American Samizdat

Monday, December 09, 2002. *
Rawls and Us Rawls, Ryan wrote, "had two deep insights. The first was that utilitarianism was fundamentally flawed; utilitarianism, that is, trying to maximise the welfare of a whole society, failed to recognise what Rawls called 'the separateness of persons.'... The second deep insight is thus that we need an account of justice as fairness. What is the crucial question that we must be able to answer if we are to say that social arrangements meet the test of fairness?... Rawls's stroke of genius was to invent the idea of a 'veil of ignorance,' shrouding the folk who make this social contract so that they do not know who they will be, what abilities they will possess, what faith they will adopt, and so on. If they do not know whether they will be winners or losers, smart or dumb, Christians, Jews, Muslims or atheists, they will sign up only for arrangements that protect them whatever happens." [Eric Alterman in The Nation]
posted by Joseph Duemer at 3:14 PM
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