Rawls' Moral Irresponsibility
Modern liberalism has few defenders as robust and widely respected as John Rawls. Given how often his works are cited in United States court decisions, it is not without justification that he is considered to be the most important political scientist of the 20th century. If you are interested in the elites, Rawls is one of their darlings. Rather than trying to influence large numbers of people, Rawls wrote specifically to influence future generations of layers and judges. It is probably safe to say, given his depth and reach, that no alternative to modern liberalism can be taken seriously without substantial engagement with Rawls. Here we shall begin such an engagement, offering a critique of his conception of justice.
At the heart of A Theory of Justice, Rawls’ magnum opus, is the claim of selflessness. We are asked to put aside our own interests and think of how a just society would look like if we are being honest. In the famous thought passage, which deserves to be block quoted, Rawls ties together what he calls “The Original Position” and “The Veil of Ignorance”:
“The idea of the original position is to set up a fair procedure so that any principles agreed to will be just. The aim is to use the notion of pure procedural justice as a basis of theory. Somehow we must nullify the effects of specific contingencies which put men at odds and tempt them to exploit social and natural circumstances to their own advantage. Now in order to do this I assume that the parties are situated behind a veil of ignorance. They do not know how the various alternatives will affect their own particular case and they are obliged to evaluate principles solely on the basis of general considerations. It is assumed, then, that the parties do not know certain kinds of particular facts. First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor, again, does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of his psychology such as his aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism. More than this, I assume that the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society. That is, they do not know its economic or political situation, or the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve. The persons in the original position have no information as to which generation they belong. These broader restrictions on knowledge are appropriate in part because questions of social justice arise between generations as well as within them, for example, the question of the appropriate rate of capital saving and of the conservation of natural resources and the environment of nature. There is also, theoretically anyway, the question of a reasonable genetic policy. In these cases too, in order to carry through the idea of the original position, the parties must not know the contingencies that set them in opposition. They must choose principles the consequences of which they are prepared to live with whatever generation they turn out to belong to.
As far as possible, then, the only particular facts which the parties know is that their society is subject to the circumstances of justice and whatever this implies. It is taken for granted, however, that they know the general facts about human society. They understand political affairs and the principles of economic theory; they know the basis of social organization and the laws of human psychology. Indeed, the parties are presumed to know whatever general facts affect the choice of the principles of justice. There are no limitations on general information, that is, on general laws and theories, since conceptions of justice must be adjusted to the characteristics of the systems of social cooperation which they are to regulate, and there is no reason to rule out these facts. It is, for example, a consideration against a conception of justice that, in view of the laws of moral psychology, men would not acquire a desire to act upon it even when the institutions of their society satisfied it. For in this case there would be difficulty in securing the stability of social cooperation. It is an important feature of a conception of justice that it should generate its own support. That is, its principles should be such that when they are embodied in the basic structure of society men tend to acquire the corresponding sense of justice. Given the principles of moral learning, men develop a desire to act in accordance with its principles. In this case a conception of justice is stable. This kind of general information is admissible in the original position.”1
If I can put aside my own desires, interests, or prejudices, then I will come to principles of justice that are agreeable to all people. Justice is fairness. Any objection to the principles of justice formulated in The Original Position will ultimately stem from, no matter how implicit, the objector’s contingent position. You might object to Rawls’ argument, but you will very likely be someone who benefits from an unfair social arrangement. Being able to read the 600+ page book, both in terms of comprehension, but also in terms of having the leisure to do so, means that you received a good education, which costs a significant amount of money in America. Thus, any opposition to justice as fairness can easily be identified as the self-justification of the wealthy.
At this point many on the right would double down and argue that the wealthy need to be justified. Nietzche and Pareto are not far away! Rawls would likely look at these rightists and correctly see that, although they may not say so explicitly, they are striving, or at the very least wish, to be the wealthy elite. While you can claim that a wealthy elite are necessary for a functioning society, it is impossible in the face of Rawls’ argument for that claim not to be suspected as mere self-justification. Isn’t funny that for society to function, you and your friends need to have unfair advantages? Oh, and weren’t you just complaining about how those people over in the media, the universities, and the NGOs have unfair advantages? It is not a good look, and it would be better to just bite the bullet and say “yes, I want unfair advantages, privileges and wealth, and through my might I will make it right.” I do not think we are far from seeing some on the right do this.
Given the tagline to this blog “for all things traditional and reactionary”, it should be apparent I am not a Rawlsian. There have been few substantial responses to Rawls (Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, being the most notable) so the question is, “on what basis do I reject Rawls’ argument?” Rather than asserting my own belief about justice and then criticizing Rawls for not believing the same, something unfortunately common in political discourse, I will lean into Rawls’ argument. Justice is fairness? Sure, let’s assume that. However, as soon as we assume that justice is fairness then we need to reject The Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance. Why? Because it is profoundly unfair and is, in fact, rooted in self-interest.
In order to be fair, I need to be fair to someone. I can be fair to you, or her, or him, or even to myself, but there is no such thing as fairness in the abstract. As I have said elsewhere, ethics is always the relationship between an “I” and a “You.”2 Ethics, and thus fairness, which is justice, is second personal. Formulating principles of justice requires me asking, “how can I treat you justly?” Answering this question will require, at some point, personal interaction and experiential knowledge. There are certainly broad principles of justice, but the application thereof requires practical judgment.
To take an example, let us posit as a principle of justice that “it is good to correct a man in error out of love.” If I knew a friend was about to cheat on his wife, I would not be a good friend if I let him do this. How I address him in that situation will be very different than if I knew he was about to skip his shift at work. In both cases I am required by love to address my friend. In the former case a stern rebuke is necessary, but in the later what my friend might need is someone to ask if he is okay or what is happening at work that he wants to skip his shift. Even in these situations, how I address my friend will depend on who my friend is. Is the friend about to cheat on his wife because he is drunk? Because he is inclined to sleep around? Because his wife abandoned him, and now he is seeking a new relationship? What about skipping work? Is the friend in question the type who would rather miss a day of pay, let his coworkers struggle without him, so that he can have a day off? Is he depressed and cannot move himself to work? Or is there a coworker that he got into a fight with and is trying to avoid? Again, the application of justice is a practical matter and knowing what is just in such a such a scenario can only be known by being in that scenario, not from the type of thought experiments Rawls imagines.
Justice is, to repeat, an “I” addressing a “You”. Further, how “I” address “You”, will depend on who you are. No matter how many broad or general principles of justice we can posit, their application will always be particular. It is for this reason that the Orthodox Church do not have confessionals as do the Latins. For a spiritual father to properly help his spiritual son or spiritual daughter, there needs to be a relationship and not anonymity (note even the language used just here is one of relationship). Perhaps liberalism, in privileging the anonymous over the personal, is the justice of the confessional…
John Rawls, in attempting to give a theory of justice, destroys the very foundation for justice. First, he supposes that principles of justice can be discovered by asking “how do I want to be treated? What if I were born tomorrow and ended up in a less fortunate place than I am now? What would I want society to do for me then?” Although Rawls will quickly move from this first-person attitude, it is still true that he begins there. At the heart of Rawls argument is an appeal to self-interest, and any ethics that puts the ego at the center, rather than our neighbor, is fundamentally Luciferian. Is this too harsh? Surely Rawls does not want to sacrifice babies to Moloch! It only sounds too harsh because we have associated Lucifer, Satan, with Hollywood cliche evil. In truth, the chief evil of the Devil is his pride. It is placing the “I” before the “You” that is the Luciferian sin. To construct a whole system of justice, a whole system of ethics, around self-interest is to cast aside the other.
“But Rawls moves to the "You!” It will be objected. Only after the “I” is considered does Rawls go to the “You”, and that is important. But even then, this “You” is not really a “You” after all. The “You” of Rawls is an abstract person, which means no person at all. No person is alike and, accordingly, what is fair to one person is unfair to another. Not because justice is loose and ambiguous. No, but because the application of justice takes discernment. To construct a theory of justice in the abstract, like Kant (whom Rawls makes frequent use of), is to build castles in the sky. Despite philosophers’ affinity for the abstract, justice is something down here, messy, and personal. Rawls and Kant have no room in their systems for my friend mentioned above. By bracketing the need for human interaction, relationship, and experience in the application of justice, so that he can formulate broad principles, Rawls testifies to Joseph de Maistre’s harsh saying,
“The more human reason trusts in itself, the more it seeks to draw all its strength from itself, the more absurd it is, the more it reveals its impotence. Hence the greatest scourge in the world has always been, in all ages, what we call philosophy, since philosophy is nothing but human reason acting alone, and human reason reduced to its own forces is nothing but a brute whose whole power is reduced to destroying.”3
In seeking justice, he found injustice. In calling for fairness, he received unfairness. Rawls established a system of self-interest and has called it ethics, and he has convinced practical men (judges and lawyers) that justice can be derived without practical wisdom. None of the above is a “refutation” of Rawls, as if there could be such a thing, but it does force the Rawlsian to accept that his vision of justice is that of self-interest and ignores the practical nature of fairness.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2005. 136
I hasten to acknowledge my debt to Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, and Christos Yannaras, three of the leading lights in second-personal ethics.
Joesph de Maistre. Translated by Edward Maxwell III. Major Works, Vol. I. Perth, Imperium Press. 2021. 194