Let's talk a little bit about some problems with this. I said he has a Thin theory of the good. Now you can see parts of what I mean, you, because after all, you can't de, derive something from absolutely nothing. It's just the way it is. You, you, the only thing you can derive from, from nothing is nothing. So this idea of chain connection, and the Keynesian multiplying story you know, he throws that in there to make the, the story look more plausible. But you know, that, those are just added in there gratuitously. And if you take them out, you start to wonder whether you would really be that risk averse that you wouldn't even take a tiny, tiny hit for the people at the bottom from, in order to preserve the middle class. And indeed, many of Rawls' critics, most famously the economist John Harsanyi said, no, behind the veil of ignorance, you wouldn't be that risk-averse, you would in fact choose something much more like utilitarianism. So then Harsanyi and Rawls are just making different assumptions about the human propensity to be risk-embracing or risk-averse. And there, there is an assumption that is con, is controversial, debatable and in a way, it's similar to the disagreement between Hobbes and Locke that we started out with when we talked, talked about the Classical Social Contract Theories. Hobbes says the life in the state of nature is so absolutely terrible and people are so driven by fear that there's going to be perpetual war. Locke says it's just inefficient. How people basically are benign they do what they you know, they, they, they don't, they're not going to run around trying to kill each other. So, this is kind of garbage in garbage out problem, right? You assume at some level what it is that you're going to then claimed to have derived later. You can't do it. So the, the Thin Theory is thicker than Rawls admits. And what it means is, I think just to, to go back to his story about reflective equilibrium is that unless his assumptions about risk resonate with you after he's explained his whole story. After he said well, they're great risks and after he said you really do have to assume that you're going to be the, the worst affected by this. If that doesn't resonate with you, then the theory's not going to either. Right, so that's the kind of argumentative burden he has to car, carry. Second problem. This Kantian idea I think is very important for Rawls. Because, if you think, and this is why I didn't do the original position at the beginning. The original position doesn't prove anything, because it's set up in order to get the, conclusion that he wants. Just to give you an example, when he's de, defending his conception of, of the, of Justice Spanish, that would be chosen in the original position. He, he says what's the fair way to cut a cake? You ever been asked this? What's the fair way to cut a cake? >> Oh, between two people? >> It doesn't matter how many people. >> Have one person cut it and somebody else choose the piece. >> Right, you give the knife to the person who's going to get the last slice. >> Right. >> Okay, you give the kni, knife to the person who wants, what, what's going to happen if you give the knife the the person? What's the person, how are they going to cut it? >> Very equally. >> They'll cut it equally because that's how you maximize the slice, the size of the last slice, right? okay. So, that's you know, people say, What's the fair way to cut a cake? But that's actually not necessarily the fair way to cut a cake. It's the way to get the cake cut equally. >> Right. >> If you've already decided an equal distribution is fair. Right? So if you, if I now tell you, oh, but one person has three cakes in his bag. Another one is a diabetic. Another one hasn't eaten for four days. Then you wouldn't necessarily say that's the fair way to cut a cake. So that the point of the example is, it only seems like the fair way to cut a cake, if you've already been persuaded that a fair way to cut a cake is equal. Well his original position has exactly the same quality. He sets it up to get the results he wants. Just as Hobbes sets up the state of nature as terrible. To get his result, which is submit to a, to an absolute sovereign, while Locke sets up his state of nature to, to say, well, it's not that bad, so in some kind of cases, it would be worth having a revolution and going back to it. So, that's what I mean by garbage in, garbage out. You set it up to get the result so, so it's a circular game. Right? >> Yeah. >> And it mea, what it means is what is your justification for the result, right? Because that's really what's driving everything. And I think it is this Kantian argument that it's the, it's the way that you have principles that conform to the, what he thinks of as the categorical imperative. I want to say a little bit about the moral arbitrariness argument before we break. It's generally thought to be Rawls' most radical move. We talked about it last time, that, you, you know, nature, nurture doesn't matter. Either case, you didn't do anything to get the benefits or to suffer the lawsuits that you're getting or suffering. Right, either luck in the genetic lottery or luck where you happen to be born. And so everything's up for grabs, everything should be distributed by the, the principles of justice, and people often say, why does Rawls say, based on this, distribute things equally unless an unequal distribution works to everybody's advantage. Right? And, and his answer is well, everything's morally arbitrary so we should start with the presumption of equality. Right? Now, does that strike you as a good argument? >> Sure, sure. I don't know yet. >> So the fact that I can't play basketball like Wilt Chamberlain. Is it disability? >> [LAUGH]. >> [LAUGH]. >> And I shouldn't suffer any disadvantage from that. >> Affirmative actions. >> Pardon? >> Affirmative actions, may come in. >> Well affirmative action might be required, but he's saying nobody's entitled to any differences right, so we should start from a presumption of equality. A famous, now deceased, philosopher by the name of Susan Hurley, pointed out that actually, Rawls' argument, in a way, proves too much, because if you, if you say that we can't justify inequalities because of either genetic luck or luck in where people happen to have been born and raised. That might be true, but we also can't justify distributing equally, then. Why distribute equally? Right? In other words, the, the, the moral argument, the moral arbitrariness in this argument proves too much in the sense that what it really says is that, there's no justification for any particular distribution. So Rawls is wrong to say distribute equally, unless an unequal distribution works to everybody's advantage. Why have the, the egalitarian benchmark rather than some other benchmark, there's no particular reason to distribute it any particular way, right? So the, the negative if, if you think about the moral arbitrariness argument, there's a kind of negative implication and a positive one. The negative implication is valid. It's subversive of any claim that we have some kind of natural right to our abilities because they're ours you know, you know, or something like that. There's no particular reason to affirm any distribution but by the same token to the positive argument isn't defensible. The positive argument that we should, we should have an egalitarian presumption. And then only depart from it if it works to everybody's advantage. There's no particular reason to make that presumption. And we'll come back to that when we talk about in, in a couple of lectures. But next we're going to focus on Rawls' more mature writings. Which come under the heading of Political not Metaphysical, that's the bumper sticker for the more mature, the older Rawls, and that's the topic that we'll turn to next.
