The Veil of Ignorance

As a philosophy major in college, I'm sometimes asked who my favorite philosopher is. As I'm usually asked this in casual conversation by people whose knowledge of philosophy is limited, I typically name a few famous philosophers whose ideas originally sparked my interest in the discipline (i.e. Descartes and Hume). However, my actual favorite philosopher isn't a titan of the 17th or 18th centuries, but a former professor at Harvard who passed away a little over 5 years ago, John Rawls.

In my judgment Rawls' most significant contribution to philosophy (and the evolution of modern thought) is a theory called "justice as fairness." He promulgated this theory originally in his book A Theory of Justice in 1971, and then again in several other works over the following 30 years. I couldn't begin to summarize the theory in its totality, as it involves many layers of justification (it took Rawls over 500 pages). However, it's not difficult for me to select my favorite components, one of which is the "veil of ignorance."

The veil of ignorance is part of a thought experiment designed to determine what you would consider a just distribution of society's resources were you able to decide that absent your biases. In other words, how would you organize our society's (arguably the theory is designed to apply to people living within a nation-state as opposed to the international community) social, political, and economic institutions if you had no idea where within our society you would wind up? Stated another way: suppose you didn't know if you were rich or poor, a medical doctor or a high-school dropout, a man or a woman, black or white, living in south-central Los Angeles or Beverly Hills, healthy or diseased, a single parent or a member of a nuclear family...what would you want our society to look like in terms of our systems of education, health care, criminal justice, employment, taxation, and so on?

Rawls answers his own question and then argues for why he answers it the way he does. However, for the purposes of this post, I'm more interested in exploring the power of the thought experiment using the veil of ignorance model. In my view, it is a highly useful evaluative tool when it comes to public policy. It can be applied as needed in a variety of decision situations. For example, in trying to formulate an opinion regarding a specific health policy proposal, you can ask who would be worst off if this policy were enacted? The model would then compel you to consider if you would be comfortable in that "worst off" position. If you would not be, then the policy is presumably at odds with your moral intuition and should be rejected.

I'm not sure if Rawls ever attempted to extrapolate justice as fairness to international institutions and policies. The reason it's problematic is that the theory seems to assume certain conceptions of the institutions that would exist to implement the conditions of society that would be chosen after the thought experiment is complete. Those institutions exist within a nation-state like the United States. They do not exist internationally. In other words, there are cultural, linguistic, geographical, and other impediments to implementing a global order of social, political, and economic institutions. Despite these theoretical inadequacies, the basic veil of ignorance model seems applicable to international, or at least foreign policy, decision situations. For example, who is worst off as a result of a military action or a trade agreement? Would you want to be in that worst off position?

There are countless practical considerations that I face as I attempt to determine what public policies I support. But as I consider the moral implications, I try to remember the veil of ignorance and ask myself, would I want to be in that worst off position?

If you believe that Article II of the U.S. Constitution limits the powers of the President, read on...

I have found myself pondering on occasion, not only who I would like the next president to be, but who I would least like to see in that position, of those who are vying for it. This may not be as odd as it seems, since there are more contenders for the second category for me, than the first. But while it would be difficult for me to put my least desirable in order, it is not difficult for me to pick the winner of that category, Rudy Giuliani.

That choice may seem odd to people who know me, given Giuliani's relatively liberal socio-cultural beliefs, at least among Republican presidential candidates. However, in making my decision, I'm considering not only what the candidates may try to do within the realm of their enumerated presidential powers, but also outside that realm. My impression of Giuliani is that there is nothing much he would consider outside the realm of his powers as president, and that scares me. We have already had 7+ years of Cheney and Rumsfeld acting as though they are above the law; we don't need anymore.

I think long time observers of Giuliani as mayor, of all political stripes, will understand my concerns, if not worry about them as much as I do. However, for more eloquent and detailed elaborations of why I feel the way I do, read this TPM Cafe blog post or this Washington Monthly essay. Scary stuff...

Words from a fallen soldier

I came across this blog post. I have never read Obsidian Wings before, or Andrew Olmsted's blog, but the post was linked to from another blog I do read. At times when I get frustrated with my regular encounters with mindlessness, it is refreshing to come across some considered thoughts (whether I agree with them or not). Though Andrew Olmsted is obviously only one of thousands of people, both soldiers and civilians who have died in the Iraq War, his death is no less significant as a result of that fact. And his words are the first I have seen since early in the war written by someone to be published in the event of their death. I also found his post regarding his decision to go to Iraq interesting.

Second chances for violent teenage criminals

This article raises interesting questions and tells a relevant story about the circumstances under which it may be appropriate to give a young person a real chance at rehabilitation after they commit a heinously violent crime. I'm inclined to think that circumstances could move me to fall on either side, but it also seems to be something of a crap shoot. I suppose the testimony of expert psychologists and criminologists, as well as the details of individual cases, could go a long way to providing a basis on which I would be comfortable making a decision one way or the other. However, it just seems impossible to reliably predict the future behavior of a child. I certainly wouldn't have wanted anyone determining the outcome of the rest of my life based on a single emotionally-charged action of my life as a 13-year-old. It really highlights the grave importance of having thoughtful judges.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery

The key paragraph of this article for me (bold italics are mine):

"Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers. But after the 2005 harvest, the worst in a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached."

Those tomatoes at Burger King come from somewhere...

When I was at the U. of A. I used to see protesters outside Taco Bell on the corner of Speedway and Campbell every Friday as I recall. It was a while before I discovered what specifically they were trying to accomplish. It turned out they were encouraging a boycott because of poor treatment of tomato pickers that supplied Taco Bell. Eventually, after several years, Taco Bell made some concessions and the calls for boycott ended. Well, according to Eric Schlosser's column in The Times, it didn't quite stick. Burger King is leading its fast food brethren in the charge to reverse the trend initiated by the Taco Bell concessions. So when you see the protesters outside Burger King, that's probably why they're there. If you're in Tucson, Dirtbag's on Speedway has better burgers anyway.

Trials and tribulations of blogging

To the handful of people who might actually be checking out my blog on a semi-regular basis for new content, you've obviously realized that it has been slow in coming. A lot of the time I'll read something and it will spark me to think of something I'd like to write. I'll start doing some additional research, because I want to confirm and fortify my thesis and ideas before putting it out there for everyone (a.k.a. all 8 of you) to see. By the time I've spent a few hours reading and refining my ideas in my head, I've often lost the impetus to put them in writing. Sometimes it's because the original idea I had didn't hold up to the scrutiny of my additional research. Sometimes it's because I discover the issue is exceedingly complex and doesn't lend itself well to a relatively short blog post. Sometimes it's because I don't want to devote the time to writing well, and I don't want to publish something I've written poorly.

The moral of this story is that I'm going to try a different format, at least some of the time, and post a link or two to the most interesting thing(s) I read lately. Perhaps I'll add a question or comment, and leave it to you to decide whether it's worthy of your time. I tried to refrain from doing this when I started this blog, because there are countless others who already do it, and there's limited value in browsing through an endless array of other people's links (unless you share very similar interests). But in an effort to maintain some purpose for Thinking Thrice, I'm going to try it.