It is Saturday, at the noon hour. I was supposed to be writing this blog post
from a hotel room in lovely downtown Salisbury, Maryland….a mere 45-minutes
from the gentle salt water breezes that, at this very moment, are failing to
dissipate the heavy fog enveloping Ocean City.
Alas, a confederacy of circumstances is keeping me holed up
at the Home Office, well to the west of the Bay Bridge.
I have been thinking about Rawls lately, not the singer
(Lou) but the political philosopher (John).
A true heavy-hitter in the field, his thoughts on justice and governance
were, and continue to be, enormously influential. Some of his key constructs, such as the
“original position” and the “veil of ignorance” require a bit of explanation:
“The original position is a central
feature of John Rawls's social contract account of justice, “justice as
fairness,” set forth in A Theory of Justice
(TJ). It is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be
adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up
this point of view, we are to imagine ourselves in the position of free and
equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to principles of
social and political justice.
The main distinguishing feature of the
original position is “the veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of
judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal
characteristics and social and historical circumstances. They do know of
certain fundamental interests they all have, plus general facts about
psychology, economics, biology, and other social and natural sciences.
The parties in the original position
are presented with a list of the main conceptions of justice drawn from the
tradition of social and political philosophy, and are assigned the task of
choosing from among these alternatives the conception of justice that best
advances their interests in establishing conditions that enable them to
effectively pursue their final ends and fundamental interests.
Rawls contends that the most rational
choice for the parties in the original position are the two principles of
justice. The first principle guarantees the equal basic rights and liberties
needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to
pursue a wide range of conceptions of the good. The second principle provides
fair equality of educational and employment opportunities enabling all to
fairly compete for powers and prerogatives of office; and it secures for all a
guaranteed minimum of the all-purpose means (including income and wealth) that
individuals need to pursue their interests and to maintain their self-respect
as free and equal persons.” [Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
So what does this mean? In simple
terms, this thought exercise should remove one from their personal notions of
self-interest. If you didn’t know who
you might be, or where you might end up in a society, you are less likely to
design a society whereby the rights of the have-nots or of particular
minorities receive a lesser degree of protection compared to the haves or of any
particular majority. It is intended to
promote a rational discussion of fairness, and how such principles could be
used to inform and undergird a fair system of government.
It is also an
excellent and practical means for detecting hypocrisy (or other defects) among political
candidates. All you need to do is ask
yourself, or them directly:
“Would you hold the same position
if [Population X] constituted a majority in the United States?” Or, even more to the point, “Would you espouse such beliefs if you,
yourself had Characteristic Y and not Z?”
His ideas can be employed to help
provide another way of viewing those who seek public office, and of evaluating
the platforms for which they advocate. This
approach offers another way of cutting through the rhetorical mists, to go
deeper than a surface examination of the Issue Stances to ascertain the true beliefs
(or lack thereof) of a political candidate.
If nothing else, asking such questions might enliven some candidate forums. Lord knows they can be dreary affairs.
Stay tuned, as more will follow.
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