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I may have mischaracterized Rawls, but I remain very leery of an excessive reliance on reason or reasonableness, especially as a guide to radical changes in social organization. To me much of the problem with Obama could be said to be due to him employing a Rawlsian approach.

Again from Nonpartisan's diary:

Looking at the second case, (feeling that one should not have to work with certain kinds of people), we can quickly see that populism is not permitted in the Rawlsian world.  "Throw the bums out," as Ross Perot put it, is a distinctly un-Rawlsian sentiment.  You can't throw the bums out, because the bums want to be there and are willing to work with you.  The only way to get rid of political figures you don't like -- not just to remove them from office, but to prevent them from exercising substantive political influence -- is to wait for them to retire.  Rawls' overlapping consensus is so welcoming, so all-encompassing, that it denies the voting public the right to choose who influences their government.  This is particularly problematic when it comes to powerful corporations and special interests.  Corporate fat cats always want influence and are willing to work with anyone in power, so they can't be removed from a Rawlsian government, even though they usually don't represent the best interests of the people.  Sure, you can vote the party in power out of office, but the corporations will just cosy up to the new party in power, and nothing will change.  There's something profoundly undemocratic about a system where the people have to play Whack-A-Mole with nefarious characters who refuse to stay out of power no matter how many times they're sent packing.

This becomes particularly serious when the people you don't feel you should have to work with are the very ones that have massively disproportionate influence -- as at present with the banksters.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu Sep 30th, 2010 at 06:31:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You are touching a different subject than the one I had in mind.
Rawlsian consensus is the other main chapter of his body of work -I was writing about ethics and in particular the idea that one's position in society should no be taken into account, and that improving the situation of the least favoured should be a major yardstick.

And yes you have a point with your reserves about the Rawlsian consensus, although in that case I think the main problem is something else: Republicans have thrown out of the debate those who argued that government was not always the problem through 50 years of propaganda. They were not thrown out because they did not want to take part in a reasonable discussion. They certainly did not exclude themselves.

It's more an Overton window problem, with Obama not willing to try to move it. Actually, Republicans are out of the Rawlsian consensus (they will block ANYTHING so they probably are the antithesis of the Rawlsian consensus), but they occupy most of the Overton window.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Fri Oct 1st, 2010 at 05:03:52 AM EST
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It's more an Overton window problem, with Obama not willing to try to move it.

If I take Nonpartisan's intent correctly, that may be because Obama sees the banksters as part of the consensus. They are certainly more than willing to work with him, even if that really involves him working for them, in practice.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Oct 1st, 2010 at 03:19:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I was writing about ethics...

But ethics are specific to the society. The first three search results for the word "ethics" via google bring up the statement that ethics are synonomous with morality or mores. Mores is, ultimately, the customary behavior of a people.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Oct 2nd, 2010 at 08:21:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But that is a mistake.

Just like legality and legitimacy are not the same thing, ethics and morality are not the same thing.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Oct 2nd, 2010 at 09:29:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But like legitimacy, ethics depend on the society you are in and, particularly, the constraints it faces. It is clearly unethical to leave malformed newborns to die of exposure in a modern industrial state - or even in a premodern state with relatively strong social safety nets. But if you're a subsistence farmer in a premodern state with no support for handling handicapped children, and you're only barely surviving as it is, then it's a lot more of a grey area.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Oct 3rd, 2010 at 06:01:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Perhaps I should have elaborated. Just because ethics and morality are often taken as being synonymous does not mean that they are. My point was that, like mores, ethics is specific to the culture, however much some ethicists might want to make them universal.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Oct 3rd, 2010 at 11:42:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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