Washington
and Lee University, Fall 2001
Philosophy
395: Advanced Seminar
TTh, HI hours (Newcomb 28A)
Ben
Eggleston—EgglestonB@wlu.edu
office
hours: M&F, 2–4, and T&Th, 9–11 (Newcomb 25)
We have been reading Rawls’s A Theory of Justice,
and we have seen both Rawls’s conception of justice and most of the
support that he provides for it. Your assignment is to develop the most
effective objection to Rawls’s theory that you can. Your paper should be
about six pages long, double-spaced.
In order to formulate an objection to develop, you may wish to begin by considering that Rawls has two broad strategies of justification. One goes like this:
The other justificatory strategy goes like this:
Since statements 3 and 6 are
the conclusions of their respective arguments, you can proceed by trying to undermine
any of the premises giving rise to them: statements 1, 2, 4, and 5. As you know
from your reading, statements 1 and 2 are argued for throughout chapters II and
III, and statement 4 is argued for in Part Two. Rawls’s defense of statement 5
is less conspicuous, but some hints of how he would attempt to justify it are
found in §§ 4, 9, and 87.
There are, then, many angles
from which you can launch an objection against Rawls’s view. To undermine
statement 1, you could argue that the veil of ignorance is too thick or too
thin (or both, in various ways), or that what the parties in the original
position are characterized as aiming at is misconceived, or that the
risk-aversion attributed to them is arbitrary, or that the very idea of a
contract is inapt here, or any of many other things. To undermine
statement 2, you could argue that some other conception of justice than Rawls’s
would be chosen there (and clearly the possibilities here are as limitless as
are the alternatives to Rawls’s conception of justice). To undermine statement
4, you could argue that the implications of Rawls’s theory are unacceptable in
regard to any number of things: the protection of liberties, equality of
opportunity, justice between generations, the distribution of wealth and income,
civil disobedience, and conscientious objection, to name just a few.
Note that this assignment
does not call for a comprehensive investigation of any of statements 1, 2, 4,
and 5 (much less of Rawls’s theory as a whole). Rather, it calls for
a criticism of some very specific aspect of Rawls’s theory. The statements
above are provided in order to help you to see some of the general angles from
which you can develop an objection to Rawls’s theory, not in order to suggest
the scale or level of generality at which your objection should
proceed. (It is just as if I were to ask you to design a two-week vacation, and
I mentioned that some possible destinations can be found in Europe, Asia,
Africa, and South America. That wouldn’t mean that I would expect the
resulting vacation to cover any of those continents thoroughly or evenly.
Some choices, about what to attend to and what to ignore, will still have
to be made.)
For
this paper there are two due dates: Tuesday, October 9, and Thursday, October
18. On October 9 (a date for which, you will have noticed, there is an
unusually small amount of assigned reading), you are to bring to class two
copies of a rough draft of your paper. In class you will read two of your
classmates’ papers, and will receive comments on your paper from two of your
classmates. Then you will have some time in which to improve your paper in
light of your peers’ comments, and on October 18 you will turn in to me one
copy of the revised version of your paper. This is what I will read and grade.
To
be more precise about what I’ve said so far, following is a detailed account of
the criteria according to which I will grade.
|
requirements: |
points possible: |
points earned: |
|
1.
Your paper accurately explains some part of Rawls’s
theory: |
10 |
|
|
2.
Your paper accurately explains the justificatory
importance of that part of Rawls’s theory: |
10 |
|
|
3.
Your paper offers an effective objection to that
part of Rawls’s theory: |
55 |
|
|
4.
Your paper is well organized and clearly written,
with good spelling and grammar: |
20 |
|
|
5.
For October 18 (not October 9): your paper is
approximately six pages in length and is double-spaced, and this sheet (with
this side up) is stapled or paper-clipped to the front of your paper: |
5 |
|
|
6.
For October 18 (not October 9): lateness penalty
(if applicable): (3
points off per unexcused day late, excluding weekends) |
|
|
|
total score |
100 |
|
Finally,
a word about the honor system. As you know, all work turned in for credit at
Washington and Lee is presumed to have been done without the giving or
receiving of unacknowledged aid. This paper shall be no exception. But this
does not mean that you cannot get help on this paper; on the contrary, you can
get all sorts of help, but you must acknowledge it. That is, you must
indicate—with footnotes, ideally—all of the ways in which you have gotten help,
whether from other people (such as the staff of the Writing Center, which you
are encouraged to take advantage of), or from books other than the Rawls text
itself, or Web sites, and so on. Where possible, help that you have received
should be noted in connection with the part of your paper to which it
pertains. (For example, if someone helps you find a more persuasive way of
expressing some thought of yours, then that should be noted with a footnote in
that part of your paper.) But help whose effects extend throughout the paper
(such as when someone reads your whole paper and gives you comments on many
parts of it) can be noted as such in a single footnote at the beginning or end.
In acknowledging aid, there is a balance to be struck between thoroughness
and manageability; the key is to be as thorough as you need to be in order
for the reader not to mistakenly attribute to you anything that you owe to
someone or something else. So when in doubt, err on the side of thoroughness in
acknowledging aid.