Skip to main content

According to John Rawls, what is the original position and what is the point of entering it?

According to John Rawls, the original position is not a place but rather a point of view. It is a point of view that is neutral and which takes into account the needs of all people, not just ourselves. The point of entering into the original position is so that we can create a set of just rules for our society.


In his book A Theory of Justice, Rawls tried to set out a way in which people could have a just society. He wanted both legal justice and economic justice. In order to accomplish this, he used the idea of the original position. The most important part of the original position is the “veil of ignorance.” Rawls said that people needed to mentally put themselves behind this veil of ignorance when they tried to critique their society’s laws. The word “ignorance” in this phrase refers to ignorance about one’s own personal characteristics and one’s own place in society. In other words, when we go to critique our society’s laws, we need to try to pretend that we do not know who we are. We do not know if we are male or female, rich or poor. We do not know what race or religion we are. We do not know how much schooling we have. We basically do not have any information about ourselves and our specific situation.


If we can successfully retreat behind the veil of ignorance, we will be able to come up with rules for our society that are truly just. If I do not know what sex I am, I will not make laws that favor one sex lest I be of the “wrong” sex. If I do not know how much money I have or my parents had, I will not set up laws or institutions that favor rich people lest I end up being poor. Instead, I will make laws that are as fair as they possibly can be to all people. I will want to do so because that will minimize the chances that I will find that I have made laws that are bad for me.


This is why we should enter the original position. If we can do so, we can critique our society’s laws and institutions objectively. We can look at those laws and institutions with clear eyes instead of seeing them through the filter of our own personal needs and wants. The original position, then, allows us to think about whether our society is truly just.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more