From: Clifford Anderson
[torvesta@surewest.net]
Sent: Sunday, August 23, 2009 10:36 AM
To: Cliff Anderson
Subject: Study Questions, Rawls,Chap1
Phil 122 Study Questions on Rawls, Chapter One
Section One
(a) Rawls writes “Justice is the first virtue of social
institutions”. What are the implications
of this assertion? Do the ruling elites
of the
(b) What is a well-ordered society?
What is the significance of this notion?
The citizenry of the
Section Two
(a) Rawls’ focus throughout the book is the “basic structure” of society, by which he means the organization and function of the major social institutions of the society. What are some examples of major social institutions? Why does he think the basic structure should be the focus of a theory of justice, rather than the justice of individual transactions between persons?
(b) Why does Rawls say the major social institutions cannot possibly be justified by appeal to merit or desert?
(c) What does Rawls mean by strict as opposed to partial compliance theory?
Section Three
(a) What is the social contract approach to understanding justice?
(b) What is the “original position”? Who gets to be in the original position? Why does Rawls take this unusual approach to make his case for his principles of justice?
(c) Why does Rawls call his theory of justice “justice as fairness”?
Section Four
(a) What is the point of the veil of ignorance in the original position? What are the parties ignorant of?
(b) In what ways are the parties in the original position equal and in what ways perhaps unequal?
(c) Are the parties to the orginal position egoists?
(d) Why should we care about agreements reached in the original position since it only results in a hypothetical contract, that is, an agreement we supposedly would reach if we actually were in the original position?
(e) Rawls remarks that the principles of justice in his theory can be shown to follow from rational choice theory. This is somewhat misleading. Do you see why?
Section Five and Six
(a) What is the one basic ground-level principle in utilitarian theory?
(b) What general feature of utilitarianism, according to Rawls, accounts for its appeal (at least from a philosophical standpoint).
(c) Utilitarians try to maximize the good, but what counts as intrinsically good is a matter of great debate. Give some examples.
(c) Rawls faults utilitarianism on the grounds that it fails to take seriously the “distinction among persons”. Illustrate what he means here by an example.
(d) Rawls also faults utilitarianism because in calculating overall well-being, everyone’s desires must be counted equally, regardless of their quality. Why is this a fault?
(e) Justice as fairness is a deontological theory, not teleological. What do these terms mean?
Sections Seven and Eight
(a) He thinks our ordinary, common sense approach to the decisions we have to make is intuitionist. What does he mean by this? Illustrate his point by an example.
(b) The intuitionist, as Rawls defines him, thinks there are many basic moral principles and yet we have no systematic way of resolving disputes when these principles come into conflict. Why does the intuitionist think there is no solution here?
(c) Rawls is going to try to answer the intuitionist by giving his principles a priority ranking, such that in cases of conflict, the principle of higher priority must be complied with. What would be an example, at the common sense level, of two moral principles that have come into conflict?
Rawls’ two principles of justice will be given a lexical priority ranking. What does this mean?
Section Nine
(a) What does Rawls mean by our “considered judgments” of justice?
(b) If things work out properly in the original position, then the principles of justice that everyone eventually agrees upon should be in reflective equilibrium with our considered judgments of justice. There should be a good “fit” between our abstract principles and our intuitive judgments of what is just and unjust. Given that people have quite different perspectives on what is morally right and wrong, is Rawls being naive in thinking we can ever reach a state of reflective equilibrium?