Having read the texts, something struck me in regards to Rawls notion of liberalism. Firstly, while i agree that on some fundamental levels the rational self interests of varying parties may indeed be met at a middle ground for a scoiety to form and function, it appears (at least to my untrained eye) that, despite Rawls attempts to work around it, the theory still seems to be undermined by the subjective nature of self interest.
For example, say indeed society forms and everyone is more or less in an equal position. And within the least advantaged position, one group of people decides that for their notions of liberty, it is in their self interest to live in a safe neighbourhood. As such, they determine what behaviours may or may not be considered a threat to that notion, and thus move to have "unsafe" behaviours banned. However, another grouping from the same socio-econimc tier say that the banning of this behaviour infringes on their notions of liberty, and move to have the opposing group blocked.
From my perspective it is an impasse, as both sides are dealing with the top tiered set of political rights, both are from the same socio-economic tier, so it could be said denying either side their political right would equally improve the position of the least advantaged, and both are acting according to their notion of rational self interest.
One could counter I suppose by saying that within the veil of ignorance such specific notions of rational self interest are irrelevant, but if thats the case, then the whole theory becomes unwieldly and impossible to be practically applied. Now it could be (and probably is) that ive just misread what he had written but an answer to this problem would be appreciated :)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
It begins!!!
Mwahahahaha!!!!! Finally a place where people have to listen to my irritating philosophical rantings. Abandon hope all ye who enter here mwahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!!!!........
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