Abstract
John Rawls’ characterization of the original position is the centre of much controversy. Ronald Dworkin argues that because the original position produces a hypothetical contract between parties it is no contract at all.1 Margarita Levin argues that Rawls’ derivation of his principles of justice from the original position is unsound because it neglects a vital category distinction between one’s not having a characteristic and one’s not knowing about that characteristic. Thus, she argues, there is a modal confusion in Rawls’ description of the original position that prevents him from being able to legitimately derive his principles of justice from the choice situation.2 Another objection to Rawls’ concept of the original position is made by Richard W. Miller, who argues that:
certain aspects of Marxism (and not very hard-line ones) would preclude the requisite agreement to uphold the difference principle throughout the circumstances of justice. In particular, … this commitment would not be made if some societies in the circumstances of justice display the following three features: no social arrangement that is acceptable to the best-off class is acceptable to the worst-off class; the best-off class is a ruling class, i.e., one whose interests are served by the major political and ideological institutions; the need for wealth and power typical of the best-off class is much more acute than that typical of the rest of society.3
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Notes
Ronald Dworkin, ‘The Original Position’, The University of Chicago Law Review, 40 (1973): 501
Margarita Levin, ‘The Problem of Knowledge in the Original Position’, Auslegung, V (1978): 147–60;
Michael E. Levin and Gargarita Levin, ‘The Modal Confusion in Rawls’ Original Position’, Analysis, 39 (1979): 82–7.
Richard W. Miller, ‘Rawls and Marxism’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 3 (1974): 170.
(See J. Angelo Corlett, ‘Albee, Rawls and Justice’, American Psychologist, 42 (1987): 826–8).
Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 129.
Thomas Nagel, ‘Rawls on Justice’, The Philosophical Review, 82 (1973), 225.
John Rawls, ‘Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 14 (1985): 225–51.
John Rawls, ‘Fairness to Goodness’, The Philosophical Review, 84 (1975): 536–7; Sandel, 122f.
That the representative parties in the original position are fundamentally and essentially moral persons is also emphasized in Jean Hampton, ‘Contracts and Choices: Does Rawls Have a Social Contract Theory?’ The Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1980): 319, 322, 333. Rex Martin confirms this when he writes,
The participants in the original position would necessarily have a certain reflexive understanding of themselves. They know, or would come to know, that justice is being determined for persons and that they are persons … persons are understood (and would understand themselves) in the original position to be free and equal moral beings [See, Rex Martin, Rawls and Rights (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985), pp. 16–17].
For a detailed discussion about disquotation and belief, see Saul Kripke, ‘A Puzzle About Belief’, in A. Margalit (ed.), Meaning and Use (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), pp. 239–83;
Nathan Salmon, Frege’s Puzzle (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986); J. Angelo Corlett, ‘Is Kripke’s Puzzle Really a Puzzle?’ Theoria, forthcoming.
John Rawls, ‘Kantian Constructivism and Moral Theory’, The Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1980): 520–1.
But it is difficult to see how one’s belief about one’s own present social position in the original position, as a basis for choosing principles of justice that apply to one’s future social position, is or has to be irrational. Suppose there are two persons in the original position, X and Y. Let us say that X has a coherent set of beliefs, q, about X own present social position and that X believes that q is likely to be true. Let us also say that Y has a coherent set of beliefs, -q, about Y’s own present social position and that Y believes that -q is likely to be true. Is it irrational for either X or Y to choose principles of justice based on their respective beliefs? Certainly not. In fact, X and Y just are rational if they choose principles of justice which are based on a coherent set of beliefs about their respective present social positions (especially since they believe that their respective beliefs are likely to be true), even if they in fact know or believe nothing about their respective future social positions. In such a situation, both X and Y are epistemically responsible agents. (See Alvin Plantinga, ‘Epistemic Justification’, nous, 20 (1986): 5;
Laurence Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) p. 10;
J. Angelo Corlett, ‘Empistemic Responsibility and Moral Responsibility: Bonjour and the Justification of Empirical Knowledge’. Presented at the American Philosophical Association, Portland, Oregon, 1988).
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Corlett, J.A. (1991). Does Ambiguity Lurk Behind the Veil of Ignorance in Rawls’ Original Position?. In: Corlett, J.A. (eds) Equality and Liberty. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21763-2_11
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