This might sound like it's at odds with what I've just said to you. But another thing is true about Rawls, which was that he was a terrible expositor of his own views. And the way in which he wrote the book, partly contributed to this. The book, A Theory of Justice was published in 1971. But actually, he had written the main ideas in some articles before that, and he had a book manuscript, that was circulating, and most of the people in the field had read the manuscript. And every time somebody saw an objection, they wrote him a letter about what they thought was wrong with it. Which caused Rawls to add three paragraphs to the book, to sort of pre-emptively respond to the objection. So the book got fatter and fatter and fatter. And it also became harder and harder and harder to read. Because it's got this logic chopping quality to it. And, and, as I said it, it and in an anticipatory way, answers every objection as it goes along. It would have been in some ways much better if he had published it five years earlier and had it be 200 pages shorter and then did a second book responding to his critics. But anyway that's not what he did. And particularly he had an expository device to try and get people to reason about his, his principles, which many people find confusing. And so they get trapped in things that are actually not that important from the standpoint of what's really innovative about Rawls. And so what I am going to do is not start at the front of this theory, but start with the most important contributions, and then we'll go back and see how those shape what he has to say and why it's of enduring value even if you reject his theory. Because it's certainly going to be the case, you'll see, that you can reject Rawls' entire theory but still find that there are very important innovations that endure. So, I'm going to focus on three of them and explain what they are and then we'll back into the theory, having gotten a grip on them. The first is the concept of moral arbitrariness, which he thinks of, and I, I'm, I'm suggesting is a deep, alternative to the workmanship idea we've been talking about so much in this course. So, what does he have in mind by moral arbitrariness? Let's get at it this way. You know that in politics there's, there are often very heated debates about nature versus nurture. Whether our, our characteristics, personalities, capacities are the result of genetics that just hard wired into us, or whether there a result of the way we're raised. Why, why are those debates so heated? >> Well I think an individual's identity can derive very strongly from it. But also I think. >> What do you mean by that? >> Well give, for instance, an adopted individual. That person mighty identify very strongly with their genetic heritage. >> Mm-hm. >> Or alternatively, they might identify very strongly with the environment they grew up with if if they didn't have no knowledge of biological origins. So personally people can identify very strongly with either or and might get offended. If, if you know, something else is proposed. >> So it, so that's true. And so people might think there's a huge amount at stake for them, personally as individuals, as to whether it's nature or nurture. But why, why does it become heated in politics? >> Because it can lead to so many inequalities and even racism and- >> How, how does it lead to racism? Well it can produce basic of phrase. Let's assume we have an athlete and this athlete is black. So we can easily start theorizing how because his genetical predispositions he's going to run faster, he has some skills some sets of qualities that the white race doesn't have. So it can be maybe reverse the racism and we can also see that what happen in Nazism with, with Hitler when he believed in superiority of the white race. >> Yep. So those are both good examples. What were you going to add? >> Well I think this racism is absolutely right it could lead to racism but this racism can also find its way into certain groups socioeconomics. >> How do you mean? >> Well, it could be a justification, or a warrant for keeping one group of people in a particular socioeconomic class, and others in a different one. >> Okay so, for example about probably about 15 years ago now, a man called Charles Murray published a book in which he was, he argued that there are racial differences in IQ. And this set off a huge fire storm, right, for the sorts of reasons that you're talking about. Okay, so Rawls says you know, there are these heated debates about whether its nature or nurture, but the truth is, it's completely unimportant. It's completely unimportant because, think about it. If the differences between us are genetic, it's just luck. Luck in the gene pool. So, you didn't do anything to have the better genes for physical prowess than somebody else that you have, just your good luck. And if some people have higher intelligence than others for genetic reasons, they didn't do anything to warrant getting some benefits that might flow from that, but just luck in the genetic lottery. On the other hand, if it's nurture, well, then it's just luck in the way you happen to grow up. It's, it's, it's a same kind of moral luck, as if it's genetic. So you, you know, one person grows up in a family where the, the work ethic is pumped into them a mile a minute. And they grow up able to work hard, and the next person's parents are alcoholics. They're sitting watching TV all day, they don't learn any, any, any of the skills they needed for life and so they do less well. it, it you know, you can say society's at fault, you can say the parents are at fault, but the person themself, it's just pure moral luck, where you happen to be raised. So Rawls says, we could just forget about the whole nature nurture debate in thinking what people, thinking about what people are entitled to. And certainly this notion of workmanship, that we're entitled to what we produce it can't be the bottom line, because different people have different capacities to produce. For reasons exclusively of moral luck. And so they shouldn't be this positive. And so that's, it's a very radical idea, this idea of moral arbitrariness, because it means there's no obvious reason why anyone is deserving of anything that they appear to get by the sweat of their brow, so to speak. And in that sense it's even though Marxism is generally thought of as more to the left of then, then liberal theories of justice in this, this sense actually Rawls theories more radical than Marx. Because Marx is idea is as we saw deeply embedded in their workmanship notion. Work, workers he says are deprived of what they produce and it's something that's somehow being stolen from them by the way capitalism operates eh, on his account. Rawls says nobody obviously owns anything to begin with. So so very, it's about as radical as you can be. Is that a good argument? Either way it's luck. >> Yeah and it's also, if it's only luck then, then it seems that you don't have a say in your destiny, and this concerns me. >> It, it seems like you don't have a say in your destiny I think that's something that people feel when confronting this. What do you, when I, when I've, I've explained this, what, what's your reaction? >> I, it's [LAUGH]. It's an argument, I just don't, I think there are a lot of people who have a problem with it. >> So, what both of you said is very typical of the way people react. At some level, people find this very threatening, even if their concept of personal identity and then another thing that people say is I don't like this. But they can't say what's wrong with it. So, and that's an interesting fact because the truth is, this argument is, seems like it's impossible to refute. But the truth is, almost nobody wants to live with its implications. Almost nobody, including as we will see, Rawls. He tries to weasel out of it's implications eventually. Because they're so radical. But so, it's an odd kind of argument, that nobody can see what's wrong with it, but everybody at some level says, wait a minute, I don't want to go there. Okay, so we'll come back to that. So that's, that's very important though, and this moral arbitrariness observation of Rawls' is one of his most enduring innovations, and has had a huge effect on the way that people think about and theorize about justice. Okay. Secondly Rawls is sometimes called a resourcist theorist. And this is, this is contrasted with what's sometimes called welfarism, there's a lot of isms here and I don't like isms, so my job here is to unpack the isms into, into english. So that we all know what we're talking about so, by welfarism. The literature, and Rawls, as a, as the central shaper of it. What they mean, is, theories that focus on people's welfare. Exhibit A would be utilitarianism. we, they argue about how to measure people's welfare, their utility but basically the idea is to focus on what is it that gives people utility once we decide what we mean by it. Then we figure out how to measure it and so on. And as we saw in our recap earlier today. Utilitarianism was locked in this stand off between the proponents of objective utilitarianism or Benthamite or classical utilitarianism that seemed too strong and generated all of these terrible moral consequences. Versus subjective utilitarianism which seemed too week and also for that reason generated terrible moral consequences. And the way in which they argued with each other was to point to the defects of the other person's theory, right? But that's like a politician saying vote for me because he's a liar. Right? >> Mm-hm. >> And they can both say it. Right? >> Mm. >> And so, it's not a very satisfying, reason to embrace something. And so what Rawls comes along and does, he says, you know what let's change the subject. We're never going to resolve this debate between objective and subjective welfarists. So let's stop talking about welfare, and, and there's another reason to do it. That, the philosophical reason is we're never going to resolve that debate, but there's a, there's a political reason and the political reason is after all, you know, we're thinking about what governments do. Well governments act with pretty blunt instruments. Governments are not going to go around you know, with a utilitometer and stick it under people's tongues to measure their utility. And we wouldn't want governments doing a lot of the things they would have to do if they were really going to get into re-arranging the, the sources of happiness that people experience. It just doesn't make any sense at some basic level. We're thinking about politics. We're thinking about the basics that governments can influence and that it's reasonable for them to try and influence. Those assertive resources, he's going to call them primary goods but they're the things that, whatever your source of welfare you'd probably going to need them. Okay, remember our discussion when we were talking about Marx, about needs. We talked about basic physical, physiological needs that people have, right? So this is the kind of thing that's going to count as a primary good for Rawls, he's going to say you know? Basic resources like income and wealth. Basic political freedoms. This sort of thing. Let's focus on them and stop worrying about the utility that people get. So another, another famous political philosopher Amartya Sen who actually won a Nobel Prize for economics he's an economist. He captured it well when he said you know, when we think about the distribution of food for example, we're not even, we're not so much interested in, how much food people have, because if they have a lot of food that's rotting what use is it? And we're not interested in how much utility they get out of eating. What we're really interested in is how well-nourished they are. Right? So this is the idea of focus on some basic resources and think about what government might do to influence them and let welfare or utility, or what goes on in people's heads, take care of itself. Okay. And so a lot of people who wouldn't like Rawls' particular theory agree with this basic move, to stop talking about welfare, to stop talking about utility and to focus on some basic resources. And so, it's just not Rawls but Amartya Sen, as I said, is a resource to this. And Ronald Dworkin, had a resources theory. And I could name ten or 15 other influential post-Rawlsian theorists, all of whom make an analogous move. And so stopped trying to solve the unresolved, and inherited problems of welfarism, that we looked at through the utilitarian tradition. And, instead, focus on resources. So that's the second thing that it's important to get straight. And to see as an enduring consequence of the Rawlsian revolution. And a revolution I think it is. The third one I want to mention is, he makes, again, I'm, I, I want to apologize for the, the long words. He makes a distinction between what he calls deontological and teleological theories. But what, what comes to mind when I say teleological? >> It has to have some end goal. >> Yes, okay, so teleological, we're already, in connection of Marx talked about a teleological conception of history, which is that history’s, moving toward some endpoint, right? But this is a moral philosophy, and so the idea is a goal, exactly right. You have to have a goal so if you say we want to produce virtuous people, that's our end-state, then we would distribute rights and obligations in society in order to achieve that goal. Okay? So teleological theory posit some conception of the good society. And then arrange things in order to achieve it, okay? Yeah? >> Maybe this teological aspect is problematic to roles when you asked before about what is the problem with history? It's maybe exactly that, because if you take this theory to the end-point, then we find all these problems. >> Okay. It is a problem for Rawls, but not quite for the reason you said. Although maybe it's a version of what you just said. Rawls is going to take deadly seriously that we have enduring disagreements, deep pluralism. Okay? So, the fact that we have different values isn't going to go away on his conception of things. So in that sense, he's like Mill. We're not going to resolve our disagreements of value. And that means we're not going to end it, we're not going to agree on what the good society is. And we have to come to grips with that. One way or another people are not going to agree on what the good is. The good society or the good life or the good way of, of doing anything. And so the idea that we could pause it, the good society out there, and then distribute rights in order to get there it's not realistic. And it's even not morally defensible if we're going to be Kantians. This term deontological is where Rawls imports the Kantian notion into his theory. Rare that he says let's distribute rights in society without reference to what the good society is. So that, teleological is goal directed to produce the good society, and you think of deontological is the alternative that we're going to try and, and distribute rights in such a way that don't pre, does not pre-suppose any particular conception of the good. Any particular conception of the good for individuals. And by extension, any particular conception of the good for society. Now that might sound like a contradiction in terms. You look puzzled. Yeah? You know, you're just happy with that. Okay, we'll see that many people will say, well actually there is a conception of the good society kind of smuggled in and Rawls accepts that at some point. But he's going to, he's going to say we're going to have to spin a conception of the good, as it's possible to have. Make as few assumptions as we can get away with making about the good societies. So we basically, and that's the deontological move and that's, that's a phrase, a term as I said taken from Kant, and it's to capture this idea of principles we can universalize. No but, no matter what our conception of the good turns out to be.
