Here are some responses to Rawls from my debate files:
A2 Rawls
Ahistorical
Violates property rights
Does not account for past injustices eg slavery, just asks what kind of society would you design from scratch. Thus not a useful guide for action in our fucked world.
Acontextual
Veil of ignorance removes contextual understanding, which makes it impossible to assess different states of the world. Eg from the original position, Rawls prohibits me from using my gender to inform my understanding of gender in different states of the world
Identity is not arbitrary! It is always contingent, yes, but morality is concerned with the interactions of real people, who have capacities, attitudes, and preferences. There are reasons for these things that are located in individual experiences and contexts, so they are not arbitrary.
But even if they were the result of pure chance, it’s unclear that these coincidences are the legitimate subject of moral scrutiny. I *am* a white man—I can’t change that. They need to explain why morality should be pretend otherwise. Only after conditioning on our particular context can we begin to reason morally.
The one place Rawls is interested in context is bad: he says the principle should only be applied within a society: but this precludes action on global poverty.
Rejects economic growth: the current generation is the one that is worst-off; saving now for future growth necessarily comes at the cost of foregone consumption, which hurts the current generation.
Here are some responses to Rawls from my debate files:
A2 Rawls
Ahistorical
Violates property rights
Does not account for past injustices eg slavery, just asks what kind of society would you design from scratch. Thus not a useful guide for action in our fucked world.
Acontextual
Veil of ignorance removes contextual understanding, which makes it impossible to assess different states of the world. Eg from the original position, Rawls prohibits me from using my gender to inform my understanding of gender in different states of the world
Identity is not arbitrary! It is always contingent, yes, but morality is concerned with the interactions of real people, who have capacities, attitudes, and preferences. There are reasons for these things that are located in individual experiences and contexts, so they are not arbitrary.
But even if they were the result of pure chance, it’s unclear that these coincidences are the legitimate subject of moral scrutiny. I *am* a white man—I can’t change that. They need to explain why morality should be pretend otherwise. Only after conditioning on our particular context can we begin to reason morally.
The one place Rawls is interested in context is bad: he says the principle should only be applied within a society: but this precludes action on global poverty.
Rejects economic growth: the current generation is the one that is worst-off; saving now for future growth necessarily comes at the cost of foregone consumption, which hurts the current generation.