A friend of mine who blogs heavily on philosophical topics over at Livejournal, and, I might add, who is linked as Vintage Piranha in my extensive philosophical blogroll, has attempted to prove the thesis that political liberalism is morally required since feline mammals exist. Well, not quite. Actually, the argument covers too much territory in too brief a space (though Tom is, of course, correct in asserting the truth of metaethical intuitionism, a theory which Tom hopefully agrees yields the result that ethical intuitionism is also true). In any case, the fifth and sixth premises of the argument offered are where most of the debate will hinge. The fifth premise of the argument, which asserts that reflective equilibrium entails contractarianism, looks obviously false. There are interesting epistemological questions lurking in the vicinity, but for the sake of argument and because Rawls himself eschews epistemological interpretations in favor of purely pragmatic political reasonsing, let's grant premise five and move on to premise six:
(6) If a broadly contractarian view is correct, then philosophical liberalism is true.
Tom's defense for (6) consists largely of the assertion that John Rawls proved (6). In the first place, this is a highly controversial assertion. Since there is widespread disagreement over whether or not Rawls actually succeeded in establishing political liberalism from a contractarian basis constrained by massive ignorance, arguments for liberalism which rely upon Rawls will have to engage this widespread disagreement rather than merely assert that everyone who does so disagree has failed to perceive the soundness and validity of Rawls argument. We cannot, of course, expect Tom to interact with all the sources of this disagreement, however, so, for the purposes of sparking debate, I will offer one argument to the effect that Rawls failed to establish his thesis.
To justify the forced redistribution of wealth and property, something some of us consider theft, Rawls envisaged a particular situation by which a community may arrive at political principles. This situation, known as the Original Position, is characterized by the members of the community engaging in self-interested deliberation while stuck in a point of view which renders them massively ignorant about what their position in the community would be. Now Rawls makes the claim that the correct principles of justice are all and only those procedurally arrived at principles which can find their basis in the argumentation-based consensus of The Original Position. First, one brief point: this claim is false. It is false because the class of true principles of justice is not necessarily identical with the class of procedurally based principles of justice. But let's set this argument aside and suppose that Rawls is thus far correct.
We are now stuck behind The Veil of Ignorance in The Original Position. According to Rawls, if we now follow his procedure we will be able, through reflective equilibrium, to reach some consensus on which principles of justice we should adopt for use outside The Original Position. These principles would, Rawls goes on to claim, be principles that have the property of being such that inequalities are just only if they provide the greatest benefit to the least advantaged or worst off members of society. (This brings Robin Hood to mind...) Note the direction of the necessary condition. Rawls is quite permissive when it comes to inequality, something that, given the title of one of his works, Justice as Fairness, you might not expect. Furthermore, it follows from this principle that no inequality is just unless it does, in fact, provide the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society. Thus, should some existing inequality neither benefit nor harm the worst off, the inequality is nonetheless unjust. You should now be going, "Huh?"
Now it is my contention, and, I take it, should be Tom's contention as well (given the truth of both metaethical and ethical intuitionism), that this is obviously false. It is absolutely absurd to say that inequalities are always and in every case unjust unless they are the best means of promoting the welfare of the worst-off members of society. It would be just as absurd to say that inequalities are always and in every case unjust unless they are the best means of diminishing the welfare of the best-off members of society. But enough of that. I now contend that rational members deliberating in the Original Position would accept, on the basis of ethical intuitionism, a complex conditional I will call the Worst-Off-Virgin Sacrifice Principle.
(VSP) If there happens to be a young virgin who counts as the worst-off member of society, then, should the population of said society be sufficiently large such that every member of The Original Position has an exceedingly low likelihood of actually being that virgin, and, should the sacrifice of that virgin benefit all the members of the population greatly while harming no one save the virgin, then that virgin should be sacrificed for the greater good.
It is my claim that the rational individuals stuck behind The Veil of Ignorance would and should agree upon this principle. The principle, it is true, asks for a Christ-like sacrifice for all of humanity, but given the stipulated massive benefits that would accrue to the rest of humanity, one might take (at least in certain carefully described cases) the sacrifice to be morally obligatory. Utilitarianism is false, and I wish to stress that I am making no appeal to utilitarianism as a moral theory in general to buttress this case, but it is surely true that we do have many utilitarian intuitions. Anti-utilitarians like myself recognize that some of these intuitions are justified, but refrain from attempts to systematize them into an absurd and counterintuitive moral theory. Nevertheless, the concrete case intellectual seemings that do accord with utilitarianism cannot be dissmised simply because they do so accord. After all, utilitarianism do sometimes get the right answer. That said, the case could be further strengthened. The VSP could be modified such that the sacrifice of the worst-off virgin resulted in the staving off of systematic torture and extermination of a large class of soon-to-be babies. (Since these babies do not currently exist, they cannot be said to be the worst-off members of society.) Now if, as I claim, this principle would be accepted (in large part due to the low probability that any member of the original position would in fact turn out to be that virgin), then, since I have stipulated that the virgin referenced in the principle is the worst-off member of society, Rawls will not get the moral property he needs out of the Original Position. There will be a least one principle agreed upon which does not arrange inequalities such that they benefit the worst-off member of society.
Now to wax Nozickian. A just distribution of goods arises from a prior just distribution of goods by legitimate means. If a particular distribution of goods is maximally just, then any forced redistribution of those goods will be unjust. Suppose, hypothetically, that one starts with a society in which the distribution of goods is maximally just. Now introduce one new member into that society. We now have an inequality. Unless this inequality benefits our new member of society, the inequality is unjust, and, according to the proponent of political liberalism, must be remedied by forced (rather than voluntary) redistribution. Indeed, we would have agreed to this in the original position, or so says Rawls. Hogwash, I say.
I'll finish by pointing out that when idealistic political liberals promote systems which foster the forced redistribution of goods, they will always do so in a way that violates the rights of some (often many) individuals. This is, unfortunately, how a society with a monopoly on force and the right to take money at will, a society which political liberals seem to value and continue to vote in favor of, will function in the real world. For example, I have the "opportunity" to get thrown in prison for failing to "donate" money so that the maximal state can enforce my inability to purchase an inexpensive beer on Sunday. I also have the "opportunity" to "donate" money so that the maximal state can incarcerate and ruin the lives of individuals who choose to smoke a plant, therby giving these poor individuals the "opportunity" to "repent of their wickedness" and "fix their life". I also have the "opportunity" to finance a police force which tases suspected salad thieves. At least, this is how our current system of forced redistribution operates. This is not to say that some minimal amount of forced redistribution could never be necessary, but I think people should think long and hard about setting up the means to take goods from some and give them to others. As far as I can tell, most political liberals seem to think that they are justified in forcing their morality on others in a very broad fashion. I'm uneasy about the lack of qualms I perceive in the position which insists on permitting people to do as they see fit with their lives, in so far as they don't violate the rights of others, but enforces the moral demand that one donate money to the impoverished by backing the "donation" with guns.
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