From:
“Behind the Veil: John Rawls and the Revival of Liberalism” by Ben Rogers
In Lingua Franca, July/August 1999
… Since the appearance of his epoch-making A
Theory of Justice in 1971, Rawls has been acknowledged as
TO UNDERSTAND what
is most radical, and most noteworthy, in Rawls's theory of justice, we must
contrast it with some of its rivals. First among them is utilitarianism--the
doctrine that we ought to maximize the total amount of well-being in a society
regardless of how evenly that well-being is distributed. There was much that
Rawls admired in the utilitarian thought of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill,
and their intellectual descendants. It had the scope and rigor he wanted for
his own theory and a good track record as a progressive principle, inspiring
directly or indirectly a great deal of social and political reform. Yet it had
one flaw: It did not take human rights seriously. Utilitarians might maintain
that the general good will usually be served by respecting human rights, but
they are committed to the position that when a conflict between individual
rights and general well-being arises, it is the claims of the latter that
should prevail. Thus, the greatest-happiness principle could have permitted
slavery. Or, more to the point, it could be used to defend what is often said
to be an unstated principle of the modern market economy: that in the battle
for low wages and low inflation, the well-being of some is sacrificed for the
good of the rest.
Utilitarianism is the first target of
Rawls's criticisms, but there are others. Although A Theory of Justice
has little to say about Marxism, that creed was alive and well when Rawls was
working on his book; and like utilitarians, Marxists tend to regard the notion
of natural human rights as nonsense. Finally, Rawls challenges various
"perfectionist" and communitarian theories--theories that look to the
state to advance a single value system. Here Rawls has in mind the political
ideals of fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, or indeed of those American
communitarians who urge the state to promote the virtues of church attendance
and family preservation.
These philosophies all permit the sacrifice
of human rights to some other good--to utility, the interests of the
proletariat, or some religious ideal of the good life. It is as an alternative
to these theories that Rawls champions the social contract. Society is, of
course, involuntary and our place in it largely beyond our control, but Rawls
asks what arrangements people would consent to if society were freely entered
into.
To this end, Rawls suggests a thought
experiment, asking us to imagine ourselves in his now famous "original
position." People in this position are situated behind what he calls a
veil of ignorance. They are denied knowledge of everything that makes them who
they are: class, skills, age, gender, sexuality, religious views, and
conception of the good life. Rawls argues that the principles these imaginary
people would choose to regulate their relations with one another are the
principles of justice.
An enormous amount of ink has been spilled
in explaining, attacking, and defending the original position, but the thinking
behind it is plain enough. The veil of ignorance is meant to ensure that our
views on justice are not distorted by our own interests. Such distortions occur
all the time. As Rawls puts it, "If a man knew that he was wealthy, he
might find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for welfare
measures be counted unjust; if he knew that he was poor, he would most likely
propose the contrary principle."
Rawls believes, contentiously, that if we
were placed in the original position, we would choose to pursue a low-risk
strategy and agree to principles that are basically egalitarian--principles
that guarantee the highest possible minimum levels of freedom, wealth, and
opportunity, even at the cost of lowering average levels. More particularly,
Rawls suggests that we would elect to be governed by two general principles,
the first concerning liberty, the second the distribution of wealth and power.
The first point on which men and women in
the original position would agree is the importance of guaranteeing their
freedom to live as they see fit. According to this principle, each person
should have a right to the most extensive basic liberties (the right to vote,
freedom of thought, and so on) compatible with a like liberty for others. Rawls
contends that the state should remain neutral on conceptions of the good life
and simply safeguard the freedoms that allow us to proceed according to our own
values. This principle does little more than offer a more general guarantee of
the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
Rawls's second principle, however, is more
unusual. The "difference principle" states that social and economic
inequalities are acceptable only insofar as they benefit the least advantaged.
The best way of understanding this principle is as a radical alternative to the
principle of equality of opportunity. Proponents of equal opportunity argue for
a market society in which people who have the same talents, and a similar
willingness to use them, enjoy the same prospects of success. Rawls, however, argues
not only that it is wrong that our lot should be determined by our class or
educational opportunities, but that it is equally unjust that our position
should be determined by our talents. These, just as much as the class positions
of our parents, are the outcome of what he describes as a "natural
lottery."
Rawls's point is echoed in other critiques
of meritocracy: It seems unfair that simply because someone is especially
strong, intelligent, or dexterous, he or she should have a higher standard of
living than someone with less marketable skills. The natural lottery argument
jettisons the notion that anyone "deserves" the rewards they gain
from work and often turns into an argument for equality of income. But Rawls
says that there is a better way of dealing with the unfair distribution of
abilities: by allowing those inequalities that benefit the worst off. Rawls
does little to explain which inequalities he believes would benefit the worst
off. But he appears to imply that if paying doctors more than nurses, or CEOs
more than production-line workers, could be shown to be of advantage to the
poorest members of a society by encouraging, say, the development of rare and
important gifts, then these practices are justified. Otherwise they are not.
Rawls argues that unlike the inequalities we see all around us, inequalities
based on the difference principle would not be felt by the less well-off as
unmerited or degrading.
To its admirers, A Theory of Justice
showed that left-wing liberalism was not an incoherent mishmash of socialist
and capitalist values but an intellectually respectable political philosophy.
Liberals admired Rawls's emphasis on the inviolability of individual freedoms,
while leftists appreciated his condemnation of nearly all forms of economic
inequality.
But the book's impact also has something to do with the fact that it was
published at a time when political philosophy was on the defensive. The
dominant philosophical currents--logical positivism and linguistic
philosophy--were hostile to large-scale moral theorizing; the extravagances of
Marxism and fascism had given ideology--even liberal ideology--a bad name.
Ronald Dworkin explains: "The 1950s were a complacent period, and there
was a feeling that the