SIDD Quest 1

The original position

A hypothetical situation proposed by philosopher John Rawls, where rational individuals select the principles of justice to govern their society under a veil of ignorance, unaware of their own social status, abilities, or personal circumstances.

Controls for personal interest, bias, etc

Why place people into the original position to ensure that the conception of justice derived
is correct?

The veil of ignorance

it is a method of determining the morality of political issues by pretending that the decision-makers do not know how they will be affected by the decisions they make. This ensures fairness and impartiality in the establishment of principles of justice.

They are symmetrically related to one another.
They are free, rational and mutually disinterested

How would you characterize the individuals in Rawls thought experiment?

The liberal idea

Liberal concept of justice premised on anonymity and ideal circumstances

Democracy is self government among political equals

Philosophical definition of democracy

Equal vote majoritarianism

Democracy is realized when, with respect to any collective decision, each individual who will be bound by the decision gets exactly one
vote and the majority rules

Equality and majority rule

Two democratic norms of EVM

Can’t account for intensity, ordering and rationality of an individual’s preferences. Equal vote ≠ equal say.

Critiques of EVM

participationism and deliberativism

The contemporary models

Participationism

Democratic citizenship is kind of public office, wherein the citizen is charged with the distinctly civic and public minded task of contributing to the collective project of self-government

Classical citizen = private, self-
interested;
Participationist = public,
interested in collective good.

How does the Participationist citizen differ from Rawls’ and EVM’s citizen?

Deliberativism

Democratic ideal = citizens reason together as equals

Incorporates how and why people hold the views that they do. Argument and evidence will drive decisions, not wealth, status.

Whats unique about deliberativism?

women’s voices sounded distinct

Gilligan

Moral psychology

studies the psychological foundations of morality,
or how our minds shape our values and judgements.

Big project

is to theorize the development of human morality
from childhood to adulthood.

K produces a metric for human development empirically, but it excludes women entirely

What are some potential problems with Kohlberg’s theory?

Two modes of seeing

“Women’s conception of morality as concerned with the activity of care centers moral development around the understanding of
responsibility and relationships”

White ignorance is an ignorance that resists, that fights back. It is militant, aggressive, active,
dynamic

how does Mills characterize white ignorance?

Perception/conceptualization, memory, testimony

Cognitive pathways

Our perception is filtered through our concepts

Why analyze perception and conceptualization together?

colorblindness

Contemporary racism

A refusal to see and acknowledge race.

colorblindness

Seeing race illuminates racism. (Ones historic and/or contemporary mistreatment.)

Why is seeing race not co- extensive with racism? Why think seeing race is morally permissible, even good?

Memory

We have a collective social memory, and collective social amnesia

A major pathway by which we learn is from others. Our defaults are set on trusting
others.

What is testimony?

everyone who is racist= ig, ig= racist

Relationship between ignorance and racism

citizens reason together as equals.

Deliberative democratic ideal

Argument

is a rational means of persuasion

Argument d2

s a series of premises, which purportedly provide
support for a given conclusion. (Or, put more strongly, whose truth logically entail the truth of their conclusion.)

Premises

are statements that purportedly provide evidence for their conclusion

Conclusion

is the main point of an argument that purportedly follows from the premises.