DISQUS

Why you gotta hate on the second image and third image, Will?

In later editions of The Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham added this footnote in the first chapter, when mentioning the principle of utility:

"1. Note by the Author, July 1822.
To this denomination has of late been added, or substituted, the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle: this for shortness, instead of saying at length that principle which states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question, as being the right and proper, and only right and proper and universally desirable, end of human action: of human action in every situation, and in particular in that of a functionary or set of functionaries exercising the powers of Government. The word utility does not so clearly point to the ideas of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicity do: nor does it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests affected; to the number, as being the circumstance, which contributes, in the largest proportion, to the formation of the standard here in question; the standard of right and wrong, by which alone the propriety of human conduct, in every situation, can with propriety be tried. This want of a sufficiently manifest connexion between the ideas of happiness and pleasure on the one hand, and the idea of utility on the other, I have every now and then found operating, and with but too much efficiency, as a bar to the acceptance, that might otherwise have been given, to this principle. "

"cosmopolitan universalism championed by Kant"

There's a fine case to be made that Kant (when writing about politics and not simply ethics) did not advocate "cosmopolitan universalism". In Perpetual Peace or the Rechtslehre, the world remains divided into republics. One of the preliminary articles of Perpetual Peace says that countries should not interfere with the constitution of another state. Kant is not really an ethnic nationalist here. I don't really understand the debate on this thread and on crooked timber. Are you suppossed to be an ethnic nationalist, by definition, if you as a theorist think giving priority to one's fellow compatriots or fellow citizens is justified? Kant's a 'cosmopolitan' of a sort, but does not seem to be fully a cosmopolitan universalist, at least not in the sense of how that phrase is used by some modern day Kantians (e.g. Teson, Pogge).

Will-

"The source of so much of Rawls’s trouble is that he insists on putting his second principle of justice first, even though he knows that it is second for a reason."

Just musing, but it always seemed to me that when Rawls seemed strict about priority, he never had terribly good reasons; when he had somewhat good reasons (maybe), the priority was not that strict. So even if Rawls "knows" that it is second for a reason, am I sure he provided a clearly good one.

Yeah, I'll put 5 dollars down!

(I figured the nanotech joke referced a book maybe tyler cowen or you made fun of a while back.)

"I am shocked because there does not appear to be a single major work on the morally mandatory character of improving the quantity and quality of holdings and life options, which, on its face, strikes me as a lot more important."

Well, even if this improvment is more important than equality, meeting basic needs (sufficiency) for all seems a lot more urgent than this improvement. If these two conflict, I do not see how pursuing the improvement for some/many people is "morally mandatory".

That should be "eternal middle age" not "external middle age".

I'm willing to bet on his global warming scenario rather than your external middle age thanks to nanotech cell-repair.

Yes, Barry's book came out last year.

Will-
The last chapter of Brian Barry's latest book, Why Social Justice Matters (2005) is called "Justice or Bust".
The chapter begins: "Over the next fifty years, renewable resources will continue to become scarcer, world population will grow and global warming will have more and more adverse effects. The only alternative is a nuclear holocaust, which I would not recommend as a solution."

I think Marxian types argued in the 1970s that continual economic growth was needed for the legitimacy of capitalist societies in the eyes of its citizens; however (it was claimed) continual economic growth could not last forever, so neither could liberal legitimacy.

This probably isn't too helpful, but on page 174-175 of International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, eds. Mapel and Nardin (Princeton UP, 1998), David Miller comes out in favor of economic growth. He's doing so in response in to Brian Barry who, in an article in the same volume, argues that equality means being concerned for future people not simply present people, which means not causing environmental disaster for future persons, which means not valuing growth.

Will says "But growth, per se, is not an element of justice."

I am not sure how a theory could value growth for itself, or what that would mean.

1) My confusion primarily stems from how you can say that something other than individuals can have value for the purposes of justice, in a non-instrumental fashion (value in itself or 'per se'). What do you mean by this?

2) Why is Sen any closer than Rawls is to what you're looking for? Basing this comment solely on the discussion above, Sen wants growth (maybe) for basic capabilities and Rawls wants it for a just basic structure. What is the reason why they are not they about equally bad (or good)?

Will- not only that, Rawls does not think your preferred conception of justice as valuing growth is even reasonable. Rawls states in his book Justice as Fairness: "A further feature of the difference principles is that it does not require continual economic growth over generations to maximize upward indefinitely the expectations of the least advantaged (assessed in terms of income and wealth). That would not be a reasonable conception of justice. We should not rule out Mill's idea of a society in a just stationary state where (real) capital accumulation may cease." (pp.63-6; see also pg. 159)

Will, the latter one makes the most sense to me as a possibility.

On your earlier post- did you ever get that damn Rawls article done? And I still am not sure about the argument you make in your earlier post. Raz for example, argues that even a society of angels would need a legal system to coordinate among permissible moralities.
(Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (2nd edn, 1990), pp. 159–60.)

de Jasay says this about the parties in the Original Position in Rawls's Theory of Justice:
"Failing agreement, in leaving the original position they would exit into the state of nature. They seek to avoid this outcome, because they know enough about themselves and the state to prefer it to the state of nature." (fn 7)
Any idea if de Jasay making an argument about what Rawls should take into account, or is he talking about an argument Rawls made? I sure don't remember Rawls saying that.

>Am I "lucky" to have been born to a stolidly >bourgeouis, civic-minded, church-going police >chief and nurse who filled my head with the >"protestant ethic"? Simply put: no. I don't mean >to be thornily metaphysical here, but if I was >not the son of James K. and Dorothy A. Wilkinson, >then I would not be me.

Then, simply put, you are lucky to have been born at all. Assuming you like being alive (and since your goal in life is to be happy, I'll assume you do), you are lucky to be alive. Your structure of logic seems to depend upon the claim that person W cannot be lucky for having quality Y because without Y, W would not exist as W. I think that makes sense on some level. But can't the one thing we actually say about X is that it is lucky to have to have the quality of existence of existence? (Perhaps you side with Kant in saying being is not a predicate?)

"So, from her perspective, it's not a matter of luck that I usually show up on time. It's the way she trained me.
If I meet a guy in a restaurant, and he likes the way I look, and gives me a million a year salary to work for his firm, that's luck. "

Why? From the guy in the restaurant's persepctive, it is not a matter of luck: he likes the way you look. (Are you going to tell him you look good only because of your "lucky" genes?) What's doing the work here? That you accidently meet someone? That the person acts arbitrarily? Is it some notion of desert? Or that somehow your mother is very connected with you in a way a stranger is not?

Rawls's next line immediately following Will's quote?

"Of course, there can be no certainty about this."

Political Liberalism, p. 68.

P.S. Who quotes from the revised edition? I mean, really. Only the uncool kids.

Ah the exchange branch. Didn't Rawls change his mind later about arts funding in Political Liberalism?

Also, at the beginning of the same paragraph where Will takes that quote, Rawls clearly says that the above quoted statement applies only if we assume "the justice of the exisiting distribution of income and wealth, and of current definition of the rights of property." Quoting Rawls in isolation runs of risk of making it seem like Rawls endorsing a wide range for what he says. I suspect Will would not endorse Rawls' preconditions. If Will does not agree with Rawls' thrust (or does not indicate what his thrust is), what is the point of quoting him?

How about this: If my justification for funding mental health services involves public scientific evidence, I am offering a reason that can be accepted by people with many different reasonable comprehensive doctrines. If my justification for funding scientology is not based on any publically available evidence that others could accept, but is only based on my comprehensive doctrine, then political liberalism could rightly rule it out. Will seems to neglect a second aspect associated with the reasonable, the burdens of judgment. Someone could say that scientific explanations are themselves part of a comprehensive doctrine. Or that denying funding actually means we must endorse skepticism. But this is a problem that Rawls has faced. Whether he was successful or not, the problem is much larger than just what gets funding. (If I believe that allowing homosexuality to be illegal will cause God's wrath to rain on the U.S., am I being reasonable?) Will also seems to neglect here that Rawls is concerned not with the fact of pluralism as such, but the fact of reasonable pluralism.