The Logic of Liberalism
By • 7/30/09 |
John Rawls: read him to learn how liberals think. |
My Prologue to a Political Philosophy article raised a fundamental question for the pro-white movement: whether to accept or reject what I called “consensus Western political principles”—mass democracy, respect for rights, and non-discrimination by race, religion, and so forth. Before we can answer this question, we must understand the logic behind these principles. Why do people believe that it is wrong to violate human rights, to discriminate on the basis of race, or to limit the vote to a certain segment of the population?
If you ask these questions of American political scientists and philosophers, they will likely base their answers on the work of John Rawls. This Harvard professor, who died in 2002, is considered by many to have been the greatest moral and political philosopher of the 20th century, particularly for his 1971 book A Theory of Justice, which is still central to philosophical discussions of justice. Despite my profound disagreements with Rawls, I consider his reputation substantially justified. His magnum opus is a masterpiece of logical thinking that has immensely enriched and clarified my own understanding of politics and morality.
Rawls represents a natural starting point in our exploration of political philosophy because he provides the strongest rationale for consensus principles that I am aware of. Moreover, Rawls seems to have captured commonsensical notions of justice; after all, Westerners do their best to build societies on Rawlsian lines, whether they have read him or not. Liberal democracies with welfare systems and other institutions designed to reduce inequalities are precisely what Rawls recommended. Finally, careful and systematic philosopher that he is, Rawls gives a detailed account of the premises on which his philosophy is based. My criticisms of Rawls will focus on these premises. This article, however, will deal entirely with the merits of Rawls’ philosophy, for we must appreciate these before going further.
Rawls clarifies the rationale not only for consensus principles, but also for the version of these principles we call “liberalism.” Liberalism is a notoriously tricky word that means many different things in different contexts. Here it is used in the colloquial American sense of the term, which fits Rawls quite well. In the United States, a “liberal” is someone who believes in the reduction of inequalities of all sorts and in the legitimacy of government intervention to achieve this goal. Because of their egalitarianism, liberals adopt leukophobic attitudes towards whites, who are judged to enjoy an unjustified privileged status. Liberals reject with outrage claims that there are innate racial differences in intelligence and other characteristics, as such differences tend to justify racial inequalities. While Rawls does not explicitly endorse all of these views, his philosophy is nevertheless very egalitarian in spirit and naturally leads to a liberal outlook.
I doubt anyone who reads this site feels much sympathy for liberals, and for good reason. After all, liberals’ blindness to racial differences results in manifestly unfair and destructive policies, as well as the demonization of whites. However, in our contempt for liberals, we often fail to understand the rationale for their worldview. Rawls reveals that there is a profound logic behind liberalism, which I had never appreciated before I read him. If we are to criticize liberalism effectively, we must understand the logic that makes it attractive. Also, to the extent that liberalism is philosophically justifiable, we should seek to include it in our own pro-white political philosophy.
Rawls’ Social Contract
Rawls begins with the reasonable premise that there are “primary social goods”—rights, liberties, opportunities, wealth, and self-respect—that are desired by every rational person.1 Every individual wants the maximum sum of these goods, and thus their interests are in conflict. How these goods are allocated depends on the social order—rights and wealth will be allocated to people differently in a monarchy than in a democracy, for example. A theory of justice is a theory of the fair allocation of primary social goods.
Of course, concepts of what is fair differ markedly from person to person—for example, some consider affirmative action fair because it compensates for historical oppression, and others consider it unfair because it gives some unmerited privileges over others. How are we to define what fair principles are? To answer this question, Rawls invents a version of the social contract, a venerable tool of political philosophy that is also used by Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. Social contract theories are philosophical fictions in which people debate the conditions under which they would agree to live together in a society. Essentially, a social contract theory is a way of imagining what society we would create if we were to design one from scratch. Of course, no one believes that such a contract has ever taken place; rather, social contract theories are fictions that facilitate reasoning about the nature of politics.
Rawls believes that fair principles for the distribution of primary social goods are those that would be chosen by people who were impartial towards any particular interest. However, it is unlikely that real, living people would be able to make truly disinterested decisions, as our interests shape our reasoning and perceptions. In order to explain what decisions people would reach if they were unencumbered by interests, Rawls uses the famous thought experiment of the “Original Position.” In the Original Position, a number of people in a given society are brought together to agree on fair principles. However, these parties to the social contract must choose their principles from behind what Rawls calls the “veil of ignorance.” The parties are deprived of all knowledge of their own identity and of the particular nature of their society. Thus the parties must formulate the principles without knowing what their actual race, sex, social status, or any other quality is. They also do not know whether their society is a wealthy or a poor one, racially homogeneous or heterogeneous, and so forth. In this way, the Original Position “[nullifies] the effects of specific contingencies which put men at odds and tempt them to exploit social and natural circumstances to their own advantage.”2 All of the parties to the contract have equal status in these negotiations, and they must agree unanimously on principles. Though they have no notion of the particular facts of their society, they do know the characteristics of societies in general as these have been ascertained by the human sciences.3
What principles would it be rational for the contracting parties in the Original Position to agree to? Rawls assumes that the parties will want to get the maximum sum of the primary social goods. However, since they must all agree on principles, it is unreasonable for any one of them to expect that he be privileged in any way. Consequently, the first principle that the parties will agree to is the principle of equal basic liberties: everyone must be given the most extensive scheme of basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme for everyone else. Rawls lists as basic liberties freedom of thought, freedom of the person (freedom from physical assault and dismemberment), the right to hold personal property, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure. The parties will also desire equal rights to participation in the society’s political process, and therefore the liberties that make this participation possible: freedom of speech and assembly and the right to vote and hold office.4
The distribution of wealth and income requires a different logic. One might think that the contracting parties would agree to equality of wealth just as they agreed to equal liberties. However, it is clear that some forms of economic inequality benefit everyone.5 Thus, the prospect of gaining great wealth may motivate an inventor to create a new technology that benefits society as a whole. In an economically egalitarian society, in which the inventor had no prospect of gaining great wealth, he would have less incentive to create the new technology, and the society would suffer.
Consequently, Rawls reasons that the parties would agree to accept the inequality in wealth that comes with a free market economic system, but with some restrictions. An economically unequal society tends to lead to social stratification, in which the wealthiest enjoy enormous advantages in opportunity and influence that work against the interests of the least advantaged, that is, those people who are born both without wealth and power and without the natural endowments necessary to attain them. Rawls reasonably assumes that the parties, in recognition of the fact that they could be among the least advantaged themselves, would want to make sure that this class of people has reasonable prospects for happiness. So the second principle that the parties agree to is that economic inequality is legitimate only if it works to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged class in society and if offices bringing high income are equally available to all people.6 Rawls names the two components of the second principle “the difference principle” and “the principle of fair equality of opportunity.”
What would the second principle mean in practice? Rawls envisions a free market system that sets the price of wages supplemented by various programs to increase equality, whether through direct payments to the needy or through an income supplement, whereby the government would add to the wages of low-wage workers. The government would ensure equal access to education through subsidies of schools. Equal access to desirable jobs would be enforced by government policing of the hiring practices of firms and private associations. The goal of taxation policy would be to bring about the greatest equality of income possible without seriously compromising the efficiency of the free market.7
Intuitive Justice
Rawls argues that there are two lines of support for his theory of justice. The first is the deductive line of reasoning that I have laid out so far, in which the principles of justice are deduced from assumptions about human nature and reasoning about the decisions the contracting parties would make in the Original Position. However, Rawls also believes that his theory is valid because it clarifies our intuitive sense of justice. Indeed, Rawls seems even to think that his concept of justice is universally present in man in a confused form and that he is merely clarifying it. He compares his work to that of Noam Chomsky: just as Chomskian linguistics aims to tease out the deep linguistic structure that generates grammar, so Rawls is defining the deep principles of justice embedded in the human mind.8
One of the merits of Rawls’ theory is that it does indeed make sense of many commonsensical moral judgments. From the perspective of the Original Position, it is clear why most Americans consider the racial discrimination immoral, for example. Since the parties to the social contract do not know anything about their real-world identity, they will not choose a racially discriminatory society because it is possible that they themselves are members of the subordinate race. As Rawls says,
From the standpoint of persons similarly situated in an initial situation which is fair [i.e., the Original Position], the principles of explicit racial doctrines are not only unjust. They are irrational. For this reason we could say that they are not moral conceptions at all, but simply means of suppression.9
Though Rawls never devoted detailed attention to matters of race, his principles nevertheless clarify liberal positions on racial issues. Affirmative action is straightforwardly justified by the principle that society ought to be arranged so as to bring the greatest benefit to the least advantaged. The motives for liberal race denial also become clear. Liberals feel obligated to reduce inequalities in wealth and power. They discredit and suppress scientific research proving natural racial differences in intelligence and morality because this research inevitably tends to justify racial inequalities and reduce the zeal to close them. Moreover, if one believes society should be arranged so as to benefit the least advantaged, it is natural to want to shield the members of this class from truths that would demoralize and wound them.
The Merits of Rawls’ Theory
There will be plenty of criticism of Rawls coming in future articles, but first we should understand his theory’s merits as a political philosophy. The first merit, that the theory clarifies intuitive moral judgments, has already been dealt with.
Rawls’ principles also have the merit of being impartial towards any particular interest. This does not mean that people in a Rawlsian society would be treated equally, as the least advantaged would be treated more favorably than others. Rather, Rawlsian justice is based on principles that impartial people would agree to. Such impartiality means that the principles are fair, and, if Rawls’ reasoning is correct, any deviation from them can be legitimately characterized as unfair.
Rawls’ principles have the virtue of being freely chosen—the parties to the social contract freely choose these principles over others in the Original Position. It can be plausibly argued that other principles for organizing a society are illegitimate because people would not have chosen them freely had they been given the choice.
A common criticism of leftist philosophies like Rawls’ is that they are based on the utopian assumption that man is a naturally altruistic creature whose current egoism is merely the result of unjust social conditions. Does Rawls’ make utopian assumptions about the extent of human altruism? I shall argue in the future that he does; however, we should give Rawls credit for the elements of realism that are present in his philosophy. Rawls’ description of the reasoning of the contracting parties is far from utopian. The principles that they agree to are founded in enlightened self-interest in that they represent the best compromise among self-interested individuals. Moreover, Rawls recognizes that the citizens will behave in self-interested ways even in a just society—he criticizes other leftists for their utopian vision of a society from which self-interest has vanished.10 It is for this reason that Rawls supports a free market economy, though a constrained one.
Rawls’ principles reflect enlightened self-interest in another way as well. The Rawlsian social contract requires that the most favored individuals transfer much of their wealth to the least advantaged. However, this sacrifice entitles the most favored to a guarantee that their own interests, and those of their progeny, will be looked out for if they fall from grace. Thus, Rawlsian principles compensate the present sacrifice of favored individuals with long-term advantages.
While I cannot do justice to Rawls’ detailed argumentation in favor of his theory, I can say I find it plausible that the parties to the social contract would arrive at principles at least approximately similar to Rawls’. Certainly, the reasoning that leads to the principles of equal basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity is straightforward. The difference principle, which dictates the fair distribution of wealth, is much more open to doubt; however, it seems reasonably certain that the parties would agree to some principle that attempted to reconcile equality of wealth with the benefits of the free market system.
The final merit of Rawls’ theory is that a society based on his principles, if it could ever be put into effect, would likely be a very happy one. By acknowledging each other’s rights and providing for the least advantaged, citizens in a Rawlsian society demonstrate their respect for each other’s well-being. Rawlsian citizens would be likely to enjoy a high level of self-respect, the most important of all the primary social goods, since this emotion is founded on the respect of others.11 A Rawlsian society would be characterized by a spirit of fraternity, or a family atmosphere of mutual concern.12 Such a society would not be one of winners and losers, but a true community in which no one could win unless all the others did too.
Doing Justice to Liberalism
The racial right finds liberalism so obviously destructive and unfair that we tend to imagine that liberals have immoral motives for their beliefs. For many racial right writers, such suspicions extend even to non-liberal advocates of consensus Western political principles. In the worst cases, like Kevin MacDonald, we are treated to a horrific narrative of “ethnic warfare”13 in which a power-hungry Jewish elite, intent on “destroying” white Gentiles, coerces them into accepting non-discrimination by race, minority preferences, and mass non-white immigration. While I have eschewed MacDonald’s anti-Semitism and incendiary language, I have also taken a very black view my opponents’ motives. Many is the article in which I have railed against the liberal elites and their “diversity snobbery.”
This paranoid interpretation of our political reality needs to be abandoned. A Theory of Justice lays bare the moral rationale for consensus Western political principles and their liberal variant. While it would be naive to suppose that motives like lust for power and snobbery play no role in the genesis of liberalism, it is both slanderous and unproductive to assume that these are liberals’ sole motives. Nor is it reasonable to believe that Americans have accepted a non-discriminatory society because they are cowards and dupes who have been swindled by malevolent elites. White Americans chose the politicians who legislated our current policies on race in free and fair elections. It is to hard to see how politicians whom voters perceived as hostile to their interests would ever get elected. Rather, it is much more likely that Americans were rationally persuaded of the morality of non-discrimination.
Doing justice to liberalism does not mean accepting it, but criticizing it in the right way. Future articles on White America will explain why the idealistic dreams of liberals risk making the world into a nightmare when they are put into practice. Ultimately, we will emerge with a conception of justice that is far sterner than Rawls’.
- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 54. ↑
- Ibid. 118. ↑
- Ibid. 119. ↑
- Ibid. 53. ↑
- Ibid. 132. ↑
- Ibid. 84. ↑
- Ibid. 242-52. ↑
- Ibid. 41-42. ↑
- Ibid. 130. ↑
- Ibid. 248-49. ↑
- Ibid. 156. ↑
- Ibid. 90-91. ↑
- Kevin MacDonald, “Psychology and White Ethnocentrism,” Occidental Quarterly 6, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 30. Link ↑
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I remember coming across Rawls in Ethics class a decade ago and I had about as high an opinion of him with regards to morality as I did of Kant and Singer — Not very.
Maybe I just don’t like sophism — since I have enough classical training to understand that ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ are distinct concepts. Justice is what is owed; fairness is equality or balance.
So: 1. People are rational 2. People follow enlightened self interest 3. Given 1 and 2, If people were in a state of unknowing they would choose equal distribution instead of Justice in the traditional sense
Now for the rabbit out of the hat.
Ergo: People should Choose Justice as Fairness as opposed to Justice as what-is-owed(Gk. Dike), even though they are not in the state of unknowing.
Assumption: people ‘should’ assume a state of unknowing. (And to give this assumption some authority — it is called the ‘original condition’)
Hmm. Why, if 2 is true? And if 2 is false, why 3?
But this is not just a matter of flawed logic. There is a deeper issue here, a moral Manicheaism seen in a number of philosophers, from Mill to Singer.
Most people believe in fairness — so fairness is taken to the extreme; it becomes radical equality. It becomes the definition of Justice or ‘what is right.’ It is, now, an obligation or ‘what is right,’ to start from fairness to decide ‘what is right’ — of course, based on the assumption that people don’t act for fairness. Why even bother with the sophism and just say — Fairness is Justice.
So yes, liberalism has a logic. It is the logic of radical equality. The converse is the logic or radical self-interest — You before others at all times, your own before their own at all times.
I am sorry, I have never been able to take this serious. I am surprised you do.
I must say that you have a very organized and intelligent writing style. This article also clearly displays “out of the box” thought. This is one of your more interesting writings.
Chuck,
Do you believe that society should be founded on “radical self-interest,” as you say? The result of that kind of ethic would something like Somalia, in my view.
The Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance (unknowing, to use your word) is a device used to assure that the principles governing society are impartial. If they are not impartial, but biased against one class of citizens, they have a basis for grievance against the state and may even render it unstable. Thus impartiality is necessary for the stability of a society. Moreover, it is quite plausible to think that a fair system is in everyone’s long-term interests, as it prevents disastrous outcomes for anyone in a society.
Ian
I do agree with your general point that the liberal ideas many of us oppose or find destructive are not without reason. So, to the extent that this article makes that point, I agree.
It is important to recognize the economic, social, and psychological factors underpinning and propelling liberalism. And to realize that it is not the liberal ideas per se,’ but liberalism we oppose. As Paracelsus says: ‘It’s the dose that makes the poison.’ Liberalism is problematic because it contains to much yin (equality, fairness, empathy, otherness) and to little yang (order, justice, loyalty, selfness) and because it is Manichean*
Liberal impulses like conservative ones are grounded in our psychology. They are distributed differently (between groups — say, men and women — and between individuals) and they are influenced by economics (affluence reduces peoples need for conservative impulses). There is plenty of empirical support for this. In addition, there is also a cultural influence; yet, of course, liberalism is not only a western thing — neo-confucists regularly confront liberals in Korea, which has it own multicultural project going.
So I agree that taking a larger view is important. If we want a realistic political picture, we need to assess where we are on the spectrum. If we find we are outliers, then we should have a different strategy, and perhaps different goal, than if we found we were typical, ‘but for’: ‘western decadence,’ or ‘media control,’ or ‘jewish influence,’ or ‘feminism,’ ect.
One advantage we have, is that we are willing to consider this and are not locked into the good/bad dichotomy. Politics views and weltanschauungen are like meals, when they are imbalanced and don’t supply the nutrients needed people get restless, when not sick and obese. Being able to point out what is missing, and market your ideas that way — instead of only as a need for a radical change can be politically useful. Though demonizing has its out political benefits, ones intellectual conscience aside.
That said, my disagreement with Rawls is not that he present liberal ideas or makes a case for these, but that the assumes these as his starting point.
*Manicheaism is more or less a western thinking pattern; ours has roots from both Hellenic and Semitic thought. It ties in with objective thinking in science and absolutists thinking in morality. Liberals think that way just as classical Christians did and classical racists did. Under such a thinking pattern, people do not say ‘X is good (for me, because I often like it) but ‘X IS good (and everyone should like it). We can debate when which is appropriate, but it is important to realize this is a larger cultural tendency, one you do not find tend to outside of Europe and the Near East.
I think that America is not a white country anymore for obvious reasons like being now controlled by blacks and other non whites, America’s culture is black culture, the white people are ignorant and fading into a weak minority.
It really seams that last elections marked a fundamental and irreversible change, exactly what Obama said(fundamentally change America), his change will be irreversible. Americans were too comfortable for too long, young white Americans are almost race blind and weak, focused on nothing important.
Also, very few young Americans study mathematics and science, more and more of university real teachers(mathematics, science, computers) are imported from India and elsewhere.
I would not care about America but once America is gone, it means Europe will be gone too( see Obama’s support for Turkey’s acceptance in European Union).
Once Turkey is accepted, Europe will be invaded by hundreds of millions of non whites.
Obama is the beginning of the end, he is much more than anything, anybody has ever imagined.
I’ll be interested to read your future criticisms of Rawls. My own criticism would start right at the beginning. It seems to me that Rawls has set up the framework of the debate in a way that excludes everything but liberalism. Why, for instance, should we accept the primary social goods as listed by Rawls? And why should we accept as “actors” a set of atomised and abstracted individuals with no natural forms of relation to each other?
Rawls is making second tier arguments. He has accepted a view of society in which an immense set of individuals pursue a self-interest. It then becomes important for liberals to find a way to harmonise such a potentially conflicting pursuit of individual self-interest. The liberal asks: what is a just way to organise such a society? (i.e. what is social justice).
Personally, I think the most effective approach is to draw things back to first tier arguments - this means looking at liberal assumptions about the nature of man and the purposes of man.
Ian,
Really great article. This is you at your best.
It’s no wonder that the early progressives were into eugenics. Behind the veil of ignorance, who in future generations would want to be born stupid, diseased or ugly? The fact the liberals reject eugenics, often even when voluntary, shows that they’re no longer being consistent and put egalitarianism above all else.
There are fundamental arguments we can make against Rawls’s philosophy too. For example, this veil of ignorance assumes a human being can decide what’s fair outside of a biocultural context. Socially conservatives may want to build a society where their kids won’t be promiscuous while Swipples might care more that their children don’t grow up to be bigots. There’s no human that exists outside of a particular culture that can decide from scratch which interest is more legitimate.
Mark Richardson,
I’ve written a rough statement of my ideas about human nature. Evolution naturally designs organisms to care first and foremost about their own interests and those of their own close relatives, so I think Rawls’ assumptions about human nature are on strong ground.
The communitarian argument that Rawls’ theory is invalid because the parties to the social contract have no ties to communities does not strike me as valid. While the parties have no knowledge of their own identities or of the characteristics of the society in which they live, they do know the general characteristics of society, and one of these is that people tend to live in communities. Thus the parties will take the social nature of man into account when they are formulating their principles. There is therefore no reason to believe that Rawls’ theory does not take account of the realities of communal existence.
Thanks Richard.
In Theory of Justice, written in 1971, Rawls himself speaks approvingly of eugenics! Of course, Rawls backed off this position in later years.
As I said just above, the parties to the social contract know all about human existence in general, so they are taking human biology and culture into account in their decisions. Thus their decisions are not divorced from considerations of culture and biology. The principles that the parties arrive at ought to be valid for all cultures, if Rawls’ assumptions are justified. Now it is possible to argue that the principles are not justified for some cultures, and I’m going to be doing that, but it requires much more of an argument to arrive at that position than you’re making.
Racial bigotry of any form would be rejected by the parties, again granting Rawls’ assumptions are true. Why would any party agree to a political society characterized by racial bigotry if it is possible that he himself is a member of the race that would be the victim of bigotry? The parties would also certainly agree that people had the right to be sexually promiscuous if they wanted—after all, they grant to each citizen the most extensive suite of liberties that is compatible with like liberties for everyone else.
Ian
“There is therefore no reason to believe that Rawls’ theory does not take account of the realities of communal existence.”
Mark’s point is dead on. I don’t get what you are missing.
Yes, if an individual decides to make decisions from under the veil, then maybe he will end up with what Rawls says. He will choose this based of self interest, since community ties and other info are washed away.
Ok….Why would he put on the veil? Especially if he acts out of self interest and community ties in the first place and has no concept of or concern for ‘suum agere’ (to each his deserve).
Or better yet, since this is a ‘theory of justice’ … why should he? How is choosing the veil the right thing? Why not start from what you have now and decide accordingly?
Imagine I have $100 and you have $10 and there is some dispute on a past loan. Normally we would argue and decide what we really deserve. Maybe I owe you $20 and you owe me $5, so I should have $85 to your $25. Why would/should we say, ok, to be fair lets just pretend we don’t have a clue and assume we both have equal amounts? — and then decide who owes what form there.
Rawls’ starting point is an assumed: people should act disinterested and indifferent to their own when setting up the initial position. (The veil of ignorance just means — decide without taking into account what you have and how you are related to others.)
Ok, why?
And why after I decide to clear my accounts and equalize everything, should I suddenly make decisions based on self interest. If i am so predisposed to fairness that I am going to choose a situation that promotes it, why wouldn’t I continue this way and end up with suum agere?
Fairness is a human instinct, but so is getting what one worked for.
There is an overlap, but fairness is not justice, except in the mind of Rawls.
If I wasn’t going to adopt a classical theory of justice, I would likely go with one close to Kaufmanns in ‘Without Guilt and Justice’
Hmmm. I did and internet search on this and see it is growing in popularity; I remember studying this a decade ago and it was a non-issue.
Chuck,
While I did make some remarks about the strengths of Rawls’ system in this article, your comment has convinced me that I really ought to go back and make the reasons why I find it of value clearer, as well as setting up my eventual critique. So that will be in my next article.
Here are the main arguments in favor of a fair society set up along Rawlsian lines—I’ll probably find more. First, such a society would be highly stable, as no one would have any reasonable grounds to claim that he was being treated unfairly. In a society that is biased towards one individual or group, the unfairly treated groups have legitimate grounds for grievance, which can result in social disorder.
Moreover, a fair society is in the enlightened self-interest of everyone. In a fair society, even the worst off aren’t treated too badly, so you know that, however badly things might go for you or your family, you will never be treated too badly. In an unfair society, the lot of the worst off can be a nightmare of poverty, humiliation, and even slaughter. Of course, the sight of human misery naturally grieves and depresses us, which is another argument in favor of setting up a society in which misery was as rare as possible.
A fair society would be characterized by a high level of fraternity and trust. Such a spirit not only makes interactions with one’s fellow man more enjoyable, but also would likely result in concrete economic benefits, as high levels of trust are conducive to prosperity. In societies where low levels of trust prevail, people are reluctant to do business with each other out of fear they might be cheated. General trust in a population lowers the risks and costs of doing business.
You seem to be under some misconceptions about Rawls’ theory. You said above that Rawls was arguing for “radical equality” and just above you say Rawls wants us to “equalize everything.” While Rawls does believe in equality of rights, he does not believe in economic equality. While the wealthy would have to pay hefty taxes to support a welfare state, people in the Rawlsian society would be paid according to their value in the free market, just as they are today. Inasmuch as one’s merit determines the value of one’s labor, merit would be rewarded.
You may be right that people who are very wealthy and successful would refuse to accept the Rawlsian contract. But if they did not, the rest of the population would have legitimate grounds for revolution. Given that powerful incentive, as well as the other benefits of the just society, I think eventually the wealthy would agree to accept the terms of justice.
And all of this is only true provided Rawls’ assumptions are accurate, as I keep on saying, tantalizing everyone with the next stage of my argument. As the guy who runs the website White America and who has defended the practice of racial discrimination in my articles, you ought to be able to guess that I am not a Rawlsian. However, I do find Rawls of great value in understanding what justice is, and I believe we must understand him before going further.
Regarding Rawls, and modern liberalism in general:
There are far too many preconceptions at work in the formulation of modern liberalism, far too many hidden assumptions, at work. For one, it is by no means clear that justice is equivalent or even similar to fairness. Justice might very well boil down to Thrasymachus’ formulation as “the advantage of the stronger.” (Note that this, too, is what Thucydides puts in the mouths of the Athenian in their discussions with the Melians.)
Justice might very well be just the thing we all want, but if we’re not clear on what justice is, then the entire exercise is pointless.
The radical, materialist vision of modernity is presupposed by all theories of modern liberalism; there’s just no getting around it. Consider an alternative formulation, beginning with the understanding of human beings not as atomistic individuals (their condition in Modernity, and so a comparatively recent status, and one without much precedent in human history), but as they are at their core: “Rational, social, mortal animals,” to paraphrase Aristotle. The state, then, is that arrangement of the affairs of these creatures, with the ideal or best state being that one which best comports with the nature of human beings. That is, it should be a civitas that, at a minimum, does not prevent the development of rationality and sociability, and, at the maximum, allows the development of these characteristics to their fullest. We evaluate a system of agriculture based on its success with producing a given crop - there’s no reason not to evaluate systems of social organization along similar lines, especially since political science is the pre-eminent practical science.
Ian, this has been highly relevant and enjoyable material to read, but I think all of this is covered ground.
Given your past with American Renaissance, I assume you are familiar with Frank Salter’s work On Genetic Interests. In it, Salter (a respected Max Planck researcher) presents an entire ethical and philosophical framework that essentially promotes race realism, through what he terms “universal nationalism,” or some degree of ethnic homogeneity and nepotism in societies. This work incorporates remarks on ethical systems from Kant to Walzer to Rawls.
Salter comes to the same conclusions that some of you have hinted at here and that Ian seems to be inching towards: the actors in Rawls’ “original position” (even if we grant that we “should” take such a position) would come to very different conclusions than the ones that Rawls does in constructing an ideal system. Salter’s work shows that Rawls’ flaws result from incorrect assumptions about human nature: “Biological realism qualifies all abstract ethics.”
In sum, all of you here interested in this conversation and sympathetic toward the PWM should read Salter’s book, as he has already hashed out these questions in painstaking detail in a sociobiological framework. You can even check out the chapter in question, “On the Ethics of Defending Genetic Interests”, for free in a Google Books search (the chapter begins on page 283). Various professors, including the giant E.O. Wilson, offer praise on the back of Salter’s work. It really is a mystery how such a revolutionary book has been well-received (but of course not incorporated into public policy decisions).
Scott,
The thing is that Salter and I aren’t making the same point. He’s saying that partiality to one’s ethne is morally permissible or even admirable because it is natural to favor one’s own genes over others. My point is that a just society depends on the moral character of its citizenry and that one may be obligated to deny rights to immoral people in order to preserve the stability of society. I’m talking therefore about favoring moral people rather than one’s own ethne. In my way of looking at things, race would only enter in if one race is more moral than others. I will later be giving consideration to Salter, as he has worked out the most elaborate pro-white philosophy of the racial interests kind, as I called it in my Prologue article.
This article, however, will deal entirely with the merits of Rawls’ philosophy, for we must appreciate these before going further.
And presumably we must do so for some other reason than genetic similarity.
Nuts. We need do no such thing.
There are two a priori assumptions in Rawl’s thought that I’m not in full agreement with.
(1) “Rawls begins with the reasonable premise that there are “primary social goods”—rights, liberties, opportunities, wealth, and self-respect—that are desired by every rational person.1 Every individual wants the maximum sum of these goods, and thus their interests are in conflict.”
It is not true that “every individual” wants the maximum sum of wealth possible. I, for one, would NOT want more than a middle-class status of personal wealth. If I did have greater wealth than this, I would spend all of it on helping those of my in-group who can best use is — especially in helping educate the youth.
(2) Whereas I do agree that self-respect could easily and sensibly mean believing that what one is doing with one’s life is worthwhile, I am not sure that every person looks at it this way. Nevertheless, such self-respect is not entirely dependent on the approval of others. I actually believe that what others think of me is relatively unimportant. All that matters is that my conscience is clear. Rawls confuses self-respect with a clear conscience to a considerable degree, in my opinion.
Good article, I share a Rawlian sense of justice in that I want to live in a society without gross inequalities in power, wealth and status and where even the people on the lowest rung of society can live dignified lives. These are desirable, but not everything we want is affordable in nature.