of the "best" society would still be shaped by this 60%.
> Hence the need for Rawls artifical situation.
>
> By assuming people would not know where they would be in the
> yet-to-be-
> created society, this would (might?) eliminate all "self-interested"
> perspectives about the construction of the just society.
>
> I don't know, however, if the choices people would make in
> this situation
> would be based on avoidance of risk of being poor or otherwise
> disadvantaged. This might be a possible assumption about how
> people would
> choose in this artifical situation, but I don't think this is
> the only
> possible assumption about how people would act and other possible
> assumptions about human motivations would lead to the
> Rawlsian solution.
> The focus on avoiding risk might--or might not--be a neoclassical
> interpretation of such a situation.
>
> Eric.
>
> 
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