Dr. Darren Staloff, John Rawl's A Theory of Justice 

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Drip

I don’t want to sound as though I have any extensive expertise in either Rawls or Jainism, but allow me to posit a possible objection: early on, Dr. Staloff mentioned that Rawl’s theory included “valid inequality” and “invalid inequality”. Nature is prima facie unequal, yet this state of inequality must be valid (otherwise nature is irrational and we condemn lions eating gazelles); thus, organisms harming other organisms is not always “exploitation”, but may be necessary for their survival. This can be further distinguished from humanity’s true intentional exploitation, including inflicting suffering, physical abuse of life (human or otherwise) or seeking the complete destruction of life. This is immoral. Therefore in pursuing justice for the ecosystem writ large, eating animals/plants is not always exploitative (sans hyper-capitalist meat/deforestation industries, intending profit, not survival of themselves). The difference for humanity must be our capacity to intend rational justice over a “state of nature”.

@@gaberazalas7333 correct me if I misunderstood you, but are you saying (from what you can tell) Rawl’s would carve exceptions for specicism for the purposes of survival? That makes sense if true, though I wonder if inter-human harm can also be justified in this same way. Like if food is really scarce, and cannibalism is needed to survive, do we then consider the murder of any innocent person for food to be justified to stave off hunger justifiable under Rawl’s theory? Maybe Rawl’s might pick certain people to die over others, like the elderly before the children, but I always got the impression that Rawl’s wanted to avoid this kind of vulgar utilitarianism.

@@gaberazalas7333 👏🏻

Rawls is actually explicit that he doubts his theory can be extended to cover non-human animals, though he does think that this doesn’t show that we don’t have non-justice based duties to animals. He thinks that in order to be bound by the theory, you need to have the ability to form, revise and pursue a life plan as well as a capacity for a sense of justice to the degree necessary for social cooperation. Notoriously, this also seems to exclude the severely cognitively disabled - which, again, Rawls seems to more or less explicitly accept.

The biggest issue with Rawl’s theory of justice is the theory itself

And Rawls to the overrated category

It’s more useful if you synthesize it along with other philosophers. For example, using Rawls as a modern extrapolation of Plato’s Republic, which does discuss why justice is important and all of these things, or with Cant’s categorical imperative to flesh out a cohesive view of a religious society not governed by the church, or what have you

I think his best students came to this conclusion. My former professor would pound the desk in favor of Rawls, and I never became convinced of the efficacy of this so called Theory of Justice.

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@@jamesclarke2789 Hehe :) Just doing my bit for the algorithm.

What are your reasonings behind this statement?

What would a "truth" based "approach" look like, then?

@@luismartins9205 I would say a good philosophy is one that at least searches for truth. Rawls just states "truth = justice" on page one, and then never revisits the claim.

Not a big fan of Rawls, but your argument is the same that Nietzsche used against Socrates. Socrates basically built his entire philosophical knowledge upon the concept that "making good to others is rational, and making evil things is irrational". Nietzsche then said Socrates can't proof doing good to others is really that good, or is more like an "authoritarian" apropriation of the other's nature. I'm fine with his critic. But, and here is the point I'm going to critizise you: If you are pointing their errors, you need to sustain your point of view showing us how we should rationalize those questions instead. So, instead of just saying Rawls is wrong, you need to proof that there's a better concept than "justice = truth" or whatever. That doesn't mean that Rawls views are absolute, or Socrates. They are just proposing ideas and theories. But, differently than in "natural sciences", i.e., logic, phyisics, etc., it's not the one who makes the claim who has to "proof" it. Much because the concept of "scientific proof" is very problematic in "human sciences". See the Gadamer lecture and you'll understand. You can't verify in a lab if social justice exists. So, in "human sciences", it's the critic's burden to proof that the original theory is wrong, by offering a better alternative to it. Since you didn't offer any alternative, your critic is vain and pointless. It's easy to critizise without offering a real better alternative. Just like Nietzsche did.

@@luksjfernandes I do not believe that I need to assert an entirely different philosophy in order to criticize one Rawlsian point of contention. The idea of the Rawlsian “level playing field” is in fact a tilted playing field; one that tilts in favor of the weaker players. I disagree that this move should be called “leveling the playing field,” as does the Rawlsian discourse. It’s a bad first principle. It should literally be thought of as tilting or adjusting the playing field; or UN-leveling the playing field, as the field is inherently level.

@@burnlikeneon4044 No, you don't need to do it in order to critize it. But you need better arguments, and as I said, your talk is cheap, since you can't offer a better starting point than "rationality = being good". If taking the point of the less advantaged ones is being "weak" to you, I can't stress enough how nietzschean and not original you are. What would be a good first principe? Taking the "most advantaged" as the measure for ethical decisions? Aka the law of the strongest. They gave it a try for the last 2500 years to say a little. Well, it created the mess we are seeing today and that most intelectuals are trying to solve. Yes, Rawls vision has its problems, but your critic is the only weak thing here. You can't understand that, first: the field is already tilted to the "stronger" players. So Rawls theory would compensate for that, until a certain point. He's trying to offer a solution for social and economical injustices. Inherently leveled? Maybe you're not familiar with the concept of heritage and political influence. Also, maybe you're not familiar with the concept of "isonomy", but that's similar to what Rawls is talking about. Being in the position of the "less advantaged" means abstracting for oneself, just like Hegel described as one of the most complex and advanced human skills, and being capable of putting yourself in a position that let you understand if not universal at least generally acceptable ethical principles. Which is the holy grail of modern civility. Justifying good without God. So, bringing to reality, if you were a white guy during Apartheid, if you could really put yourself in the less advantaged position, you would easily realize the laws were injust, and made to a only few. IF, and only IF you could really be that rational. Is it perfect? No. But we accept better options, if you can give us. Habermas has given us. Gadamer also. You? Just a bunch of Ayn Rand or utilitarian nosense. I mean, you are free to think anything dude, but you should just really try to understand the tradition from where those guys are coming from and the questions they are trying to solve. This is no rocket science, it's way harder. Or maybe you should just keep worshiping Francis Bacon...