[net.politics.theory] Rawles Theory of Justice and Slavery

orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (04/08/85)

> 
> This illustrates the fundamental problem with Rawl's theory. I can come up
> with a theory of ``what I jolly well think that you, you and anybody else
> damn well better consider just'' quite easily. What I cannot do is make
> everybody feel that it is just. When slavery was legal in the southern
> United States people routinely argued that the Blacks were better off as
> slaves, living well in the US, than as ignorant barbarians living short,
> miserable lives in Africa. The people who argued that way were sincere. If
> they had been born Black, they really thought that they would prefer to be
> a slave in Virginia than a free man in the Congo.
> 
> As long as people are capable of sincerely believing that injustices are
> just, Rawl's theory of justice will never work. It may be that *no* theory
> of justice can work under such conditions, however.
> 
> Laura Creighton
> utzoo!laura

I see.  So how many people on the net would agree to a social system
incorporating slavery if they did not know if they would be slaves or not?
I am sure it is quite easy for whites with no chance of being slaves to
rationalize that other people who are slaves are better off.  The true
question by Rawles' criteria is whether those white people themselves would
wish to switch positions.  I would bet not.
           tim sevener   whuxl!orb