John Rawls' A Theory of Justice - Jonathan Wolff (2010)

John Rawls' A Theory of Justice is one of the most important works of political philosophy of the 20th century. In this program, Nigel Warburton interviews Jonathan Wolff about John Rawls' main ideas and their limitations. John Rawls' argument takes the form of a thought experiment involving a hypothetical contract in which people are made ignorant about certain facts about themselves which could bias them in their own favor (e.g. their race, gender, class, age, talents, etc.). In this way, ignorance is used as a way to guarantee impartiality in deciding how societies should be set up. After all, one cannot rig things to benefit oneself if one doesn't know what one's interests are or what one's position in society will be. Rawls argued that people behind this so-called "veil of ignorance" would agree to two principles of justice: the liberty principle and the difference principle. Jonathan Wolf explains these principles and the main arguments for and against them.
This is from an episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast back in 2010. For more information and episodes, go to www.philosophybites.com
#Philosophy #Rawls #PoliticalPhilosophy

[@eternaldoorman5228]

My mother taught me and my brother about the veil of ignorance. If we had to share something she would let one of us decide on how to divide it and then let the other choose which of the pieces to take.

[@jonnsmusich]

An idea first discussed by H L A Hart of Oxford.

[@zwelthureinmyo3747]

there's an implicit assumption of fairness as equality in the proverbial cake-slicing. After all, it's just a mechanism to ensure equality. If we add more things into the equation, what's presumably just changes. ( for instance,if one has been starving for days , he seems to be entitled to have a bigger slice)

[@jonnsmusich]

@@zwelthureinmyo3747 Point is, who is to say so? They have to already have a theory of justice or fairness. "Entitled" is the problematic concept. Sure "entitled" may sound intuitively reasonable, but first we have to test it with a theory of what this means. Cake slicing is simply a device for testing the concepts. Which would limit the application these concepts.

[@zwelthureinmyo3747]

@@jonnsmusich I m just trying to point out an implicit assumption. In fact , I 've come to the realization that political philosophy is a game of intuition. For instance, in famous Ian Shapiro 's lecture series on moral foundations of politics, he reasoned with his students that classical utilitarianism would give rise to too much distribution meanwhile neo-classical utilitarianism is seen as too little interest in distribution. How to justify a normative claim without playing on our intuitions? Also, if we r to follow the lead of Brian Leiter n Raymond Geuss, i.e, intuitionism is dead , then ipso facto there's no such thing as moral foundations of politics.
(Lol, not relevant to the discussion,but nonetheless,I can't stop myself )

[@martinponce877]

The one commentator showed his bias when he said there’s no one monumental between Mill and Rawls in political philosophy that warranted deep study

[@cliffpinchon2832]

hmm I wonder what Rawls would say about South Africa today?

[@Doctor.T.46]

Interestingly, the main critics of Rawls were his own students...Thomas Pogge for example.

[@djl8710]

Didn't Marx point out the exact same arguments in the contradictions of capitalism? Like, you can't grow an economy by squeezing labor forever. How is Rawls and Marx different here? (Edit: I've been following this channel for years and EVERY TIME i make a comment someone is a total JERK!)

[@Mixelvix]

Shoehorn much?

[@djl8710]

@@Mixelvix You must be fun at parties, my actual original comment was, before the snobs crucify me, isn't this a bit like Marx. You're all dicks here though. What makes you think I can't defend myself?

[@freddiepatterson1045]

Because his arguments about capitalism were not coming from dialectic materialism but rather empirical pondering, and was just wrong. Like we know now that labour doesn't get squeezed by capital due to the changing of commodities

[@jamesgorman7846]

'Theory',just that .Except among masticating academics, Rawls and 'Rawlsian stuff' had no impact in the real world. We didn't even study him in Political theory classes at the U. when he was alive.

[@CPHSDC]

Huh? This is the great legal scholar? Nothing is entitled. Plus, the powerful use the crap he espouses as a legal weapon for their own purposes. He gets an F.