Renewed Consideration of Rawlsian Theory

While researching for my Spanish paper on Religion and Terrorism, I realized that Rawls is wiser than Younkins gave him credit for. His goal was never to come up with the best comprehensive moral doctrine, it was just to come up with a way to justly reconcile the fact that Americans do not and will never share the same doctrine.

So check it - After searching "John Rawls" into Mises.org, I came upon an article written by David Gordon that grants him much more respect than Younkins ever did, even calling him "ingenious" at one point. Of course, the libertarian author found away to say that Rawls is wrong and that his theory fails, but only by focusing back on his "difference principle" which all libertarians would agree is unjust.

Here are the most reasonable, respectful blurbs:

"Is it not the case that, in a constitutional democracy like the United States, large numbers of people find themselves at odds on key issues? Some people, for example, support laissez-faire capitalism; others foolishly support socialist nostrums. (Of course, Rawls would not put it quite like that.) Should society allow abortion? What role, if any, should government play in education?

These political disputes, and others like them, do not arise from nothing. As Rawls rightly notes, people hold various "comprehensive moral doctrines" from which their opinion on particular issues follow: "The elements of such a conception [of the good] are normally set within, and interpreted by, certain comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines in the light of which the various ends and aims are ordered and understood" (p. 19).

Rawls’s starting point cannot be gainsaid; people in societies like the United States do indeed differ fundamentally on basic issues. Unless everyone by some miracle converts to the same doctrine—of course the true doctrine that we now hold—must we not learn to live with inevitable conflict? Rawls does not think so.

Rawls’s answer takes us to the heart of his new approach. Each person will ask, from within his own comprehensive doctrine, what he is to do when others in society radically disagree. Those who do so will find resources in their own fundamental beliefs to support public reason. Each system, that is to say, will perform an act of self-abnegation: it will deduce from its own tenets that its distinctive doctrines must be placed to one side, when diverse positions show themselves present. In brief, an "overlapping consensus" of various comprehensive doctrines supports public reason.

One point more, and we will grasp the essence of what Rawls has in mind. Public reason, as he conceives it, does not consist of innocuous generalities, so bland that all comprehensive views can accept them. In his opinion, resort to public reason generates universal agreement on the proper basic structure of society."

So basically, if you think your comprehensive doctrine is the best or even the absolute truth, then most likely you would concede that it never condones war. Therefore, you should be able to use it to reach compromises with others who do not share your doctrine. In other words, if your comprehensive doctrine is "all that", then it shouldn't lead you to commit actions that could reasonably be considered radically unjust.

Bottom line: Reasonable compromise must be an inherent value in any comprehensive doctrine that claims to promote justice for all!

Younkins' response to Rawlsian Justice

According to Bill Clinton in 1999, he is "perhaps the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century". According to Wikipedia, he is one of the most frequently cited contemporary philosophers in American courtrooms. According to Edward Younkins, author of Capitalism and Commerce: conceptual foundations of free enterprise, his theory of distributive justice amounts to a rebellion against nature and the diversity of human talent. There is no doubt that if one seeks to understand or explain the difference between social justice and true justice, knowledge of justice according to John Rawls is indispensible.

Rawls' theory of justice arises not from a belief in natural law, God, or moral absolutes of any kind, but rather from consideration of a hypothetical scenario - a thought experiment. What if there existed a "veil of ignorance" such that each individual had no idea of which gifts nature, fate, DNA, or luck would grant to him? What if each was forced to consider, for example, being born to a single mother living in poverty? What effect might this ignorance have on the laws or government programs this individual favored? According to Rawls, if each individual sincerely performed such a thought experiment, all would be able to agree upon the ideal system of justice in society, namely one in which the just law is simply one that is beneficial to the disadvantaged.

Continuing with this line of thinking, Rawls is able to justify coercive governmental policy that redistributes wealth on the basis that, to the extent that such policy benefits the disadvantaged, all individuals should agree on its fairness behind the veil of ignorance. It follows, then, that society should agree upon having extensive social welfare programs, a harsh inheritance tax, and redistributive taxation nearly to the point at which the economic pie ceases to grow at all.

Younkins refutes Rawlsian justice at its core. He states that for an individual behind the veil of ignorance, a redistributive taxation system may be a prudent choice, but it is certainly not a just one. True justice, he explains, "is attained when people’s lives and property are secure and they are free to own property, order its direction, determine the purpose to which their bodies are put, engage in consensual transactions and relationships with others, and freely pursue their conception of happiness."

Rawls' system, in effect, throws all supposedly undeserved talents, possessions, skills, and energies of individuals into a common pool so that they can be unnaturally divvied up as fairly as possible. This, as Younkins puts it, adds up to a rebellion against nature and reality: "A natural fact, such as the existence of one’s talents, is neither just nor unjust—it just is." Those 'favored by nature' should not be made to pay for what is not of their own making. No, the only just form of redistribution is the gift given freely or charitable act done voluntarily by one for another, which is after all a common sight to see in a society built upon freedom, virtue, and true justice.