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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Rawls's Theory of Justice and Slavery
Message-ID: <5451@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 12:43:00 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5451
Posted: Tue Apr  9 12:43:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Apr-85 12:43:00 EST
References: <576@whuxl.UUCP>, <3532@alice.UUCP> <5427@utzoo.UUCP>, <579@whuxl.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 30

Tim,
you would win your bet now. You would lose your bet in 1860. You cannot
cry ``rationalisation'' at everybody who disagrees with you. In 1860 I
could find many sincere people who, given that they were Black, would
prefer to be Christian slaves than free heathens. If you accept that
slavery is part of the natural order of things (something which I do not)
and you think that the institution of slavery is just (something which
I do not) then it makes sense to believe that, if you were born Black
then your choices would be to be a heathen in Africa or a slave in
the civilised world. From that perspective, it makes sense for a White
to say that ``If I had been born Black, I would like to be one of my slaves''.

Whether or not this is true is not the question...though there *were* slaves
who professed to be happy to be slaves in the 1860s as well. What is
important is to recognise why Rawls's theory is flawed -- everybody does
not believe the same thing is ``fair''.

To take another example...some legislators institute a welfare program. They
reason that, if they were poor, they would rather live in a society where
there is government welfare than one where there is none. Some poor
libertarians refuse to take any government welfare money. They reason
that, wealthy or pooor, it is evil to tax your neighbours and they will
not profit from such looting. 

The positions are not reconciliable unless one faction abandons their notion
of what is ``fair'' or the fzactions are allowed to form their own governemnts
or states and hold differing policies.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura