Most of us Americans (I’m not, but that’s what the book says) did not sign a contract. Only immigrants did. Then why do we have obligations? Did we even really give consent to our governments?
Locke says we gave tacit by using public goods such as highways. However, that is weak because the link between using those services and giving consent is difficult to prove.
Kant says a hypothetical consent is there. If it is just, it would agreed by the public. That is weak, too, because it is difficult to explain how a hypothetical contract can replace a new one.
John Rawls (1921–2002), an American political philosopher, offers an interesting answer. In A Theory of Justice (1971) he believes the correct approach is to formulate a theory that we would agree to if we were in a situation of equality.
But why in that specific state? It is because if not, we would make choices based on our personal preferences and benefits. There would also be disparities in bargaining power.
This problem is solved when we put ourselves in our original positions. Rawls describes this state as being under a “veil of ignorance”.
Then what choices would we make?
The first thing that Rawls claims is that we would not choose utilitarianism. That is because we might be born as the minorities that get their rights taken away for the utilitarian calculus. We would also not choose libertarianism. We could be the workers with low wages, not getting help from the rich.
Rawls derives two principles here.
1 Equal basic liberties for all
This principle is prioritized over social utility and the general welfare.
2 Social and economic equality
This does not discuss the equal distribution of outcomes. Rather, it states that those in advantage work for the least advantaged member of society.
Is this the right approach to think about justice? Can we derive from an agreement that we never agreed to? To assess that, it would help to see the power actual contracts hold.
What gives the contract legitimacy? Our consent? No, we ban unfair contracts even if consent is given by all parties. Moreover, we have not made a fair and full consent before anyway. The Constitution was not decided like this. It’s difficult to expect that there will be something like that in the future either. There is a structural reason, too. There is a disparity of bargaining power.
That is not to say that consent is absolutely nothing. Say that we made a deal and gave consent about a lobster trade. I am the seller, and I caught all the lobsters. Many would reject that the buyer could cancel the transaction then. But how about when I have not caught the lobsters yet? How much power does consent hold then?
We can come to a conclusion here, then. For a contract to be fair, and for people to have a duty to keep it, it must be agreed upon by autonomy and holds reciprocity for both powers.
Consider some examples of when consent is not enough. Let’s say a little boy and a big boy are trading baseball cards. The big boy tries to sell a very cheap card for an expensive price, tricking the little boy. Consent is not enough here, since the choice was not truly informed, and only one party benefits. A similar situation could be this. A grandmother and a plumber agreed that the repair fee for one toilet would be 50,000 dollars. The grandmother does not properly know the market price for reparations, and she has not benefited from that transaction.
Consent may not even be necessary. Hume’s house got his house repaired, but he did not agree to do that. However, he was still forced to pay because he got benefits from the action. Another example is the squeegee men. They do not get consent from the driver but go and ask people for money. In the real world, they were banned, by the way.
Here is another case. Consider a repairer poking around your car, but they get no consent for that. They have not fixed the car, but they ask for money. They claim “Well, if I had fixed that care during that period, you would have benefited, right?”. It can be argued that in that case, not only did I not give consent, but also I did not get much help anyway.
Another could be about a wife cheating. One reason to call that wrong is because, “Hey, you agreed not to be in our marriage.” We can also consider another one: “I was faithful to you. It’s unfair for you not to be.”
Then we can see why Rawls created that scenario. If we do not have any social positions, we will have equal bargaining power. That means the choices are autonomous, made of our own free will. If we do not have any property or preferences, we cannot have greed or intentions to harm others. Therefore, the choices would be reciprocal.
Got it, then what would we choose in that hypothetical? We already discussed why it would not be utilitarianism. We want to help everybody. Rawls believes that this can be achieved by allowing inequalities, but making the advantaged people help the least advantaged. This enables advanced facilities and human excellence to exist and to be enjoyed collectively. Rawls coins this as the “difference principle”.
Rawls believes that people will not gamble when they are under a veil of ignorance. That is not his only justification, though. He believes that moral arbitrariness cannot be the justification for income and opportunity to be distributed.
This chapter explains the argument of moral arbitrariness by explaining the problems of some systems.
Feudal systems are wrong because power is hereditary, hence arbitrary.
The market system is better because everybody has liberties to earn money. However, unfairness exists because people have different opportunities, such as richer parents.
There are attempts to remedy this. But there is also a problem that people are born with different talents. We can see that this is even more arbitrary because it is also arbitrary that people have the talents that the current society appreciates.
The chapter reemphasizes one point: we are not putting a handicap on the talented, we are only making them benefit the less advantaged.
Rawls’s world, using the difference principle, is called “Egalitarian”.
Objections exist. The first is that this decreases the incentive to earn money.
We can rebut that. Rawls is not asking for a 90% tax. If that happened, incentives would decrease and this would not benefit the less advantaged. The tax rate, or other means, to make the rich help the poor, will be controlled where there is enough incentive but also give help.
Another objection is on effort. People put effort into earning money.
That is also refutable. The effort is also an ability, given to people arbitrarily. Some people are designed to be able to put in effort easily. Social circumstances also play a role. Firstborn children are likely to put in more effort. Maybe an even stronger rebuttal is that markets do not value effort, they value how much merit labor produces. If a scrawny worker puts in a lot of effort and produces less, they do not matter to consumers and employers. If a burly worker puts in little effort and produces more than them, they are valued more.
Michael Jordan, too. Yes, he tried hard. But other basketball players also tried hard. They do not earn that much money for reasons distinct from effort.
We can see that distributive justice does not favor the moral desert, it favors expectations.
The chapter ends by expressing Rawls’s view on one claim. Some say life is unfair. Rawls says that society can change to remedy unfairness.
Thoughts
I didn’t even know who Rawls was before I read this book (that was around mid-2022). Considering that, his theories look so strong to me.
The problem identification is correct. People are born with different backgrounds and talents, so it is unfair. People are born with different talents, so that is unfair.
The solution is also true. Communism eliminates incentives. Handicapping the well-off decreases benefits as a whole. People helping the less advantaged solves this.
I think this is also what contemporary society follows. It is not doing a fabulous job, since society is still unjust. We are still helping the least off with unignorable tax rates. Maybe it could be argued that this is the perfect tax rate for the incentive to be there. Maybe it could be argued that it is in fact not, but the rich selfish voters steer society in the wrong direction. The truth can only be known after I study economics more deeply.
For people who think I’m contracting myself since I am utilitarian, I think Rawls’s theory produces happiness. I’m just saying that escaping moral arbitrariness is not the final goal, utility is.