Just been reading ‘A Theory of Justice’ by John Rawls. Interesting stuff. I’m not entirely ready to express how I feel about it but (possibly due to listening to a song called ‘A Certain Romance’ frequently whilst reading it) one thing struck me about the book, the desire to inject an emotional core into ethical theory.
I think this is a valuable move, something which allows ethical principles to our-narrate its opponents, and is captured succinctly where he talks, near the end of the book, about reasons why we behave justly and likens it to love and furthermore that “the loves that hurt the least are not the best loves”. Talking about it as an engagement where we are hostage to the whims of others and the ruin of the self.
Now, obviously this argument is flawed, in many different ways. As an attempt to justify a universal account of justice (as he does in ToJ) it’s weak to the criticism that it is entirely possible to substitute the word ‘love’ with ‘madness’ an the sentence still make sense, alternatively you could counter him by arguing that the willing corruption of the self for others in this way is decidedly anti-human. It is better suited as an argument for a contingent ‘why are we just?’ rather than a demanding ‘why should we be just?’.
However I still find it interesting reading of Rawls, although since he abandons this argument later he’d probably disagree with me. I’m not attempting to build an unconquerable position but merely see where the road goes, and on that, has anyone been thinking the same way?
P.S. I was chatting to one of my lecturers a while ago (‘sigh uni is so far away’). About someone who published a paper / book re-examining the oft-assuming mutual exclusivity of emotion and reason, the historical root of the position and its falsity; how emotion is often rational and pure logic generally the greater danger. If anyone happens to know anything about such a book I’d be very interested, thanks.
Now, I know that to analyse your ideas on a subject based on one sentence is going to lead to error, the only things that can be summed up totally in so few words are barely worth discussing, but I’m surprised you like this, something that illustrates a universal aspect to man rather than a contingent element.
Plus his original position is fundamentally not man amongst nature but man among the clouds: it is man abstracted from reality, from being.
My analysis of his philosophy is limited to ‘A Theory of Justice’, due to my limited time I generally engage with texts rather than philosophers, but I see Rawls as a thinker driven by contradiction, that is, fuelled and controlled by the contradictions in his own thought. He seeks to erase inequalities but champions a society of class divides, he straddles two warring factions of justice to build a new ideal, he seeks to create a progressive philosophy but is the meek bride of Enlightenment thinking.
He struggles in the sandpit of his thought, his only solution to give his philosophy wings and leave the earth, leave reality and float among the clouds. He attempts to solve conflicts in his philosophy by presupposing the oft-debunked Liberal ideal man.
“I do not like your cold justice; and out of the eyes of your judges there always looks the executioner and his cold steel. Tell me, where is that justice which is love with open eyes?”
Rawls does not see reality with open eyes
(bonus points for knowing where the quote comes from without google )
Some say philosophy itself began as a search for ‘love’ via thought.
Personally I believe what we call ‘love’ is our unrecognized collective urge to reunite
as a whole undifferentiated conscious being, or field of consciousness.
This drive would be the instinctual force leading to the collapse of objective reality and all
it’s divisions of our primal energy in temporary patterns by one grand energetic cosmic orgaism which is perhaps the very explosion we call the ‘Big Bang’?
)