A THEORY OF RATIONALITY
2.1. The first theory to be discussed on the basis of the previous chapter is that of John Rawls, who qualifies rationality as the crucial feature to serve as the criterion to be granted important rights. What he says qualifies as an example of the first of the two positions identified in section 1.4. As was indicated in the introduction, Rawls’s work merits attention here on account of the fact that the question whose interests are to be considered is an important issue for him. For present purposes, it is not necessary to present an overview of Rawls’s views on justice. Only the foundation of his theory will be relevant here. Rawls appears to adhere to a basic equality, stating: “[…] since political power is the coercive power of free and equal citizens as a corporate body, this power should be exercised, when constitutional essentials and basic questions of justice are at stake, only in ways that all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse in light of their common human reason”1.
The notion of ‘free and equal citizens’ plays a pivotal role throughout Rawls’s work. He makes it clear what this means in the following: “I have assumed throughout, and shall continue to assume, that while citizens do not have equal capacities, they do have, at least to the essential minimum degree, the moral, intellectual, and physical capacities that enable them to be fully cooperating members of society over a complete life”2; “To approach [the question of the basic liberties and their priority], let’s sum up by saying: fair terms of social cooperation are terms upon which as equal persons we are willing to cooperate in good faith with all members of society over a complete life. To this let us add: to cooperate on a basis of mutual respect”3.
In his major work, A Theory of Justice, Rawls ascertains that the principles of justice are accepted by “[…] free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests […]”4. Yet this motivation is not decisive, according to Rawls. Altruism is only motivating to a limited degree5, but since one does not know one’s own position, individual interests are not decisive: “The veil of ignorance prevents us from shaping our moral view to accord with our own particular attachments and interests”6. An egoist is, by contrast, unable to view things from a different perspective than that of his own interests7.
2.2. The problem seems to be that Rawls clings to too narrow a notion of ‘egoism’ here. Under the veil of ignorance these special interests are, indeed, not decisive, but it must be asked why one would be motivated to accept the principles of justice in the first place. Someone who opts for the principles of justice from behind the veil of ignorance merely does this because he is ignorant of his position, at least with respect to the second principle (which concerns social and economic equalities)8. One may phrase it somewhat irreverently by saying that one acts by purchasing a sort of insurance: should one not find oneself in the most desirable place, the consequences won’t be grave.
The comparison with an insurance is not inappropriate, since the veil is itself part of the model. If one should, in contrast to the model’s premise, have access to relevant information pertaining to one’s position, and this would prove to be a relatively favorable one, the need to agree with the principles of justice would be removed, and it would even be contrary to one’s interests to agree with them, since one would thereby be forced to relinquish some of one’s rights without receiving something in return with enough value to compensate for the loss. This is precisely the situation someone faces when he has paid the premium for his insurance and the event against which he has insured himself has not taken place. He would, with the benefit of hindsight, never have insured himself. He (at the moment he insures himself) and the person behind the veil of ignorance share the same ignorance of their situation. Should one agree with the principles of justice from some sort of insight into what is ‘just’, the veil of ignorance would be a redundant attribute; the fact that it is not proves that such a consideration is not the basis for agreeing with the principles of justice.
Rawls does argue that egoism is not decisive on account of the fact that there is a difference between the situation behind the veil of ignorance, where the parties are characterized as mutually disinterested, and ordinary life: “In practical affairs an individual does have a knowledge of his situation and he can, if he wishes, exploit contingencies to his advantage. Should his sense of justice move him to act on the principles of right that would be adopted in the original position, his desires and aims are surely not egoistic. He voluntarily takes on the limitations expressed by this interpretation of the moral point of view”9. In this case, however, it would be unclear why the individual would opt for the ‘right’ principles (just as someone who is sure that some event will not take place, or won’t affect him, won’t pay an insurance premium to be insured against such an event).
2.3. One may try to evade the problems by stressing that the principles only apply to ‘moral’ persons, a strategy that Rawls adopts. He states that “[…] it is precisely the moral persons who are entitled to equal justice. Moral persons are distinguished by two features: first they are capable of having (and are assumed to have) a conception of their good (as expressed by a rational plan of life); and second they are capable of having (and are assumed to acquire) a sense of justice, a normally effective desire to apply and to act upon the principles of justice, at least to a minimum degree”10.
It is not surprising, in this line of thought, that the behavior towards animals11 is no object of the principles of justice12. Such a perspective might be defended by pointing out that animals are de facto unable to be parties to any agreement13 (forgoing here rudimentary ways of living together in which an implicit ‘agreement’ may be said to exist, e.g., between a dog and its owner). This may be a legitimate reason not to exclude rationality from the items about which one lacks knowledge behind the veil of ignorance. After all, if rationality itself were one of those items, the entire thought experiment would not even get off the ground, so to speak, since rational agents are required for such an experiment in the first place.
One must, however, be careful not to confuse this given with the claim that rationality would itself provide a ground to grant certain rights. Such a stance may be taken, but must then be argued independently. Furthermore, the thought experiment easily leads to the unwarranted privation of rights from animals compared to people who are unable, just as animals are, to agree with the principles of justice, namely cognitively impaired people14. The question is justified whether there is room in Rawls’s model to defend that in the case of ‘perfect procedural justice’, there would be “[…] an independent criterion for what is a fair division, a criterion defined separately from and prior to the procedure which is to be followed”15.
There is a clear limitation to the veil of ignorance: “The parties arrive at their choice together as free and equal rational persons knowing only that those circumstances obtain which give rise to the need for principles of justice”16. So there really is no complete ignorance: one already knows that one will share a society with others that are free and equal to oneself. If that same limitation is subsequently used once the veil is lifted, and differences between human beings and animals are allowed, the circularity is obvious: one has introduced a standard to distinguish between these beings behind the veil and applies the same standard after it has been lifted17. The issue is perhaps most patently clear in the following: “That moral personality suffices to make one a subject of claims is the essential thing”18. When Rawls says: “The minimum capacity for the sense of justice insures that everyone has equal rights”19, the reference to ‘everyone’ is restricted in such a way that the ‘equality’ means that those who are able to agree with the principles of justice are at the same time those who are entitled to the rights based on them.
Rawls initially clings to a ‘neutral’ definition of ‘rationality’, according to which a rational person ranks his options depending on how well they further his purposes and seeks an optimal satisfaction20. Such an outlook would be compatible with purposes and the concomitant plans to achieve them that would, presumably, not be considered ‘moral’21, such as someone’s plan to murder his spouse to collect life insurance. Further on, however, Rawls seems to smuggle in a ‘moral’ notion in stating the following: “[…] to establish [the principles of right] it is necessary to rely on some notion of goodness, for we need assumptions about the parties’ motives in the original position”22. Elsewhere, Rawls makes it clear that he considers the parties’ conduct as constrained by the requirements of pure practical reason, seeking a correspondence with Kant’s theory23, revising his earlier position that the theory of justice should be considered a part of the theory of rational choice, this theory rather being “[…] itself part of a political conception of justice, one that tries to give an account of reasonable principles of justice”24. (The relevance of the ‘moral’ aspect of reason will be fleshed out in chapter 5, when Kant’s views will be considered.)
Rawls’s remark that assumptions about the parties’ motives in the original position are needed seems to me to be correct, but to conclude from that to the necessity of a notion of ‘goodness’, however ‘thin’ Rawls, admittedly, acknowledges this to be25, is a non sequitur, unless one would grant ‘goodness’ to be deprived of its meaning26, or at least identify it with a non-‘moral’ quality (such as desirableness), thus rendering the issue moot. Rawls does speak here of ‘the principles of right’, but this does not get him off the hook, since ‘the right’ is itself taken to be of a ‘moral’ nature (although Rawls does not, as he himself states, simply adopt the traditional concept of ‘right’27): “The intuitive idea is this: the concept of something’s being right is the same as, or better, may be replaced by, the concept of its being in accordance with the principles that in the original position would be acknowledged to apply to things of its kind”28. That means that a petitio principii is committed, since it is concluded that there must be a notion of ‘goodness’ on the basis of the ‘moral’ ‘principles of right’.
2.4. The choice Rawls does not but should make is between (1) acknowledging that rationality does not imply a ‘moral’ viewpoint and (2) arguing why it does (if the latter option is available at all, of course). He provides the example of an experienced climber who gives advice to another with regard to the equipment he should use and the route he should follow; “He wants to know what we think is rational for him to do”29. This has nothing to do with morality from the point of view of the prospective climber: he simply wants to act in the safest way possible. From the perspective of the experienced climber, one may say that ‘morality’ is involved: “Climbers […] have a duty of mutual aid to help one another, and hence they have a duty to offer their considered opinion in urgent circumstances”30. However, it is not clear what the basis of such an (alleged) duty would be (it would not be a legal duty, in any event, as such an explanation would unnerve the premise of the account, since the climber merely acts as he should, in such a case, because he wishes to avoid punishment).
As the quote above (note 28, supra) shows, Rawls explicitly refers to an ‘intuitive idea’, but this is not sufficient. Such an appeal to intuition is not compelling, and is perhaps a sign that the argument cannot be pursued to a satisfactory degree31. Perhaps such an appeal will – in the end – be inevitable; even a solid field of research such as mathematics must resort to this (most expressly when it comes to the acceptance of its axioms) lest it be confronted with an infinite regress. That does not mean, though, that it should be left in place if alternatives are available that provide a more compelling account.
2.5. An alternative would be to take ‘rationality’ to have a limited scope (and the one with which Rawls initially seems to concur), as a faculty which is focused on the non-‘moral’32 goal of obtaining the most desirable outcome in the long term33. (The phrase ‘in the long term’ must be added here to accommodate the aspect of rationality; without it, the behavior of an animal such as a cat, which presumably acts on instinct34, would be included.) Hobbes’s account may, perhaps, be said to be somewhat crude in some respects, but as a starting point it has its merits, being limited to premises that can be verified and not resorting to vague notions that cannot find approval from those who are willing and able to analyze matters critically and consistently.
Hobbes’s definition is the following: “[…] REASON, [when wee reckon it amongst the Faculties of the mind], is nothing but Reckoning (that is, Adding and Substracting) of the Consequences of generall names agreed upon, for the marking and signifying of our thoughts […]”35; “[…] deliberation is nothing else but a weighing, as it were in scales, the conveniences, and inconveniences of the fact that we are attempting; where, that which is more weighty, doth necessarily according to its inclination prevaile with us”36. Incidentally, Hobbes does not seem to distinguish between ‘reasonable’ and ‘rational’ (as Rawls does37), as is clear from the following quote, in which he uses them interchangeably: “The Definition of the Will, given commonly by the Schooles, that it is a Rationall Appetite, is not good. For if it were, then could there be no Voluntary Act against Reason”38. An analysis of the consequences of such an outlook, which leads, I think, to the conclusion that no ‘moral’ standards can be found, must be forgone here39. In any event, I will not distinguish between ‘rational’ and ‘reasonable’ in this inquiry, if only because such a distinction is not necessary here.
By defining ‘rationality’ (and thereby ‘reasonableness’) as I have done, I have not, of course, precluded the possibility of clinging to a (different) conception of ‘reason’, which would enable one to distinguish between reason in the sense in which I have used it (i.e., as a mere instrument to reach a desired end) and reason as a ‘moral’ faculty. (If such a strategy were permitted, nearly every philosophical issue would immediately be solved, but not, presumably, in a satisfactory way.) All that matters here is that if reason is indeed to be considered a (mere) instrument, there would seem to be no ground to treat those that are endowed with it in any special way vis-à-vis those (including animals) that are deprived of it. Whether the other sort of reason (i.e., the ‘moral’ faculty) may provide such a basis will be inquired in chapter 5.
2.6. I mainly criticized Rawls in the foregoing. That is not to say that I consider his account to be without merit. This lies primarily, however, in a domain I have not explored since it is not part of the research question, namely, the distribution of economic inequality, which is not a matter of formal equality, which is my focus here. Related to this, the fact that Rawls presents a lexical order for the principles of justice, according to which (political) liberties are not to be restricted for anything else than (other) (political) liberties40 (so not for equalizing welfare, for example), does not conflict with my account, since my account is concerned with formal equality, the object of which is (inter alia) political liberty. As I have inquired into the basic equality