Title: Personal Continuity and Instrumental Rationality in Rawls’ Theory of Justice
Abstract:I want to examine the implications of a metaphysical thesis which is presupposed in various objections to Rawls' theory of justice. 1 Although their criticisms differ in many respects, they concur in ...I want to examine the implications of a metaphysical thesis which is presupposed in various objections to Rawls' theory of justice. 1 Although their criticisms differ in many respects, they concur in employing what I shall refer to as the continuity thesis.This consists of the following claims conjointly:(1) The parties in the original position (henceforth the OP) are, and know themselves to be, fully mature persons who will be among the members of the well-ordered society (henceforth the WOS) which is generated by their choice of principles of justice.(2) The OP is a conscious event among others, integrated (compatibly with the constraints on knowledge and motivation imposed on the parties) into the regular continuity of experience that comprises each of their ongoing constitutes lives.(3) The parties in the OP thus are, and regard themselves as, psychologically continuing persons, partially determined in personality and interests by prior experiences, capable of recollection and regret concerning the past, anticipation and apprehensiveness regarding the future, and so on.Thus, for example, some early criticisms of Rawls' Theory of Justice 2 centered on what they took to be the individualistic assumptions embodied in the OP: Adina Schwartz argued that Rawls' assumption that the parties prefer a greater rather than a lesser amount of primary goods would contribute to a WOS based on a preference for more rather than less wealth, and that this condition would be unacceptable to one who discovered herself to be a socialist. 3Similarly, Thomas Nagel 4 argued that the very concept of primary goods biases the choice of principles individualistically, against conceptions of the good that depend on the social interrelationships among individuals, and so may require the parties in the OP to commit themselves to a set of social arrangements that contravenes their deepest convictions once the veil of 1 This discussion originated as a graduate seminar paper for Professor John Rawls in 1976, and I amRead More