Rawls fallacy
1. Problem with Rawlsian thought experiment. Rawls’s famous experiment asks what kind of distribution of resources (socially valued goods) people would select if the were behind a veil of ignorance.
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2. That is, they don’t know what race, what sex, what sexuality they would be; they also don’t know how smart, how ambitious, how good looking, et cetera. What distribution of social goods would they vote for?
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3. Rawls argued people would be risk averse because of their ignorance and would select a distribution in which the poorest members have a decent share of socially valued goods (one could be that poor person after all!).
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4. The thought experiment is fascinating and has inspired a lot of writing. But, it is flawed in a few ways.
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5. First, it would require constant and perhaps intolerable interventions to maintain (see Nozick). Suppose that Rawls is right: people vote for a distribution in which goods are not much dispersed. (Let’s just use income for this example.)
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6. Now, suppose that people have dramatically different talents. After the first distribution, people freely use their resources. Inevitably this would lead to a more unequal distribution because people would voluntarily pay more to talented people.
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7. Suppose, for example, one of the people is Frank Sinatra. Well, people will freely pay him a lot of money to listen to him sing. They would voluntarily pay the bad singers nothing. After some time, the distribution of resources would become very unequal.
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8. One might argue that a simple tax would solve the problem. We take from Sinatra and give to the bad singers. But this raises a question and a concern. If the first distribution was fair, then why is the next one unfair if it resulted from the free choices of individuals?
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9. And second, does this unforeseen maintenance of the distribution via a powerful government entity change our feelings toward the distribution?
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10. That is, when people realize that there is an enormous trade off between freedom and equality, would they still support preserving the original distribution?
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11. Second, would we accept the same notion of fairness if we were talking about “romantic goods”? And if not, then why not?
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12. So, suppose we’re in the original position and we’re told that we’ll have no idea how attractive we’ll be. We could be a 1; we could be a 10. What dating distribution would we accept?
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13. Well, what if there were going to be three 10s and eleven 1s. Would we accept that one 10 should be compelled to date a 1? Probably, right, since it’s more likely that we would be a 1 than a 10?
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14. I have the intuition, though, that people do not accept that we should coerce people at all in the romantic/sexual sphere (which is good!). But if not in the sexual sphere, then why in the economic?
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15. Why, that is, are we will willing to support coercion and sustained intervention to maintain the original distribution of economic resources, but not to create and sustain a division of sexual resources?
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16. Some people have famously argued that Rawls’ thought experiment is great for thinking about genetics. We didn’t choose our genes. Some of us got lucky. Some of us didn’t.
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17. This is true and should, I think, inspire some compassion. But, third objection to Rawls, distributions are more about creating incentives than fairly rewarding people for their “metaphysical” accomplishments.
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17. This is true and should, I think, inspire some compassion. But, third objection to Rawls, distributions are more about creating incentives than fairly rewarding people for their “metaphysical” accomplishments.
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18. Pay motivates people to work. Suppose you have a gene that causes you to be pretty lazy. But you will work if your options are work or be massively destitute. And suppose there are 30,000 people like you. But there are 200 who will choose destitute.
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19. It makes sense, I think, to keep the “pay or destitute” policy because it impels 30,000 to work, which is probably good. BUT, it means that 200 people will be destitute. That is, the original distribution will change and we will introduce poverty.
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20. Maybe we shouldn’t do this, but it is not obvious that we shouldn’t. I’m basically a utilitarian, so I would try to maximize well-being, not minimize destitution. (Although minimizing abject poverty is usually good.)
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21. We do not “earn” our genes. And I think that matters. Those of us who are lucky enough to be smart or beautiful singers or good looking should be grateful.
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22. But I don’t think Rawls is the solution. I think utilitarianism is, but that’s another thread
*Also worth noting that the REAL Rawls was more sophisticated than many who use his thought experiment. I am presenting the "those who use his thought experiment" version. I'm not a scholar of Rawls, so I'm not qualified to comment on his many discussions.