Are individuals in Rawls’ system of democratic equality free? Rawls claims that there are three criteria to any liberty: 1) the agents who are free, 2) the restrictions or limitations which they are free from, and 3) what it is that they are free to do or not to do (177). A person is at liberty to do something “when they are free from constraints either to do it or not to do it and when their doing it or not doing it is protected from interference by other persons” (177). Under Rawls’ two principles of justice, I am unsure if a person actually is at liberty to do what she wants. According to Rawls, the natural lottery determines a person’s talents and abilities, and the arbitrary social environment helps to develop or inhibit these talents and abilities. Therefore, it is completely random if you are the most advantaged or least advantaged person within a society. If you are randomly the most advantaged, your actions are limited to those that not only raise your own well being but also raise the well being of the least advantaged. If you are randomly the least advantaged person in a society, then you can work to better yourself with the knowledge that those more advantaged than you must also help you raise your well being. In this scenario, it seems that the least advantaged then have more liberty to do what they please, while the most advantaged have their choices more constrained. Free will might still be present but it is severely restricted. Should this be a problem when constructing principles of justice?
I am curious to see how you all would interpret Rawls’ stance on free will and if there is room for it within his system of democratic equality.
Isabella,
ReplyDeleteI had a similar question about the limitations of liberty on the most advantaged in my tutorial paper. After discussing it, it seems like this sort of liberty is not protected in Rawls's principles of justice because the liberty of the most advantaged to do as they please is not necessarily protected by the first principle of justice. Or if it is, it is not clear in his writing that it is. I also think that you bring up an interesting point about the worst off possibly having more liberty, but I think that I would disagree here. Perhaps they have more liberty in the basic sense that their actions are not as limited by the difference principle, but it seems to me that they would have less liberty in the sense of the third criteria to liberty that Rawls lists. Because they are the worst off, they will have less resources (such as time, or skill or talent) to take advantage of things that they are technically free to do. Or, perhaps the free will of both parties are restricted, and the question is whether it is done so equally or fairly. Free will may pose a problem to principles of justice if people's choices are constricted to a certain extent, which I do think it can be argued that this system might do.
If you are one of the most advantaged representative, seemingly you can use your considerable resources to pursue your own conception of the good, whatever it is. If you want to build a building at CMC, or buy a Penthouse on the Upper East Side, or put Homeboy Industries on firm financial footing, you can do any of these things. The basic structure is set up in accordance with principles that support laws designed to maximize the status of the least advantaged representative person, but within that structure can't each individual do whatever they want? By the way, cool post!
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