PHI 14 Rawls

Veil of Ignorance

no one is able to design principles which would favor or oppose their own situation; the only way to theorize a just society is if we imagine that we don’t know what place we take in it

Original position

Hypothetical “thought experiment” in which individuals decide how society will be structured without knowing anything about their position within that society once it is founded. They are unaware of their status and have no conception of the good.

First Principle of Justice

requires equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties; provides equal basic political liberties (right to vote, participate in political process, freedom of assembly and speech)

Second Principle of Justice

holds that social and economic inequalities (wealth, authority) are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone; social and economic inequalities are attached to offices and positions and must benefit the least advantaged. This gets rid of the aspects of the social world that seem arbitrary from a moral perspective.

Maximin/The Difference Principle

Maximize the minimum prospects

Examples of unfair inherited advantages

intelligence, status, wealth

Rawls’s goal of original position

Show that the massive levels of inequality exist in the modern U.S. because the society already exists in that way.

Civil Disobedience

A public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim

of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government.

Conscientious objection/refusal

Noncompliance with a more or less direct legal injunction or administrative order; refusal since an order is addressed to us and, given the nature of a situation, whether we accede to it is known to the authorities.