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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 441 the society preceding the original position would find her interests frustrated by the egalitarian requirements of the difference principle.16 Each of these criticisms called attention to the possibility of a disparity between the interests or beliefs of the parties in the original position and the conditions they may confront in the well-ordered society that is supposed to result from their choice. Hence each presupposes the continuity thesis. Subsequent criticisms of Rawls's theory presupposed it as well.17 Although the continuity thesis as stated above is not at odds with any of the conditions that define the original position, its exegetical validity is a matter for discussion. I argue here that if it is indeed contained in or a consequence of Rawls's theory, then it reinforces Rawls's reliance on an Instrumentalist metaethical strategy. This then casts into doubt the capacity of the original position to generate or justify any principles of justice at all. On the other hand, if the continuity thesis is viewed as dispensable and unnecessary to Rawls's theory, then Rawls is correct in maintaining the irrelevance of the question of personal identity to the construction of his moral theory 18. In this case, the Instrumentalist justification for the two principles of justice should be supplanted by a modified conception of wide reflective equilibrium. The considerations that form the bulk of this discussion thus provide a philosophical rationale for Rawls's recent revisions in the model of justification on which his theory of justice rests, and for his increasing emphasis on us as moral mediators between the original position and the well-ordered society.19 Richard Miller, "Rawls and Marxism," in Daniels (op. cit. Note 14.). See, for example, Anthony Kronman's and Samuel Scheffler's comments on Rawls's Tanner Lecture, "The Basic Liberties and Their Priority," The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Vol. III (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1982). 18 John Rawls, "The Independence of Moral Theory," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 1975 (Presidential Address). 19 See in particular Lectures I and III of his Dewey Lectures, "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory: The Dewey Lectures 1980," The Journal of Philosophy LXXVII, 9 (September 1980); "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical," Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, 3 (Summer 1985), 223-251; and his emphasis on the original position as a "device of representation .. set up by you and me in working out justice as fairness ...." in Political Liberalism (op. cit. Note 3), 22-28. In my September 1976 paper, "Continuing Persons and the Original Position," for Rawls's moral and political philosophy seminar, I suggested that Rawls reconceive the original position as a device applied to the "circumstances of moral conflict that regularly confront us .. [that] both insures the impartiality of our moral judgments and also yields substantive moral principles in accordance with which we can judge these issues;" and also that he accord greater emphasis to "ourselves as moral mediators between the original position and the wellordered society" - i.e. you and me - as practitioners of wide reflective equilibrium. I repeated these suggestions in revising this paper for publication as "Personal Continuity and Instrumental Rationality in Rawls's Theory of Justice," Social Theory and 16 17 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
