Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy
brought to you by Ron Yezzi
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Minnesota State University, Mankato
© Copyright 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi
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Topics
Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Feyerabend's Science in a Free Society
Foucault's Power/Knowledge
Giere's Science Without Laws
Harding's The Science Question in Feminism
Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
MacKinnon's Toward a Feminist Theory of the State
Noddings' Caring
Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Rawls' A Theory of Justice
Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
Searle's "How to Derive 'Ought' from 'Is'"
(For my exposition of Dennett's position along with my commentary, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourshp6/dennett )
(For my exposition of Feyerabend's position along with my commentary, go to Issue 8. at paulfeyerabend1a.pdf
(For my exposition of Foucault's position along with my commentary, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourshp6/postmodernism )
(For my exposition of Giere's position along with my commentary, go to ronaldgiere1a.pdf
(For my exposition of Harding's position along with my commentary, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourshp6/feminism )
(For my exposition of Kuhn's position along with my commentary, go to Issue 6. at thomaskuhn1a.pdf
(For my exposition of MacKinnon's position along with my commentary, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourshp6/feminism )
(For my exposition of Noddings' position along with my commentary, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourshp6/feminism )
Philosopher Robert Nozick, as we have seen, argues for a minimal state and rejects a welfare state where government redistributes various amounts of wealth and power in society. He holds that individuals (1) are free to enter into voluntary exchanges with others, (2) are entitled to anything they acquire through such exchanges, and (3) are entitled to freely choose what they want to do with their acquisitions. Government's just role consists only in providing protective services to stop persons from engaging in violence, theft, or fraud. It follows that any attempt to redistribute wealth acquired through (1) - (3) via taxation for the purpose of aiding the less fortunate in a welfare state is unjust. A premier example is the National Basketball Association player who voluntarily signs a contract with a team's management (also acting voluntarily), and interested persons voluntarily buy tickets to games while uninterested ones voluntarily do not. In this system of voluntary exchanges, the player is justly entitled to any money acquired through these exchanges and is free to do whatever the player wants to do with the money. To take some of the player's money away in taxation to help the less fortunate is forced labor, that is, an unjust way of compelling a person to work to provide benefits for someone else.
Nozick grants that these voluntary exchanges can be affected by natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities. But he argues that someone disadvantaged by these conditions suffers misfortunes of life--but not injustice. As long as individuals acquire or accomplish something through voluntary exchanges, they are entitled to what they have without thereby treating anyone else unjustly. He is especially skeptical about demands for equal opportunity in the name of justice. Out of a desire for equal opportunity, should we shorten the legs of the professional basketball player, provide cosmetic surgery and intellectual training if a suitor has lesser qualities than another suitor, provide every child with a home swimming pool if some other child has the advantage of using one? Given extensive human diversity and the wealth of opportunities available in society, he is skeptical about there being common standards about equal opportunity for which government can take action. He also asserts that only individuals, not groups, have rights; and thus government must respect these rights as they occur in these voluntary exchanges rather than creating group rights based on a misleading need to provide some groups with "equal opportunity."
(For my fuller exposition of Nozick's position, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourspi6/rawlsandnozick )
My Reply: The strangest claim in his argument is Nozick's insistence on the irrelevance of natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities to most judgments about justice.
With respect to favorable or unfavorable conditions beyond an individual's control--in terms of natural assets, social conditions, and available opportunities--let's consider three different positions:
(1) Life isn't fair; you just have to accept it and get over it.
(2) Life is fair so long as no direct violence, theft, or fraud has occurred; and we should accept that (this is Nozick's position). Or,
(3) Life isn't fair; but we should try to make it fairer.
(1) is a popular view often cited when individuals have complaints. You should look on the unfairness as an opportunity to build personal character by overcoming whatever obstacles are in your way. If a tornado brings death, injury, and destruction or if a severe economic downturn wipes out your livelihood, these events are unfair; but, with determination, you can rebuild your life and do well. With respect to the unfairness (or injustice) itself, you are helpless and must be passive; but with respect to your life and well being in the future, you must take personal responsibility by overcoming obstacles.
This popular view though makes two false assumptions--namely, (a) you must deal with the unfairness solely through your own (or your own family's) resources, and (b) you and society are helpless with respect to the unfairness itself. Regarding (a), there's no compelling reason why you must treat the unfairness as a test of personal character rather than also employing the assistance of others (and society more generally) in dealing with the unfairness. For example, in natural disasters, we do not exclude government or others in better circumstances from giving assistance. Regarding (b), there's no reason for helplessness when you and society generally have ample resources to rectify much of the unfairness (injustice). As an individual, you have much more limited resources, but the society generally has multiple resources to take actions like equalizing educational opportunities. What happens with respect to natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities lies well within the limits of social control; indeed, it is impossible for society to avoid dealing with them in terms of enacting social controls or rejecting controls.1
In relatively trivial cases, I suppose, passivity may make good sense just because correcting the unfairness is more trouble than it is worth. Even in non-trivial cases, some passivity may be justifiable because, in practice, we cannot rectify all the instances of unfairness in the world or, as individuals, we lack the resources to always rectify unfairness ourselves. But there also are non-trivial areas of unfairness where helplessness or passivity is inexcusable because we, as a society, are capable of taking actions that rectify unfairness. In a society with slaves, taking the position that abolishing slavery is unnecessary because, since life is unfair, slaves should accept their lot and get over it is a lame excuse. The same can be said for numerous others cases of unfairness--such as stolen property, rape, domestic abuse, child abuse, disabilities, natural disasters, voting suppression, starvation, poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and no access to health care.2
Nozick's position (2) avoids the problems created by the two false assumptions in (1): In cases of direct violence, theft, or fraud that create unfairness with respect to a system of voluntary exchanges, an attitude of helplessness or passivity is unacceptable. So enslaving people or stealing their property are injustices that we should rectify. However--in cases of advantages or disadvantages associated with natural assets, social circumstances, or available opportunities--where there is no unfairness because cases provide instances of the misfortunes of life rather than injustice, no rectification is necessary. It may be your misfortune that other persons' rights of entitlement happen to put you at a disadvantage; but that is not an injustice. (Of course, nothing should prevent individuals from relieving the misfortunes of others as a matter of voluntary charity.) In avoiding position (1) though, Nozick creates a different set of problems:
(a) Let's begin with the relation between misfortunes of life and injustice. "Misfortune" easily suggests a chance event beyond human control. Sometimes that happens; but other times, fortunes or misfortunes of life are reasonably attributable to human choices and actions. So the path of a tornado that causes death and destruction is not attributed to human control. On the other hand, if it is your misfortune to be raised in an area of extreme poverty and meager educational opportunities, your social circumstance is very much attributable to the choices and actions of human beings rather than conditions beyond human control. So you can be a victim of human injustice. Moreover, as the knowledge and power of human beings keeps increasing, the conditions of life--including natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities--also come increasingly under human control. Even if some conditions of life are beyond human control, the issue of fairness still enters in because we have to decide how to act in terms of those conditions. For example, in the case of tornados, as individuals and as a society, we have to decide whether or not to protect ourselves from tornados and what resources to expend for any protection. The same holds true for any natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities beyond human control. As a first consideration here, we want to be clear that we can't separate the term "misfortunes of life" from issues of justice and injustice.
(b) Nozick however construes "misfortunes of life" a little differently. He begins with the system of the rights of entitlement through voluntary exchanges as the basis for justice. Once established, this system entails some persons being more advantaged than others with respect to natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities. But since the system is just, those disadvantaged others are experiencing the misfortunes of life, but not injustice. In other words, prior just entitlements render all further fairness considerations related to natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities irrelevant with respect to justice; hence they are merely misfortunes of life. I think though that we can show he is incorrect both in his portrayal of the justice in these prior entitlements and in his rejection of further fairness considerations beyond his entitlement theory.
(c) Nozick takes it to be obvious that we are entitled to our natural assets, as shown by our unwillingness to take them away.3 For example, we would not agree with shortening the legs of a professional basketball player, even though longer legs confer an advantage over shorter players. He further asserts that, once entitled to our natural assets, we are also entitled to any acquisitions that follow from them. In opposition, I would argue that entitlement to natural assets depends upon a principle(s) of fairness (justice) prior to his theory of entitlement based on voluntary exchanges; and that same principle(s) may have applications later on with respect to social justice.4 I want to concentrate instead however on Nozick's assertion about persons being entitled to all the acquisitions following from superior natural assets. For many reasons, we want persons to develop, and benefit from, their natural assets--so long as they are not causing harm. Accordingly, we don't punish the basketball player by performing a leg shortening operation. But there is no good reason to jump from there to the conclusion that persons are entitled to all the acquisitions following from superior natural assets. Persons are entitled to some acquisitions through their effort in developing their natural assets; they also probably are entitled to some acquisitions as our expression of good will toward their luck in having superior natural assets. But there is nothing about the natural assets themselves that establish an entitlement to all the acquisitions the natural assets make possible. When government taxes the income of a star, professional basketball player, it is neither taking away the player's acquired sense of personal identity based on basketball accomplishments nor confiscating all the player's income. The player retains all the respect the accomplishments command as well as a considerable amount of money. Government is just insisting that some of the proceeds due to one's luck with natural assets be used to better the conditions of persons with less luck in natural assets and social circumstances.
(d) As Nozick views social circumstances in the minimal state he envisions, they result from decisions made during voluntary exchanges and from later decisions persons are rightfully entitled to make with respect to the disposition of their acquisitions (for example, their wealth). When persons enter into voluntary exchanges like an employer hiring a person as an employee at a particular wage rate or a person investing in a mining operation, these exchanges establish sets of social circumstances for the persons involved. And if we consider the huge number of voluntary exchanges that occur, there will be an enormous web of social circumstances that result. Moreover, these social circumstances, whatever they are, are fair (or just) because they are the result of voluntary exchanges. In addition, if persons accumulate considerable wealth and decide to use a portion of it to make sure their children are exceptionally well-equipped to succeed in life, they are thereby altering the state of social circumstances--more specifically, they are providing their children with more advantageous social circumstances than others whose parents have lesser available means. Again, creating these types of especially advantageous social circumstances is fair since persons who acquired their wealth fairly through voluntary exchanges are entitled to use that wealth as they choose.
What Nozick ignores however is the way social circumstances alter the voluntary exchanges substantially and can corrupt the fairness of the voluntary exchanges in themselves. Let's consider two persons entering into a voluntary exchange under different sets of social circumstances. Person 1 is an experienced, successful business person and buyer-representative for a quite profitable U.S. corporation, who is thoroughly familiar with costs, prices, and consumer trends associated with the sale of goods in the U.S.; Person1 then goes to Bolivia to acquire local handmade products to be sold in the U.S. Person 2 is an unemployed, uneducated former tenant farmer who (along with a family including six young children) desperately ekes out a bare subsistence level standard of living by weaving and selling baskets; Person 2 has minimal knowledge of conditions in the outside world, always having lived in a relatively remote village and never having left it for any significant amount of time,. According to corporate policy, Person1 is expected to acquire products for future sale at the very lowest price a seller will accept; so Person1 buys baskets from Person 2 in a voluntary exchange at a minimal price that very likely guarantees an extremely high profit margin when the baskets are sold in the U.S. Let's add a few more social circumstances: Person 2 immediately has money in hand (that was not there prior to the sale) whereby the family can better subsist, while Person 1 has an investment with some risk since the expected profits have yet to materialize; and if Person 2 turns down Person 1's offer, the family's means of subsistence will suffer, while Person 1 can move on to find better deals elsewhere. Isn't it clear that Persons 1 and 2 are not entering into a voluntary exchange as free agents independent of their social circumstances? Rather, they are entering into it within the context of their specific social circumstances; and if there is a significant disparity in the advantageousness or disadvantageousness of their respective social circumstances, this disparity can corrupt the fairness of the exchange. If Person 2 had other sources of income along with some savings, had just one child to provide for, had a higher standard of living, had business connections in La Paz, and was quite knowledgeable about business practices and prices in the U.S.--that is, had more advantageous social circumstances--the voluntary exchange would very likely be different and more fair or it would not occur at all.
Nozick claims that disadvantageous social circumstances of one party do not affect the voluntary nature of an exchange because, even if one party agrees to the exchange in a state of desperation or ignorance, these circumstances do not render the exchange non-voluntary. Hence the exchange is both voluntary and fair. But surely, voluntariness cannot be reduced to this level of simplicity. The voluntariness of actions varies considerably in degree--all the way from fully attentive, fully informed acts one identifies with fully and favorably to acts of acquiescence under conditions of extreme duress, extreme ignorance, or near mental stupor. We can agree with Aristotle, to take one example, that throwing goods overboard to prevent your ship from sinking is a reluctant, but still voluntary, act. But that is a long way from asserting that any voluntary act is an exemplar of a fair voluntary exchange. If we accepted Nozick's view, we would have to include numerous instances where one is a victim of even force and fraud as fair voluntary exchanges.
(e) In the minimal state Nozick envisions, aside from government providing needed protective services, a society is just a collection of the multitude of voluntary exchanges and personal decisions by individuals. Only individuals act, and only individuals have rights. So collective wholes (that is, social groups) have no status that deserves consideration in terms of actions or rights. But this is an inadequate vision of how societies function. Over time, institutionalization of a social structure(s) and culture(with subcultures) occurs that has directive influences within individual voluntary exchanges and personal decisions and going beyond them. In the vast majority of cases, the individual cannot directly interact with, directly take account of, or fully understand all of the individual actions of all the participating individuals that led to the conditions under which a person enters into the voluntary exchanges or makes a decision. What usually happens instead is that the individual functions within the context of the residual social structure(s) and culture produced by all these prior actions. (They are residual in the sense that they are what remains after numerous, past individual actions no longer have significant social or cultural sway.) The individual is not a wholly free agent creating one's decision options or entering into exchange with just the other person(s) directly involved.
What do we mean by "context" here? If you want to decide to be employed as an engineer designing nuclear reactors, you had better not have lived and died before the twentieth century, C.E.. Or suppose you are an employee starting in on a new job and someone is assigned the task of teaching you what you are expected to do. You are directly interacting with someone in a voluntary exchange by which someone tells you what to do and you are agreeable to doing it. But neither of you is acting simply as an independent agent. Your mentor is acting as the representative of the social structure and culture of the corporate or personal employer which (or who), in turn, exemplifies the social structure and culture of the broader society. You are acting as the representative of the social structure and culture of being an employee and perhaps the social structure and culture of the employer and society as well. Even if one or both of you totally identify with the existing social structure and culture, they are still conditions not originating under your control that set boundaries for any voluntary exchanges and decisions. Even if one or both of you reject the existing social structure and culture by quitting, it is the presence of those conditions that frame the context for your decision. Even if you are the first employee of an employer who carefully created all the functions associated with your job (that is, someone who is a creator here rather than a representative), your employer is still very likely acting within the context of a social structure and culture. Even if someone is an innovator assertively acting to bring about change in the existing social structure or culture, besides looking at the changes, we also have to observe how much of the social structure and culture remains the same. Perhaps the best apparent approximation to individuals acting as free agents independently of existing social structure and culture are rogue players iconoclastically rejecting as many social norms as possible (perhaps Diogenes, or the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s). But even here, you cannot understand them without taking into account how the existing social structure and culture framed their protests and rebellion.
I think we now can see how Nozick's vision of a society reduced to the rights of individuals acting within voluntary exchanges and individual decisions does not properly take into account the importance of broader social forces, namely, social structure and culture. This leads to a further problem for Nozick. It is a basic characteristic of social structures and cultures that they produce group divisions. In their simplest forms, they establish group distinctions between children and adults, between men and women, and among levels of social status. Furthermore, as societies get larger and more complex, there is a corresponding, continually increasing need to establish commonalities applying to people as groups. It is too impractical and inefficient to treat every situation in terms of every individual's unique characteristics. We set an initial, common age for voting and drinking even though we know that some underage individuals are quite mature and responsible while some other individuals of the set age and older are not. Should we substitute instead a precise assessment of each individual's maturity, sense of responsibility, and background knowledge in determining the initial age at which each person can vote or drink? Should there be periodic reassessments? Should we replace the present system of speed limits with periodically assigned (every six months?) individual speed limits for various kinds of road conditions-- based on a precise assessment of one's specific driving skills, one's degree of attentiveness while driving, and the specific conditions of the vehicle one is driving? Should we follow similar procedures for most significant activities in life? Or should we remove prohibitions and regulations, so individuals can just work things out for themselves through voluntary exchanges and personal decisions?
A democratic society has a fundamental interest in protecting and promoting the rights of individuals; but it does not follow that it can only serve that interest by always treating them as sovereign individuals. As a practical matter, laws will establish prohibitions, entitlements, incentives, and disincentives for types, or groups, of individuals. (See the voting, drinking, and driving examples above.) The social structure and culture will establish, explicitly (intentionally) or implicitly (largely undevised), social classes, or groups, that can be associated with common interests. As a way of protecting or asserting these common interests, individuals use group organization to influence their social circumstances more strongly. For example, a class action lawsuit is a way by which individuals, each having very little power or influence individually, can band together to confront a more powerful organization, like a large corporation. Because of the enormous number of conflicts that can arise due to the competing interests of so many different individuals, some individual interests must be sacrificed for the sake of others--often in terms of providing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. In all these group-directed endeavors, there is a risk that that the rights of some individuals will suffer; but, on the other hand, group-directed endeavors are also necessary to protect and promote the rights of as many individuals as possible.
(f) With his emphasis on individuals, along with extensive human diversity and the wealth of opportunities available in society, Nozick is skeptical about there being common standards about equal opportunity for which government can take action. His suggestive examples of shortening a basketball star's legs, providing cosmetic surgery and intellectual training for a suitor, and providing every child with a swimming pool are meant to exemplify equal opportunity run amuck.
His skepticism however rests on a failure to distinguish general social goods from specific goods. "Society has no obligation to equalize opportunities for each specific desire of persons' life-plans (such as wanting to marry a particular person). The demand for equality of opportunity relates to more general goods, such as John Rawls' 'primary social goods' (for example, liberties, powers, wealth, and self-respect). Equal educational opportunity does not obligate us to equalize the chances of each person's being admitted as a student to Harvard University in the fall of a given year; instead it obligates society to take reasonable steps to lower general barriers to a good education, beginning with the worst ones--such as patterns of discrimination, poverty, and absence of facilities, equipment, teachers, and textbooks. What constitutes 'reasonable steps' depends heavily upon a society's resources as well as the abilities, interests, motivation, and experience of individuals."5 There are contemporary societies with a multitude of resources available to provide more equal opportunity--whether the area is education, housing, employment, health, freedom, self-respect, or citizenship.
Declaring that a society has a multitude of resources available to provide more equal opportunity however does not settle conflicts that arise about who provides how much of the resources. Striking a proper balance between the social need for equal opportunity and individuals' reasonable, personal expectations to do well for themselves will always be a difficult, controversial social problem. I am not going to deal with this issue in any detail here. Briefly stated, initially, I would put forth these two general conditions: (1) in most cases, more resources than those presently available can be provided without the more well off persons having to make enormous personal sacrifices; and (2) we have to consider the issue in the context of what is being stated here about individualism, responsibility and freedom.
(g) In arguing against liberals, Nozick claims that they make the mistake of forming judgments based on outcomes rather than paying careful attention to the history that led to the outcomes. That is, for example, they observe a group in a state of dire poverty and thus conclude that this outcome is a result of injustice, while ignoring the history of just voluntary exchanges and decisions about acquisitions that happen to have the unfortunate result (outcome) that some people end up in a state of poverty. In other words, liberals see an injustice when, in fact, attentiveness to the history of what occurs shows only the unfortunate result that accompanies actions that are just in themselves.
Nozick, however, has a very stunted view of the relevant history here. His history starts with independent agents entering into voluntary exchanges and making their own personal decisions about managing their acquisitions. A more accurate history though must include the role of natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities that substantially affect what happens in these "voluntary exchanges" and are pervasive in affecting the whole process leading to subsequent outcomes. Liberals are not ignoring history at all; rather they are insisting on a more complete, more accurate history.
(h) From my analysis, Nozick's position, although not in any way done intentionally, amounts to a disguise of position (1), namely, Life isn't fair; you just have to accept it and get over it. He tries to show that some people (liberals, in particular) see unfairness (injustice) in situations that, actually, are fair (just); once we recognize this fairness, we can accept the misfortunes of life and get over them. Given the problems with his arguments though, we really end up with position (1). I would, as you might expect, trace the root of Nozick's difficulties to his embrace of traditional individualism. His arguments are more sophisticated than the commonsense thinking associated with most people's traditional individualism. But the arguments are still unsuccessful.
The widespread persistence of traditional individualism is an indicator of both its personal appeal and of its congruity with portions of life experience. Within the flow of everyday activities, there is a sense in which we all function as traditional individualists. Rather crudely put, "You have to go with what you've got." That is, even when you are making your best effort, at any given moment, you are constrained by being what you are now rather than being what you might be now or later--if your natural assets, social circumstances, and available opportunities were different. When it is time to act (perform) rather than reflect--whether you are sitting down for a job interview, teaching a class, casting a vote, spending a paycheck, driving a car with a tornado heading your way, or surviving in a war zone--you cannot suspend action because you would be better informed if you were more intelligent, because you would have more options if your social circumstances were different, or because you would not even be here if other opportunities had been available. That is, we view ourselves acting as conscious, inner-directed selves who make choices, and these choices direct our actions; consequently, we are responsible for both our choices and our actions.
What happens in a given moment (or what happens “in a sense”), however, does not reflect a fuller understanding of other factors involved. And that fuller understanding is necessary if we are seeking an accurate assessment of how we should structure a society that both reflects social reality and satisfies moral demands for justice. Reconstructed individualism, as I have argued, is a proper replacement for traditional individualism both in terms of social reality and moral demands for justice. It offers a richer individualism while preserving fundamental values we associate with individualism.
We cannot count on life just being fair; but we can demand that we try to make it fairer.
Succinctly put, John Rawls envisions a society where an individual(s) enters into a social contract by choosing principles of justice based upon rational pursuit of self-interest, under an original position that includes a veil of ignorance. Nullifying considerations based upon one's own particular natural endowments and social circumstances is a necessary condition for the veil of ignorance. Moreover, natural endowments and social circumstances are to be regarded as morally neutral, or arbitrary from a moral point of view. He then arrives at two principles of justice7:
First Principle: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of basic liberties consistent with a similar total system of liberty for all.
Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of equality of opportunity.
These are the principles of justice a rational person would choose. Note that the second principle is a way of protecting your self-interest regardless what might be in store for you in terms of natural endowments and social circumstances.
(For my fuller exposition of Nozick's position, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourspi6/rawlsandnozick )
The problem I find with this argument is his maintaining that the two principles of justice are the correct, rational choice when they may be regarded by others as just one good, rational choice for someone who wants to play it safe. That is, a person chooses according to what will produce the most satisfactory outcome even under the worst possible conditions. This allows conservative critics to propose alternative rational choices that they consider just as good, or even better. Specifically, I would point to (a) Nozick's system of entitlements, where he criticizes Rawls' system for focusing on outcomes in a way that unfairly discounts individual effort, achievement, and autonomy; (b) Assertions by Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand8 about human dignity (and humanness)--that require the risk-taking self-assertiveness of strong individuals in order to maintain the only life worthy of a human being, and (c) Libertarian assertions about individual liberty (freedom as non-interference) as the fundamental value.
Another problem follows from his view of natural endowments and social conditions. Here are three interpretations of what he is saying about natural endowments and social circumstances with respect to the original position:
(1) Nullifying considerations based upon one's own particular natural endowments and social circumstances is a necessary condition for the veil of ignorance. (That is, persons must choose principles of justice without knowing what their particular natural endowments and social circumstances will be.)
(2) Natural endowments and social circumstances are to be regarded as morally neutral, or arbitrary from a moral point of view. And
(3) Granting entitlements based upon natural endowments and social circumstances is unjust.
Rawls explicitly states (1) and (2). But (3) is implicit in (2). I would argue argue that Rawls’ basic objective requires only the assertion of interpretation (1). (2), along with the implicit (3), stacks the deck when it comes to choosing principles of justice. That is, his two principles of justice are the singular, rational choice because he is assuming (3). In other words, he already has a concept of justice prior to making the choice of what principles constitute justice.
The basic source of these problems, as I see it, is Rawls’ appeal to traditional individualism along with social contract theory, an appeal that is outdated in terms of our ever-growing empirical knowledge of human nature and behavior. Put differently, a shift from Rational Liberalism to Naturalistic Liberalism is necessary; and that includes a shift from traditional individualism to reconstructed individualism. The shift takes away the foundation for the criticisms based upon Nozick’s position, Nietzsche-Rand assertions, and the Libertarian position. John Dewey represents twentieth century political liberalism’s straightforward attempt to reconstruct individualism based upon observable experience. I’m not convinced that Rawls continues that program. A Theory of Justice is a brilliant book. But, by placing political liberalism so squarely within the western, rational, liberal tradition (e.g. Locke, Rousseau, Kant) and by being so influential, he gives the track of political liberalism a different turn. Democratically elected representatives need to a devise or revise the social contract, but only after they begin from a standpoint of reconstructed individualism. While Rawls advocates much of the same political liberalism I embrace, he does it with an outdated view.
(For my exposition of Rorty's position along with my commentary, go to https://sites.google.com/site/rythinkingtourshp6/rorty)
(Background from Practical Ethics: "We ought to seek power" is pro-prescriptively significant whereas "We ought not to kill" is contra-prescriptively significant. Various words are pro-prescriptive, explicitly or implicitly. "Ought" is the primary, explicit pro-prescriptive word; "good," "right," "moral," and "ethical" are some others. "Promise," "want," "desire," "praise," and "choose" are some implicit pro-prescriptive words.--RY)
In John Searle's frequently discussed paper, "How to Derive 'Ought' from 'Is,'"1 "promise" is the implicit pro-prescriptive word. His argument consists of the five statements that follow plus some auxiliary premises (unstated here) that guarantee entailment in the argument:
(1) Jones uttered the words 'I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars.'
(2) Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars.
(3) Jones placed himself under (undertook) an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
(4) Jones is under an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
(5) Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars.
According to the dualistic interpretation, (2) as theoretical knowledge leads to (5) as practical knowledge (with a salute to Searle for carefully laying out why this is the case). Although the derivation is correct, the example is not especially interesting precisely because "promise" is an implicit pro-prescriptive word. That is to say, the ought derives from the implicit pro-prescriptive meaning of the word "promise." Thus,
Jones uttered the words, "I promise to write to Aunt Rhoda" means
Jones uttered the words, "I ought to write to Aunt Rhoda."
In contrast with this approach, the dualistic interpretation can deal with more troublesome examples. In particular, it can produce ultimate values by considering the needs of human nature and existence.
1. John R. Searle, "How to Derive 'Ought' From 'Is,'" Philosophical Review, Vol. 73 (1964), pp. 43-58.