Introduction to Political Philosophy

The Original Position

As you read the material for the next class, keep the questions below in mind. To answer these questions you will have to reflect critically on what you have read and possibly re-read important passages. Keep in mind that there are two basic kinds of information that you need to look for in the readings.

  1. What are the main points or conclusions that an author accepts with respect to a particular issue?
  2. What are the reasons or important considerations that lead the author to accept that conclusion?

For our purposes, it is information of the latter sort (2) that will be our primary concern since our most basic task is to evaluate the reasons that are offered to support accepting one possible conclusion about an issue, rather than another. Although I strongly suggest that you write out brief answers to these questions, you do not have to turn in written responses. You do, however, need to be prepared to speak intelligently to these issues in the next class meeting.

Reading:

  • John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Chapters III (Sections 20, 22, 24-26) and IV (Section 40), pp. 102-105, 109-112, 118-139, 221-227.

Questions:

  1. What does Rawls mean by the “circumstances of justice”? What conditions does Rawls recognize as making this up?
  2. Within the veil of ignorance, what are people ignorant of? Why can’t they know these things? What things do they still know? Why should they know these things?
  3. Since the original position is hypothetical, how can we tell what people would agree to when in it?
  4. In what sense are members of the original position rational?
  5. What is Rawls’ argument that those in the original position should be mutually disinterested? How does Rawls address the concern that this leads those in the original position to behave as egoists?
  6. Rawls provides two arguments justifying why those in the original position would agree to the two principles of justice. The first is informal and intuitive, and the second is based on a discussion of the “maximin” choice rule. What are these two arguments?
  7. In what ways is Justice as Fairness related to Kantian moral theory?

 

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