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Show Chapter X. Rawls's Instrumentalism 440 Justice by a number of philosophers. Although their criticisms differ in many respects, all of these objections concur in assuming what I refer to as the continuity thesis. This consists of the following claims conjointly: (1) The parties in the original position are, and know themselves to be, fully mature persons who will be among the members of the wellordered society which is generated by their choice of principles of justice. (2) The original position is a conscious event among others, integrated (compatibly with the constraints on knowledge and motivation imposed on the parties) into the regular continuity of experience that comprises each of their ongoing conscious lives. (3) The parties in the original position thus are, and regard themselves as, psychologically continuing persons, partially determined in personality and interests by prior experiences, capable of recollection and regret concerning the past, anticipation and apprehensiveness regarding the future, etc. Thus, for example, some early criticisms of Rawls's Theory of Justice centered on what they took to be the individualistic assumptions embodied in the original position: Adina Schwartz argued that Rawls's assumption that the parties prefer a greater rather than a lesser amount of primary goods would contribute to a well-ordered society based on a preference for more rather than less wealth, and that this condition would be unacceptable to one who discovered herself to be a socialist.13 Similarly, Thomas Nagel argued that the very concept of primary goods biases the choice of principles individualistically, against conceptions of the good that depend on the social interrelationships among individuals, and so may require the parties in the original position to commit themselves to a set of social arrangements that contravene their deepest convictions once the veil of ignorance is lifted.14 David Gauthier attacked Rawls's assumption of economic rationality, showing that parties guided by instrumental reasoning in the OP would choose, not principles to structure a society based on justice as fairness, but instead those that would structure a "private society" instrumental to the pursuit of their individual utility-maximization.15 Finally, Richard Miller argued that an individual in the original position who turned out to have been a member of the ruling class with an acute need for wealth and power in Adina Schwartz, "Moral Neutrality and Primary Goods," Ethics 83 (1973), 294-307. See especially pp. 304-6. 14 In "Rawls on Justice," The Philosophical Review 87, 2 (April 1973), 220-34; reprinted in Reading Rawls, Ed. Norman Daniels (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1974). 15 David Gauthier, "Justice and Natural Endowment: Toward a Critique of Rawls's Ideological Framework," Social Theory and Practice 3 (1975), 3-26. 13 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
