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Autopsy John Rawls and the Veil of Incoherence by Jan Narveson John Rawls' theory
of justice has two elements: individual liberty and the "favor the bottom"
principle that justifies the welfare state. Not surprisingly, Rawls fails to
reconcile these two elements.
John Rawls, undoubtedly the most famous and revered
political philosopher of our time, died Nov. 24, 2002. He was 81. His
philosophical fame rested especially on his two major books, "A Theory of
Justice" (1971) and "Political Liberalism" (1993). The many obituaries in recent
newspapers and journals emphasize his personal modesty, to the point of
reclusiveness, and that trait is confirmed by all who knew him. (This author met
him but did not know him well personally. I did however study his two books
intensely.) Rawls was the subject of much adulation throughout most of his
philosophical life. This has resonated in his obituaries.
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Narveson is professor of philosophy at the University of Waterloo.
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But adulation does not serve well the cause of philosophy. Rawls was devoted
to philosophy. In his lifetime he became extremely famous for setting forth, as
he supposed, two basic principles which were to delimit the arena of political
justice, and also for setting forth, as he thought, a foundational argument for
them. Everyone cites these, both the principles and the foundational idea, and
much learned ink has been spilled discussing them. But far too much of the
discussion is adulatory rather than critically rational. Above all, it will not
do to accept Rawls' own word about his intentions as if those intentions were
fulfilled by the mere fact of his proclaiming them. In fact, Rawls' system is a
failed enterprise, a fabric which will not bear the weight he wanted it to hold,
and those who hold it up as something like definitive of liberalism need to get
back to their drawing boards.
In particular, it simply will not to do to say, as so many seem to think Rawls
does, that "he put individual rights ahead of the common good." This simply is
not true. He was not even trying to do that. He did claim to put individual
rights above social utility, specified in utilitarian terms. But
utilitarianism is not a view of the common good. It is the view that aggregate
cardinal utility is the supreme end of all moral and political action. But
aggregation, in principle, overrides individuals, and thus cannot count as the
common good. The common good must be good for all, not merely most. The view that
we all have individual rights which cannot be sacrificed in the name of utility
is a view that Rawls purports to hold, and he spends a great many of the 600 or
so pages of "A Theory of Justice" saying this.
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| Rawls' system is a failed
enterprise and those who hold it up as something like definitive of liberalism
need to get back to their drawing boards. |
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The funny part of it is that this doesn't seem to be true anyway, when you
look at his two principles. Only the first of them purports to set forth strong
rights for all, rights to liberty that are not to be outweighed by anything. Or
so he says — repeatedly when he proclaims that liberty has "lexical
priority" over his other principle. That assertion might render credible the idea
"that the state's first duty with its citizens is to respect this capacity for
autonomy — to let them live life according to their own lights, and to treat
them, in Kant's phrase, 'as means not as ends'" (Ben Rogers' obituary in The
Guardian, Nov. 27, 2002). Yet when we get to the second principle — the
"favor-the-bottom principle," as it has been called, a problem arises. For this
second principle appears to tell us that society should supply those at the
bottom of the heap with whatever it takes to make them as well off as they can be
— the "maximin" idea. But who is going to supply these less fortunate people
with the goods in question and how? The answer is, as it can only be, the more
fortunate people, and the answer to the other question is that they will be
compelled to supply it to them. So much for the liberty of all — and so much
for treating all people as ends and not as means. For the second of Rawls'
principles obviously entails — as Nozick pointed out so long ago, in a
criticism that Rawls never responded to, let alone effectively replied to —
that the talented and energetic are to be used as means to the end of the
well-being of the unfortunate and perhaps lethargic or otherwise unenterprising.
So the contradiction between the two principles is stark.
There is worse to come. Rawls and Rawlsians piously supposed that he had at
last found the happy medium between out-and-out egalitarian redistribution and
out-and-out free-enterprise libertarianism and moreover, that it is his device of
the Veil of Ignorance that made this possible. But he's done nothing of the sort.
The second principle is plainly inconsistent with the first one as it stands, no
matter how you interpret it. But the second, in being "maximin," is a maximizing
principle. But if we are to favor the worst-off maximally, we can only do that if
we aim at making them exactly as well off as everyone else. If they are not so,
then in principle it is possible that they could be still better off — at
the expense, of course, of those above, but that's the name of this game,
remember.
| Rawls claims to put
individual rights above social utility, specified in utilitarian terms. But
utilitarianism is not a view of the common good. It is the view that aggregate
cardinal utility is the supreme end of all moral and political action.
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talked, misleadingly, as though the second principle was not to be fulfilled
at the expense of the first one, but only if the "bottom" people can be made
better off without making others worse off. Now, if you mean by this to allow for
people of great heart as well as deep pockets, people who think they themselves
are well off only if others are too and thus voluntarily support the poor, that
would be fine. But it isn't what Rawls meant, and certainly not what his droves
of followers think. They obviously mean to implement the welfare state, rather
than to point out that those who wish to help others are welcome to go ahead and
do their best at it, thanks. And the welfare state imposes, involuntarily, on the
taxpayers who support it.
In fact, you can read the Two Principles in only two ways. Either Rawls really
means it about lexical priority, in which case you can throw the second principle
into the dustbin; for, since it can only be implemented as a principle of justice
at the expense of the first principle, making that first principle as inviolate
as he proclaims it to be leaves you no room at all to apply the second one.
Alternatively, he really means it about maximin, and liberty be damned; in which
case he may as well throw the first principle into the trash can — and will
end with egalitarian socialism, not with the mixed economy that he and his
followers apparently think he has justified. You can't have it both ways, and
Rawls offers no hint of an idea that could effectively split the difference
between the two. That's what he needs, but as the principles are stated, it can't
be done, and he certainly didn't do it, nor even tried hard to do so. I believe
he simply didn't understand the point, as would be suggested by his utter failure
to respond to Nozick's challenge, let alone to respond effectively.
This brings us to the Veil of Ignorance. But here again we have problems.
Rawls opens "A Theory of Justice" with the assertion that he accepts the standard
economic conception of human practical rationality. But then he proposes that
social principles must be negotiated (so to speak) behind the Veil of Ignorance.
Of course, since nobody knows who he is behind that Veil, there isn't really any
"negotiation" to do, as many have pointed out. But never mind, for now the
question is only what someone behind the Veil will do.
Which brings us the question whether they will, in their cloudy paradise, take
any notice of the fact that the folks out there in the real world are, given the
standard economic theory of rationality, quite incapable of paying any attention
to anything handed down from behind the Veil, if it conflicts with what they
would do anyway.
There is the further point that the classic conception of the Social Contract
calls for unanimous agreement, agreement by all on the fundamental principles.
But you don't need a Veil for that. Quite the reverse, in fact. A real agreement
among all is an agreement among real people, not idealized nonentities, and the
agreement will be a compromise among them, each modifying his pursuit of his
interests to the extent needed to achieve social benefits. The classic liberals
supposed that the effect of this would be the liberty principle, alias Hobbes'
First Law of Nature, Locke's Law of Nature, etc. Those principles do not give us
anything like maximin. They give us only, Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them
Do Unto You, that is, general reciprocity. How much social insurance of the
welfare-state type that includes is an interesting question, but on the most
plausible analysis, the answer is None, so far as compulsive requirement is
concerned. Rather, it will leave our interest in health and safety to the
insurance business or co-ops, all of which are voluntary, and to our good will
and sentiment for others — not to compulsory state action.
All this means that in essentials, Rawls' theory is a massive failure. The
adulation for his character and person are all very well, but if it is the truth
about society we seek, then it is not to be found, so far as the major matters
are concerned, in the works of Rawls.
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