tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post1253616171448768641..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Paul Churchland: Rawls' Theory of JusticeAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-85472313031686516122007-05-16T06:36:00.000-06:002007-05-16T06:36:00.000-06:00"Descartes also asserted that one of these clear a..."Descartes also asserted that one of these clear and distinct ideas was the idea of God"<BR/><BR/>Interestingly, "God" is a very unclear and indistinct idea, and if I ever have to discuss the existence of God, my first question is "what do *you* mean by God?"<BR/><BR/>Descartes was just plain outright wrong about this bit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-22780734542861965762007-05-13T22:16:00.000-06:002007-05-13T22:16:00.000-06:00Chad Van SchoelandtYour working of Rawls' argument...<B>Chad Van Schoelandt</B><BR/><BR/>Your working of Rawls' argument shows some circular reasoning - captured in your example by the use of the term 'fair' (or a cognate) in every premise, rather than deriving fairness from something else.<BR/><BR/>We decide what we should not allow behind the veil of ignorance based on principles of fairness. Yet, the decisions we reach behind the veil of ignorance are supposed to give us those principles of fairness.<BR/><BR/>This seems to blur the distinction between the 'veil of ignorance' and Rawls' meta-position regarding reflective equilibrium. (Reflective equilibrium suggests that we use our intiutions to draw up a set of moral principles, which we then use to modify our moral intuitions, and back and forth until our intutions and principles are in equilibrium.)<BR/><BR/>Reflective equilibrium is supposed to give us this 'veil of ignorance', which in turn is supposed to give us our moral principles.<BR/><BR/>Speaking very generally, I have nothing against this idea of 'reflective equilibrium'. I am one of those who holds that this is really nothing more than coherentist epistemology applied to ethics, and I like coherentist epistemology. However, Rawls' tight connection between the 'principles of justice' that determines what we are ignorant of behind the veil of ignorance, and the 'principles of justice' that determine the conclusions that he reachers, represents the tight circularity of vicious (question-begging) circles than the broad and lose virtuous circularity of coherentism.<BR/><BR/>Ultimately, I think that some of Rawls' later work has merit. One of the arguments I am particularly fond of begins with the assumption that we will never get everybody in society to agree on any specific moral system. We will always have a society in which people with different belief sets must somehow get along. He then derives a set of principles consistent with this assumption - not principles that we derive from a state of ignorance, but principles derived from real-world facts. I can make the same argument in desire-utilitarian terms.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-74609545562053525142007-05-13T22:02:00.000-06:002007-05-13T22:02:00.000-06:00I fully recognize that oversimplification is neces...I fully recognize that oversimplification is necessary, and am sure my own response included an excessive amount of it. My replies should never be taken as anything but an honest attempt to dialog, and not in any way insulting, cynical, or any sort of writing off. On that note:<BR/><BR/>(1) "If we do not know these distributions behind the veil of ignorance, we are still going to want to adopt rules that will allow us to make use of them when the veil is lifted."<BR/><BR/>This could be taken in at least two ways, one of which I have struggled with. It does seem that the agents could decide on principles which make reference to some possible probabilities, such as Principle X will be just if the population contains a super majority, while Principle Y will be just if there is a divided populous. This of course will not protect the children in Atheist Observer's case. I suspect that the strongest case against Rawls on these sorts of appeals will be in favor of form of preference utilitarianism. John Harsanyi has some work arguing for utilitarianism from the Original Position.<BR/><BR/>(2) Back to the fire example, I think you might be thinking of the argument taking the following form:<BR/><BR/>1)Under a veil of ignorance we would ensure rights A, B and use economic system C<BR/>Therefore, we should ensure rights A, B and use economic system C.<BR/><BR/>This would use a strange logical rule where you can derive "we should [x]" from "Under a veil of ignorance we would [x]". Your fire example does fine to show why this is not a proper derivation. Rawls's argument takes a different form however.<BR/><BR/>1) The original position, with the veil of ignorance, eliminates unfair conditions from the decision making process.<BR/>2) The original position, with the veil of ignorance, is a situation of fairness for deciding on principles of justice.<BR/>3) Principles chosen in a fair situation are fair.<BR/>4) [From 2 and 3] The principles chosen in the original position with the veil of ignorance are fair principles.<BR/>5) In the real world we should follow fair principles.<BR/>6) [From 4 and 5] In the real world we should follow the principles chosen in the original position with the veil of ignorance.<BR/><BR/>I'll have to read that after sleeping to see if I still agree with it, but the derivation is not from "In the OP we would [x]" to "We should [x]". Instead we go from "In the OP we would [x]" to "[X] is fair." I suppose this would be the case with the fire escape plan to, but no one thinks the best escape is the fair one, while people may think of justice as fairness.<BR/><BR/>(3)"we will never reach an agreement from behind a world of ignorance unless we first prohibit participation by those who do not share our world view"<BR/><BR/>Not to give Rawls an out for this, but he does seem to concede some of this in his later work where he puts much emphasis on his principles being for modern, liberal-democratic peoples. His arguments depend on a number of globally controversial premises and thus will only make sense within certain cultural contexts such as our own.<BR/><BR/>As for those who no not agree with us about the source of disease or otherwise have some strange world view, Rawls would claim that while we exclude them from our considerations of what the principles of justice are, our own world views may provide constraints on what it is just to do to them. So while you may be basically correct, "I would likely support a system that helped Christian Scientists realize their error and would force doctors (rather than priests) to attend to my illness," we may not force the Christian Scientists to see doctors. Their children are another story... And note that to help someone see their error is far less than to use the oppressive force of the state to hunt them down for their views and force conversions upon them. At the front of Rawls's thought was how we are to deal with "reasonable pluralism" and at times unreasonable pluralism, and what some of our (most modern liberal-democratic people) strongly held principles (such as what is and is not fair) commit us to. One thing is that for the sake of fairness we should not appeal to certain sorts of beliefs to justify state action, though of course there is a limit to what we would give up appeals to.<BR/><BR/>In any case, I read your blog and find it interesting, and have found this post and discussion fruitful.Chad Van Schoelandthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03181339524688036291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-9446543240644098572007-05-13T21:52:00.000-06:002007-05-13T21:52:00.000-06:00AnonymousEverybody was new to this blog at least o...<B>Anonymous</B><BR/><BR/>Everybody was new to this blog at least once.<BR/><BR/>Even me.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-46107391143943594592007-05-13T21:14:00.000-06:002007-05-13T21:14:00.000-06:00I am new to your blog, and possibly more ignorant ...I am new to your blog, and possibly more ignorant than most of your readers. Allow me to say nevertheless how useful I have found your thinking. Thank you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-68347002468665804462007-05-13T16:01:00.000-06:002007-05-13T16:01:00.000-06:00Greetings:Some oversimplification is necessary in ...Greetings:<BR/><BR/>Some oversimplification is necessary in a 4-page blog post. Yet, please assume that just as Rawls' arguments are oversimplified, so are my answers.<BR/><BR/>(1) The Makeup of Society<BR/><BR/>Rawls' claim that the makeup of society is hidden runs into two problems.<BR/><BR/>First, Rawls' claims about what we would know about the composition of society behind a veil of ignorance is actually ambiguous. He allows us to know that we are humans, and (as you point out) we are allowed knowledge of certain psychological facts. The line between what we are permitted to know and what we are not permitted to know about human nature is not entirely clear.<BR/><BR/>Second, and most important, the composition of society is relevant to certain policy decisions. Behind the veil of ignorance we will adopt rules that will take the composition of society into affect where it is relevant. For example, our policies would be quite different if 99.999% of the population had a fatal allergy to peanuts and 0.001% liked peanuts. If we do not know these distributions behind the veil of ignorance, we are still going to want to adopt rules that will allow us to make use of them when the veil is lifted.<BR/><BR/>It is on the virtue of this second fact that I asked the question: How is it the case that Rawls' theory would give the answer that Atheist Observer wanted?<BR/><BR/>(2) The Fire Example<BR/><BR/>The fact that there is no fairness involved in escaping a fire is not relevant.<BR/><BR/>The fact is, no argument is sound if it contains false premises.<BR/><BR/>There is no rule of logic that says, "An argument is sound if and only if its premises are true and the argument form is valid, except when we talk about fairness, in which case we have to use false premises, but don't worry about it, because our argments would still be sound."<BR/><BR/>I use the fire example to illustrate this general point - that no conclusion drawn from false premises is necessarily true in a different world where those premises are no longer false.<BR/><BR/>(3) "Agents would know general, uncontroversial facts of science, sociology, economics and the like."<BR/><BR/>My point is, there are no such things. Practically everything is contoversial. The very example that I used was one in which there is a controversy over the causes of disease - whether they are associated with bacteria or with alienation from God.<BR/><BR/>All facts are "uncontroversial" only within a particular world view, so we must select a world view before we select a set of "uncontroversial" casts - and people with different world views, behind a veil of ignorance, will never agree on what counts as an "uncontroversial" fact.<BR/><BR/>In other words, we will never reach an agreement from behind a world of ignorance unless we first prohibit participation by those who do not share our world view.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-61701368197519355972007-05-13T14:31:00.000-06:002007-05-13T14:31:00.000-06:00"Now, as to Rawls, how would Rawls' theory protect..."Now, as to Rawls, how would Rawls' theory protect the child? Because, in your example, the odds are 1001:1 against being the child."<BR/><BR/>Rawls is very explicit that the make up of the society is also hidden from the Original Position agents.<BR/><BR/>"But why would implications drawn from obviously false premises have any relevance in the real world?"<BR/><BR/>Rawls uses the veil of ignorance to eliminate irrelevant information from the decision procedure. One may similarly not put an applicant's race on an application, or ask a hiring committee who they would hire if they did not know the races of a set of applicants. I assume that we would not take as a response, "But I know their races and I want to hire the people of my race."<BR/><BR/>As for your fire example, I'll point out that there is not a question of fairness involved in the attempt to escape from the fire. The specific reason Rawls says to rule out the information is to ensure fairness, which it is hard to do if you appeal to your known race, gender, religion or the like in justification of distributing the benefits of society.<BR/><BR/>"Are we supposed to be ignorant of our beliefs?"<BR/><BR/>Yes. Agents would know general, uncontroversial facts of science, sociology, economics and the like, but not much particular. Rawls is attempting to set up a standard in which particular facts can be appealed to, but the particular facts are not needed from the start. This is why Rawls proposes the difference principle, and leaves it to economists to put forth the particular facts about how to bring about the principle.<BR/><BR/>This may actually be a way of bringing back your fire example. What we would do in the relevant analogy is come up with principle of escape from behind the veil (escape soon, saving one's life as priority over saving one's entertainment equipment...) and then consider the facts, comparing proposed escape plans to the standard generated from behind the veil. This is still an extreme stretch, as fairness is not involved, but I hope it is clear enough. The original position will not spit out a tax code, but will create a general standard by which to judge the tax codes put forward.<BR/><BR/>Anyhoo, there is much in your post which I take to be oversimplifying Rawls, but this is why his work has generated a huge literature over the past decades. Will I am doing my thesis on (technically against) Rawls, and have studied his work for many years, I will not attempt to endlessly expand this comment.Chad Van Schoelandthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03181339524688036291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-89293134992468559632007-05-13T12:55:00.000-06:002007-05-13T12:55:00.000-06:00Atheist ObserverYou are forgetting the magnitude o...<B>Atheist Observer</B><BR/><BR/>You are forgetting the magnitude of the consequences for the child molesters. The car with 1 in 1001 chance of blowing up is the best option if you have to have a car, and the only other option blows up 1000 out of 1001 times.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-13976892412528814302007-05-13T12:32:00.000-06:002007-05-13T12:32:00.000-06:00It protects by the magnitude of the consequences. ...It protects by the magnitude of the consequences. I would chose not to buy a car that has a thousand to one chance of exploding and killing me, because the consequences are horrific enough that even this probablility is not one I would chose.<BR/>I think Rawls' approach is to say we could be in the worst possible situation in the society, and we should act to make even this situation no more horrible than necessary.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-43788269574598815522007-05-13T11:40:00.000-06:002007-05-13T11:40:00.000-06:00atheist observerI have answered the question. Howe...<B>atheist observer</B><BR/><BR/>I have answered the question. However, it is inevitably going to be one of the most frequent objections raised no matter how many times I answer it.<BR/><BR/>The answer hinges on the distinction between desire utilitarianism and a closely related theory - desire fulfillment act utilitarianism.<BR/><BR/>Desire utilitarianism measures desires by their consequences and measures acts by whether they are acts that good desires will cause.<BR/><BR/>Desire fulfillment act utilitarianism does not measure desires at at all, but measures only acts by their consequences (in terms of desire fulfillment).<BR/><BR/>Desire fulfillment act utilitarianism has the consequences you mention.<BR/><BR/>If the desires of the child molesters did not exist - no desires would be thwarted. Not the child's. Not the people's. With the existence of these desires, some desires are thwarted. Thus, there is more reason to create a society without these desires than to create a society with these desires.<BR/><BR/>Now, as to Rawls, how would Rawls' theory protect the child? Because, in your example, the odds are 1001:1 against being the child.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-68722052211346758182007-05-13T08:59:00.000-06:002007-05-13T08:59:00.000-06:00Alonzo,You’ve probably answered this before, but I...Alonzo,<BR/>You’ve probably answered this before, but I’ve not read all your posts, so I’ve not yet seen it. If we have an isolated place, where the only people are a thousand child molesters and one child, we might predict that molesting the child would fulfill the more and stronger desires of nearly all the people there at the cost of only thwarting the desires of the one child.<BR/>In this event Rawls’ theory would protect the child because any of us would not know if he or she might be the child. How do we use desire utilitarianism to protect the child?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com