Comments on: de Jasay and Smartification

By: Gene Callahan

Gene Callahan — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 01:39:47 +0000

James, I think to make this work, however, Rawls has to reduce the diverse citizenry to essential contentless points of rationality. Then we get the conclusion, “If we are all identical, we will be able to reach a political consensus.” It falls apart as soon as anyone knows as much about themselves as, say, how much risk they enjoy/can tolerate.

By: James

James — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 08:50:21 +0000

Re: de Jasay’s remark on Rawls, the basis for Rawls’ version of the social contract is that the ideal form of the state is the one that people would agree to if they knew nothing about themselves and had to form such an agreement from behind a “veil of ignorance.” De Jasay is pointing out that Rawls departs from his stated assumption of zero self knowledge when he dismisses the possibility that the parties refuse to bargain and walk away from the table. I’m normally a much bigger fan of de Jasay than Rawls, but on this one I think Rawls’ case survives de Jasay’s attack with minor modification. Rawls assumes that rational people make choices that limit their worst case risk. If they don’t know who they are, they prefer a society in which the worst off are as well of as possible. Similarly, in forming a contract, ANY contract is better in terms of worst case risk than leaving the table and hoping for the best.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 03:31:33 +0000

Great! I declare it smart-ass-ifying.

By: Greg Newburn

Greg Newburn — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 03:24:27 +0000

It’s back in full effect, Will, and it’s better than ever!

If you ever read it you’d know that already.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:08:36 +0000

Tim, The argument was just that Rawls is inconsistent about his idea of ideal theory. Within the context of my larger project, I wanted to show that Rawls himself doesn’t take ideal theory as strict compliance theory seriously, which indicates that ideal theory can’t be that useful unless it is somewhat less idealized. In which case empirical questions about psychology and institutions become more important than Rawls makes them out to be. And a more empirically robust model conceptions of the person and the well ordered society will lead us to reject out of hand, as de Jasay says,

Rawls’s bland view of the redistributive process as painless and costless, and of the state as an automatic machine which dispenses “social decisions” when we feed our wishes into it.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:03:39 +0000

Tim, No, I never finished the paper. I quit working on my dissertation and started working at Cato! I do hope to get back to it, though.

Greg, I understand from inside sources that the Teaser is defunct.

By: Greg Newburn

Greg Newburn — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:00:42 +0000

Haven’t you forgotten someone, Will? The Teaser??

By: Tim W

Tim W — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:48:29 +0000

Will, the latter one makes the most sense to me as a possibility.

On your earlier post- did you ever get that damn Rawls article done? And I still am not sure about the argument you make in your earlier post. Raz for example, argues that even a society of angels would need a legal system to coordinate among permissible moralities.
(Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (2nd edn, 1990), pp. 159–60.)

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 14:23:28 +0000

I'm not sure exactly what de Jasay is saying here. Rawls WAS awful sloppy about the justfication of state power. Maybe you remember this post in which I accues Rawls of sliding back and forth between ideal theory as strict compliance theory, which implies no need for the state as a mechanism of assurance, threat and coordination, and an ad-hoc, just- enough-compliance theory. Perhaps de Jasay is criticizing Rawls's failure to really justify the implicit positive theory of the state that enters into Rawls's big device of imagination? Or pehaps he is highlighting the fact that the justification of the two principles through the OP doesn't actually imply anything about the state?

By: Matt McIntosh

Matt McIntosh — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 07:39:13 +0000

I find David Friedman very smartifying as well. And he has a new blog going, which is cool. Other blogging smartifiers besides Will and the Marginal Revolution guys include Glen Whitman and Richard Chappell.

By: Tim W

Tim W — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:06:43 +0000

de Jasay says this about the parties in the Original Position in Rawls’s Theory of Justice:
“Failing agreement, in leaving the original position they would exit into the state of nature. They seek to avoid this outcome, because they know enough about themselves and the state to prefer it to the state of nature.” (fn 7)
Any idea if de Jasay making an argument about what Rawls should take into account, or is he talking about an argument Rawls made? I sure don’t remember Rawls saying that.

By: katzxy

katzxy — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 05:03:11 +0000

Calls for equality are sometimes the spin used by those who would reduce freedom. And it is this reduction in freedom that’s the real goal, and not reducing inequality.

By: R. Light

R. Light — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 00:39:08 +0000

A smartifying book: _Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior_ by Helmut Schoeck. The proffered quote seems distinctly redolent of Schoeck.

A smartifying weblog: http://waitingforelijah.blogspot.com/ — though not a Thomist myself, it’s published by a guy who, in spades, gives the lie to Julian Sanchez’s insufferably smug, untutored statement that Thomistic metaphysics is for idiots.