ON RAWLS' THEORY OF JUSTICE


1. I find Rawls' \F1just society\F0 depressing - mainly because I like
being rewarded according to ability.

2. The book never considers the existence of more than one society
and so never considers that a society might have to be stable with
regard to some of its members being tempted to emigrate to a society
that rewards them more.  In fact, this is a real question, and all
communist ruled societies have emigration control.  Before the
Berlin Wall, East Germany lost 3,000,000 people.  Does Rawls consider
the Berlin Wall a legitimate way of enforcing justice?
Presumably not - so his neglect of emigration stability is a
serious defect.

	Likewise, the reason Harvard pays good salaries is to
attract good people rather than because they deserve the good
salaries.  Is this form of competition considered legitimate?

3. Who are the worst off?  From context one would suppose that
some social group like uneducated feeble-minded black women is
meant.  A person in the process of dying from a painful disease
is somehow not a candidate for the worst off person.  Why?
Perhaps because it makes "justice as fairness" absurd, because
we could spend half the GNP on entertainment for the dyiwg
one and alleviate his misery only a trifle.  According to
Rawls' theory, we must do this.

4. When no further expenditure will alleviate the misery of the
worst off, we still may be able to help the second worst off.
The theory says nothing of this.

5. People almost never adopt the maximin strategy that Rawls
advocates.  The worst that can happen is also an utter
disaster, and people seem to ignore small risks of great
disaster.  Therefore, the proposition that it would
be chosen in the "original position" also seems dubious

6. The word "goods" is used 
inconsistently.  Sometimes it is used to mean any good thing
that can happen or good state like self respect, and other
times it is used in connection with the concept of allocation.
It is not clear that self respect can be allocated.
or given.  To a first approximation, it depends on what the
person does and cannot be given to him by others.