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Episode #137 ... John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (Patreon)

Published:
2019-12-31 02:36:49
Imported:
2026-06
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Email for receiving one of the 20 shirts: steve@stephenwestshow.com


I could never do this without your generosity. We recently learned of some mistakes at the post office that may have led to certain patrons not receiving their stuff. If you have not received yours and want it please send us a private message through Patreon. Thank you again for everything. I hope you love the episode. 


- Stephen

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Comments

Cedrick Rogers

I’m glad you released another episode. Thank you !!!

Philippe joannis

yes a big "Merci" from France from where through the magic of technology, I was able to discover Philosophize This ... which makes me love traffic jam.

David Blobaum

Thanks for the shirt and care package you sent as well as this new episode. I hope you have a happy and safe new year full of new episodes for us to listen to and enjoy. I find this very refreshing as opposed to most everything else online telling me who to blame or just rolling around in the problem and asking all the wrong questions.

Ythenius

Thank you for this great show and all the effort you put in every episode :) Happy new year

Ben

I liked the new episodes, but I can’t help but wonder how does Rawls account for wealth accumulation and how that wealth can corrupt a system. Political spending to elect officials who cut just systems. America feels less just now (fiscally mostly) than it did in the 70’s. This feels like the unavoidable result of a few people owning more wealth than most others.

philosophizethis
>>30591398

He was not trying to give a free pass to all wealth accumulation, and I hope the episode made that extremely clear. He was interested in arriving at criteria society could use to determine the fairness of various inequalities. To your point if a level of wealth corrupted a political system then it wouldn’t adhere to the difference principle. Those positions equally wouldn’t be open to all. I think Rawls would say his method accounts for a situation like that perfectly. Thank you for listening!

George Caramanna

The idea that it's possible we can be a large herd caring equally for one another is entertaining. Perhaps Mr. Rawl's political philosophy is a form of entertainment, similar to an action movie. We need to suspend reality to enter Mr. Rawls thought experiments. The suppositions of his underlying story shouldn't be be looked at too closely - or we run into the same problem when we look at the often thin story line of an action movie. And when the movie is over, we leave the theatre - slightly entertained - and unchanged.

Keith Dunlap

Ironically, Pikkety, if I remember correctly, points to 1971 in the United States as the twilight of one of the most economically equitable periods in the history of civilization, the post-war, baby-boom, period when we actually had a viable middle class, the inklings of a meritocracy, and social reform movements, civil rights, women's rights, etc. inspired by this degree of temporary leveling. I don't know the proper attitude to take, whether to be pessimistic or optimistic about liberal democracy. Temperamentally, I am inclined to favor Arendt's warning against any ideology, including liberalism, as an antidote to political ills, as it shifts the solution away from personal engagement and opens the door for hypnotic competing ideologies such as nationalism, which, after all, has become a particularly pathetic variant of "identity politics." In that context, I think Guns, Germs, and Steel is an extremely useful corrective, as it demonstrates, albeit in a polemical way, how important geographic and ecological advantages are in one "race" or perhaps less offensively, one "culture" outstripping another, especially as both "race" and "culture" are insupportable and arbitrary categories. There is also, I think, a real danger in any appeal to pure rationalism, as the Frankfurt School notes, given the role of media in a materialist/capitalist society, with the isolation of criticism to "high culture" thereby making it irrelevant, subject to accusations of elitism and ridicule, and "low culture," a salve and siren song for Arendt's "Working Man." Finally, because we mostly live in a world of representations, per Baudrillard et al., often, not always, but often enough, those who rise to the top are not the best, but those most adept at seeming the best, in other words, sociopathic narcissists, the least likely to have consciousness of the fact that their status is a result of circumstance and not necessarily merit, and, therefore, least amenable to reforms like progressive taxation and estate taxation. Very difficult to even have a rational conversation under these circumstances. The optimistic part of me thinks that the current convulsions are a symptom of positive change. The swan song of an entitled class of a certain age and gender mostly, feeling that power slip away.

Valerie Hargrave

Thank you Stephen, I loved the latest podcast. Glad you are well. Happy New Year x

Alena Leonova

loved it thanks kindly! going to go read more

Luke Norton

Steven this is my favourite podcast of all time. As a philosophy student I really appreciate having the chance to access these fundamental thinkers through a medium other than a book or a organized class, and to have a interpretation of thought that is relevant to the problems we face today. My only wish from you is to be able to hear about what your working on, and you plans for future episodes. It would be great to know what we can expect in the future. Cheers, Luke

Doug Dee

I am still unclear what happens to a person, having some bad luck, under a system of efficiency, vs a system of difference. Do we help them? If so, is there a difference in how much we help them? Without having a quantifiable measure of what is a "surplus" under either system, how is this done?

Tim Wright

How do I send a private message? I would like to receive my Philosophize This! pens, but I don’t think I can send a direct private message. Please help.

Mark
>>30773340

If you go to the upper left side of the Patreon page, click the three dots next to Stephen West's name, I believe there is a message option there.

matthew mierski

I was thinking about your intro, that philosophers question fundamental assumptions. Isn't it true that the great ones often do this by appealing to beliefs and convictions that are considered to be even more fundamental? Think about Rawls with this in mind. He appeals to an American's concepts of liberty and justice to critique the American practice of capitalism. If you can strike a chord with a person's deepest convictions, and if you can show how those convictions contradict some less fundamental assumptions, then (I think) there is real possibility for a person to start to question those assumptions for themselves.