Full Summary Ethics, Globalisation and Sustainability UU
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Course
Wijsgerige Ethiek
Institution
Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
Full summary for the take home exam of Ethics, Globalisation and Sustainabilty from the minor Ethics in Modern Society. Full lecture summary, notes from the tutorials and notes from the prescribed literature.
Descriptive vs normative:
- What is going on vs. what should be going on.
- ‘Teacup pigs are awfully cute’ vs. ‘Nobody should buy a teacup pig’.
Ideal vs. non-ideal theory:
- Rawls assumes compliance and willingness to cooperate, but this doesn’t
match reality: Ideal theory.
- Non-ideal theory: starting from the actual world.
- If we want to end up with actual justice, should we start with an idea of a
perfectly just society, or with society as it is?
Social contract theory: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant
- People’s obligations and/or the legitimacy of a particular design of society
depend on the agreement of all involved.
- Scanlon: social contract theory can be moral.
- Rawls: ’the content of the relevant agreement is not to enter a given
society or to adopt a given form of government, but to accept certain
moral principles’ (TJ 16).
- Contractarianism:
o Hobbesian; basis of the social contract is mutual self-interest.
Political cooperation is to the advantage of those subjected to it.
- Contractualism:
o Rousseauean / Kantian; basis of the social contract is the equal
moral status of persons. Legitimate is what can be justified to
others; what everyone could or would rationally agree to.
- Political liberalism:
o People are free as equal.
o Role of the state: protecting the rights and choices of individual
citizens.
o Focus on individuals
o ‘each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic
liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.’ (TJ 60)
o Not the same as ‘liberalism’ in the sense of Democrats vs.
Republicans, Labour vs. Tories, etc.
- Justice:
o Focus on social justice and ‘basic structure of society’ (= social
institutions).
o ‘Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems
of thought.
o A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or
revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how
efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they
are unjust.’ (TJ 3).
, o Against utilitarianism: ’the rights secured by justice are not subject
to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests’ (TJ 4).
o ‘For us the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of
society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social
institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine
the division of advantages from social cooperation. By major
institutions I understand the political constitution and the principal
economic and social arrangements.’ (TJ 7).
o ‘The rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining
or to the calculus of social interests’ (TJ 4).
o ‘For us the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of
society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social
institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine
the division of advantages from social cooperation. By major
institutions I understand the political constitution and the principal
economic and social arrangements.’ (TJ 7).
o Distributive justice:
Goal: to develop a conception of justice acceptable to all
rational and reasonable members of society (social contract).
Big challenge, since there is a plurality of conceptions
of the good (‘comprehensive doctrines’)
Goal: for this conception of justice to be fair – uninfluenced by
biases produced by circumstances ‘irrelevant to justice.
- Justice as fairness:
o Justice as fairness, like other contract views, consists of two parts:
(1) an interpretation of the initial situation and of the problem of
choice posed there, and (2) a set of principles which, it is argued,
would be agreed to.’ (TJ 15).
o Thought experiment: Which principles would be agreed to by
rational and reasonable people under fair condition?
Rational: people are capable of forming coherent views,
revising them on the basis of arguments, etc.
Reasonable: people want to live in a society governed by
principles acceptable to all citizens (so not impose their idea
of the good on others).
o Veil of ignorance ensures fairness: (utopian?)
Nobody can pick principles to suit their particular
circumstances.
- ‘The aim is to rule out those principles that it would be rational to propose
for acceptance […] only if one knew certain things that are irrelevant from
the standpoint of justice.’ (TJ 16).
- Rawls:
o First principle: ‘Each person is to have an equal right to the most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a
similar system of liberty for all.’
Basic liberties: freedom of speech, religious freedom, freedom
to vote and run for office, etc.
o Second principle: ’Social and economic inequalities are to be
arranged so that they are both
(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and
, (b ) attached to offices and positions open to all under
conditions of fair equality of opportunity.’ Are attached to
positions and offices open to all.
o Difference principle: ‘Social and economic inequalities are to be
arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least
advantaged’.
o ‘strongly egalitarian’ (TJ 76) Because equal distributions are
preferred unless inequality benefits everyone.
- Principles are hierarchical: The hierarchy of principles makes it important
that the first principles concerns.
- Basic liberties, not any form of freedom
1. First principle (basic liberties); resources as wealth.
2. Fair equality of opportunity (2b)
3. Difference principle (2a)
So, it’s not just, for instance, to:
Improve the economy by taking away equality of opportunity
Make very poor people better off by taking away the freedom to vote from
very wealthy people.
Tutorial 1
- Basic structure of society: Rawls
o Fundamental institutions and how they fit together. A basic level on
how we look at all the things organised.
o Everybody should have access to the basic structure of justice.
o Concerns for things they have not earned themselves; the fairness
of equality.
Equalize the basic level of society and justice without
interfering in freedom.
- The original position: normative positions and ideal theory
o Veil of ignorance: There are certain things we are and are not aware
from others. We do not know the primary positions of others, even
though we can have biases. The distribution of fairness is dependant
of scarceness.
o We are being part of the society when we designed it; rational.
o People are rational (we want society best for everyone, but there is
self-interest to have the best for ourselves).
o We know the conditions of scarcity, general facts and common
sense, everybody wants to do good for others.
o We do not know which position we are going to have in this society,
rich or poor, religion, smart of stupid, age gender, talents. We
cannot take for granted the influence if religion.
- Criticism Rawls:
o Principles of justice are different than what Rawls suggests.
o The original position contradicts itself.
o Utopian; ideal theory.
o He hates utilitarianism.
- Maximin: maximize for the minimum
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