I have to respectfully disagree with your position. Kant’s point, and the point of similar people who make the sweeping universalizations that you dislike, is that it is only in such idealized circumstances that we can make rational decisions. What makes a decision good or bad is whether it would be the decision rational people would endorse in a perfect society.
The trouble is not moving from our flawed world to an ideal world. The trouble is taking the lesson we’ve learned from considering the ideal world and applying it to the flawed world. Kant’s program is widely considered to be a failure because it fails to provide real guidelines for the real world.
Basically, my point is that asking the Rawlsian “Would you prefer to live in a society where people do X” is valid. However, one may answer that question with “yes” and still rationally refrain from doing X. So your general point, that local and concrete decisions rule the day, still stands. Personally, though, I try to approach local and concrete decisions the way that Rawls does.
What makes a decision good or bad is whether it would be the decision rational people would endorse in a perfect society.
I actually happen to think that human morality is a fit topic for empirical inquiry, same as human language. This is a wildly different approach from either the Kantian or the Rawlsian approach. To study English, we look at the actual practices and we (possibly) develop hypotheses about the development of English and of language in general. What we do not do—in an empirical study of English—is ask ourselves what grammar, what pronunciation, what meanings we would prefer in a perfect society. Such questions are what the creators of Esperanto asked themselves (I presume). Kant and Rawls are trying to do the moral equivalent of inventing Esperanto. I, in contrast, think that morality is something that, like English and French, already exists in the world, possibly varying a bit from place to place.
I realize that Kant and Rawls seek to critique our actual practices. It may seem puzzling for me to say so since I just explained my preferred approach as empirical, but so do I. But I do so from a different direction. Just as linguists will distinguish between natural language as it arises spontaneously among speakers, and the pedantic rules endorsed by language mavens, so do I distinguish between morality as it would arise spontaneously among people, and the laws raised over us by legislatures.
I have to respectfully disagree with your position. Kant’s point, and the point of similar people who make the sweeping universalizations that you dislike, is that it is only in such idealized circumstances that we can make rational decisions. What makes a decision good or bad is whether it would be the decision rational people would endorse in a perfect society.
The trouble is not moving from our flawed world to an ideal world. The trouble is taking the lesson we’ve learned from considering the ideal world and applying it to the flawed world. Kant’s program is widely considered to be a failure because it fails to provide real guidelines for the real world.
Basically, my point is that asking the Rawlsian “Would you prefer to live in a society where people do X” is valid. However, one may answer that question with “yes” and still rationally refrain from doing X. So your general point, that local and concrete decisions rule the day, still stands. Personally, though, I try to approach local and concrete decisions the way that Rawls does.
I actually happen to think that human morality is a fit topic for empirical inquiry, same as human language. This is a wildly different approach from either the Kantian or the Rawlsian approach. To study English, we look at the actual practices and we (possibly) develop hypotheses about the development of English and of language in general. What we do not do—in an empirical study of English—is ask ourselves what grammar, what pronunciation, what meanings we would prefer in a perfect society. Such questions are what the creators of Esperanto asked themselves (I presume). Kant and Rawls are trying to do the moral equivalent of inventing Esperanto. I, in contrast, think that morality is something that, like English and French, already exists in the world, possibly varying a bit from place to place.
I realize that Kant and Rawls seek to critique our actual practices. It may seem puzzling for me to say so since I just explained my preferred approach as empirical, but so do I. But I do so from a different direction. Just as linguists will distinguish between natural language as it arises spontaneously among speakers, and the pedantic rules endorsed by language mavens, so do I distinguish between morality as it would arise spontaneously among people, and the laws raised over us by legislatures.