University of Kansas, Spring 2004
Philosophy 555: Justice and Economic Systems
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

Class notes: Rawls, chapter 6 and section 87

The following notes correspond roughly to what we cover, including at least a portion of what I put on the board or the screen, in class. In places they may be more or less comprehensive than what we actually cover in class, and should not be taken as a substitute for your own observations and records of what goes on in class.

The following outline is designed to be, and is in some Web browsers, collapsible: by clicking on the heading for a section, you can collapse that section or, if it’s already collapsed, make it expanded again. If you want to print some but not all of this outline, collapse the parts you don’t want to print (so that just their top-level headings remain), and then click here to print this frame.

1. chapter 6: “Duty and Obligation”
   1. §§ 51–52: principles of natural duty and fairness
      1. not contingent on voluntary acts (p. 296.5)
      2. duty of mutual respect, to increase everyone’s self-esteem (p. 297.8)
      3. duty of mutual aid—justified primarily in terms of confidence and trust, only secondarily in terms of aid actually rendered (p. 298.5)
      4. When Rawls says “all obligations arise from the principle of fairness,” he means “obligations” to refer to things assumed voluntarily (p. 301.6). Duties are not like this.
      5. how duty to keep promises arises; relation between hypothetical agreement and actual obligation to keep promises (pp. 307.6–308.3)
   2. §54: status of majority rule
      1. majority rule’s having a “subordinate place” (p. 313.1)
      2. distinction between rightness of majority’s decisions and propriety of majority rule (p. 313.5–6)
      3. no theory (p. 317.2)? see Federalist paper no. 10
   3. § 53, §§ 55–59: civil disobedience and conscientious objection
      1. duty to comply with unjust laws because in the original position, the parties would choose such a rule, because anything more fine-grained would be impractical (p. 311.6)
      2. civil disobedience
         1. pay price to demonstrate conscientiousness (p. 322.5)
         2. injustice must be clear and substantial (p. 326.8)
         3. legal redress must have failed (p. 327.8)
         4. disobedience must not result in disorder (p. 328.6)
         5. civil disobedience as a stabilizing device (p. 336.3)
      3. conscientious refusal
         1. reluctant disobedience (p. 324.5)
         2. soldier breaking rules of war (p. 333.5)
         3. individual refusing to submit to the draft (p. 334.7–9)
2. section 87: “Concluding Remarks on Justification”
   1. first part: derivation from the original position (p. 507.7)
   2. second part: considered judgments (p. 507.8)
   3. third part: psychological feasibility (p. 508.1)