I will have more to say about Rawls later on today, but let me now pose one small question to those who seem not to grasp that Rawls was trying to prove a theorem: Why do you suppose he assumed that the participants in the Original Position are not envious? I can answer that question very easily. He needs that assumption becaue otherwise rationally self-interested bargainers will not agree unanimously to a partial ordering of social states -- a familiar mathematical notion from Economics, associated with the name of Vilfredo Pareto, which Rawls needs. But if you think he is just engaged in a sophisticated channeling of the zeitgeist of the age, then why would he gratuitously assume something so obviously contrary to the simplest facts of human motivation?
Think about it. Don't just quote one of the ten million things Rawls said about his theory. Think about it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment