Rawls

What do you think of Rawls 'original position' argument? Here's the run-down:

>You are a rational agent floating around time and space before you are born
>You do not know what characteristics you will have once you are born (race, sex, disability, etc.)
>You have to choose, before you are born, how you would want how society to run politically.
>being rational, you would want to minimize the damage done if you are born disabled or of some minority, so you would want a 'welfare state' type system since the inconvenience of taxes if you happen to be born into fortunate circumstances that allow you to be wealthy is less than the loss you'd suffer if you were born disabled or some oppressed minority that wasn't protected.
>this just being hypothetically true means this is the rational and true concept of justice or fairness, and should be implemented.

Holy fuck, look at all those spooks

No wonder SJWs are fucktards

I think it's a fairly reasonable standard for creating a fair and just society that would be beneficial to all of its occupants.

Oh fuck right off and actually read Stirner's work.

Reality doesn't have an "original position".

Either your run-down's shit or the man's idea is shit.

The problem with that is such a society would most likely be less efficient. a large and encompassing welfare state does not sprout out of the ground. It needs large amounts of money and public institutions with a lot of power and that is assuming it works as intended.

Also the last line does not follow. Just because that would be what you would rationally pick in that situation does not prove that concepts like justice or fairness are valid or that such a society would be fair and just.

How does it explain evil people?

>Just because that would be what you would rationally pick in that situation does not prove that concepts like justice or fairness are valid

I think that's exactly what he is saying though. I don't know that Rawls is a 'moral realist' necessarily, but the fact that you would choose it and do so rationally suggests that it is at least conceptually real. Or alternatively, maybe you reject justice and/or fairness out right, but he's saying that if you do accept justice and fairness that it would look like this.

It doesn't. The idea behind the veil of ignorance (as I've also seen it described) is to suggest a model for creating an ideal (if not necessarily utopian) society.

Also he proposes a welfare state as the only solution to the problems he mentioned. Its not, any number of social institution could be a potential solution to the problems he outlined.

Of course the idea that people are rational actors is also highly debatable, or that just because you would choose something for yourself that is what you should, morally receive

>Its not, any number of social institution could be a potential solution to the problems he outlined.

So far, it's proven to be the only effective one.

Define effective. I am not convinced modern welfare states are solvent in the long term.

Rationality can include that you'd want to sacrifice yourself for the good of the society if you are born disabled so I'd be all for eugenism.

>Define effective

They reduce the suffering and resulting social unrest that comes from large bodies of disadvantaged groups existing unsupported in society.

Also I and the rest of society don't give a shit what you think on that front. The fact is they do work and have worked since fucking Bismarck.

granted, for the sake of argument, but that doesnt answer the other problems I outlined.

essentially he assumes a scenario with predetermined and unsupported moral laws in effect, and going through his own decision making process, declares his conclusions moral truth.

It sounds like a good argument but its not logically supportable without first establishing a lot of other stuff which at least in this passage he has not.

The fact he was open about human non-uniformity means egalitarianism fails his recommendations equality are veiled in ignorance.

Sounds like the definition of SJW mental gymnastics.

Retard here, how is this a model for a utopia? We have no input in any of it

>>>
Nein!

Also, even Marx realised "justice is relative".

>/2010/03/rawls-on-marx-december-1973.html

I think that is all fairly circular.

How are you measuring and comparing this? What is your sample size on a historical scale?

>take this concept about choosing to be born that could literally never happen
>gee wouldn't the world be a better place if it was all a statistical distribution problem and you just made it so the '''''''fair birth''''''' statistic was the most common?
>because people must just be born to random statistical distributions that are free-floating and arbitrary and there are no underlying reasons for these distributions to exist besides human evil or greed

Really makes one think. Is it also a punishment for those who have succeeded in securing good lives for their children at no one elses' expense to be separated from the fruits of their labor? How does Rawls react to non-human sources of inequality, such as geographic inequality; mountain peoples have historically lagged behind their lowland neighbors. Shall we make the Earth flat for them, or force them to move from their homes to become more equal by some metric we have arbitrarily contrived?

It's even funnier when you realize he defended the need to not redistribute to poor third-world countries because he was talking about "societies" only. Well if you're going as broad as a single society in a thought experiment with no bounds then why not just make it all societies? Is the idea of an equal society by his thesis not a universal truth-i-ness in his view? Why is it limited if so? Rawls was pants-on-head retarded for a lot of reasons.

>>being rational, you would want to minimize the damage done if you are born disabled or of some minority, so you would want a 'welfare state' type system since the inconvenience of taxes if you happen to be born into fortunate circumstances that allow you to be wealthy is less than the loss you'd suffer if you were born disabled or some oppressed minority that wasn't protected.


That premise doesn't seem to follow. Being perfectly rational, I would seek to maximize my overall benefit as applied to all classes/races/genders/whatever etc; and opt for the overall societally most beneficial position. Sure, the amount I'd lose in taxes is less if I'm born into a great position than the amount I'd gain in welfare if I was born into a shitty one, but I have to factor in the probabilities of being in either group before I can rationally assess either. Leaving that out is a serious mistake.

i think the first three steps are good, but the next two don't necessarily follow

even as someone who agrees with a lot of rawls' conclusions i don't think they necessarily have to follow and others could make good logical arguments for a society to be run in a different way

>i think the first three steps are good, but the next two don't necessarily follow
>>You are a rational agent floating around time and space before you are born
>i think the first three steps are good, but the next two don't necessarily follow
>>You are a rational agent floating around time and space before you are born

What's worse? A dumb Stirner poster, or an user who unironically recommends Stirner?

It's not a model for a utopia. The idea is to create a fair and just society that one those grounds one could call "ideal."

This is one of those examples where morality serves a purpose less of judging what is in front of you, and more for establishing how you would like the world to be. I know if I were crippled I wouldn't want to starve, or if I were a racial minority, I wouldn't want to discriminated against, etc. so going from a standpoint of ignorance, I would want a society where neither of those things would occur.

The first one. Stirner is actually a legitimate philosopher of some merit who utterly wrecked an entire school of philosophy (idealistic left-Hegelianism).

That's really not how he argues it. Go read the book you fucking mong.

> It's the "Veeky Forums trashes another philosopher they've never read" thread again!