Justin Schwartz wrote:
> > It's a very attractive idea, one that has dominated modern political
> > philosophy for the 30 years since the publication of A Theory of Justice,
> > and it is certainly deep and extraordinarily rich. I think it is wrong, but
> > wrong the way the great philosophical ideas are wrong.
Peter Kosenko:
> What you described sounds like humanism via
> "negative capability." Since we have no
> preconception of the "value" of the other, we must
> perforce grant them the humanity we grant
> ourselves. A new (old?) twist on the categorical
> imperative (and thus we get back to Habermas).
> But what is it that you think is wrong with the
> idea? Is it the negative construction? True
> humanism would consist not in blindness to the
> other but in recognition of their actual real
> human needs?
The Veil of Ignorance doesn't really _do_ anything (just as the Categorical Imperative doesn't really do anything). Suppose you follow Aristotle in thinking classical slavery is a good idea; then under both schemes, you can continue to believe in it, and believe that even if you had to be a slave, you would still choose slavery, because it's better for everybody. Or at least you could profess this belief, as have many slavery enthusiasts.
The CI and the VI might be regarded as trips: the CI swells up our area of moral concern to the whole universe and we become godlike; the VI shrinks us down to the tiny ignorance of the newborn, even the unconceived, and we become conscious of our dependency on everything around us. So they're entertaining, like other drugs. But in themselves they don't seem to suggest any particular moral or political order. That's off the stage somewhere, to be introduced when the target has become giddy.
-- Gordon