Ivashkiv Blog 4

    It was really interesting to compare Rawls’ vision of justice with utilitarianism. Rawls makes a point to differentiate his views from utilitarianism. He writes “My aim is to work out a theory of justice that represents an alternative to utilitarian thought” (20). Rawls chooses to consider Sedgwick's version of utilitarianism, in which society is structured to create the highest possible amount of satisfaction. The main criticism of utilitarianism is that it doesn’t account for justice and fairness. The highest amount of satisfaction might be unevenly distributed among the population, making some happy and others miserable. This is Rawls’ concern, “The striking feature of the utilitarian view of justice is that it does not matter, except indirectly, how this sum of satisfactions is distributed among individuals” (23). 

   However,I was unclear how Rawls’ original position evades this problem. Of course, Rawls explains in later sections (2.13, 2.16) that his vision of justice seeks to benefit the worst-off person in the society. However, the principle of inequality that seeks to benefit the worst-off person in a society seems to be at odds with the original position. This is because of expected value. The “veil of ignorance” implies that someone doesn’t know their social class or natural talent (3). The person under “the veil of ignorance” will choose the institutions that will maximize their utility given they are randomly placed in the society. It seems like this person would choose the institutions that have the highest expected value of utility. This could include a society in which ninety-eight percent of the population benefits tremendously, while the other two percent suffer miserably. This situation has a higher expected value than one in which everyone benefits marginally. In this way, the original position aligns itself more closely with utilitarianism than the vision of justice that includes a fair distribution of benefits.

    I was also confused by the implications of Rawls’ vision of efficiency in respect to immigration. In Section 12, Rawls further outlines the principle of efficiency. In it, he uses an iteration of a utility graph to show how to maximize utility. However, Rawls’ main point in this discussion is to find the point that on that line of efficiency that accounts for justice, “to find a conception of justice that singles out one of these efficient distributions as also just” (61). This note is important because it differentiates itself from utilitarianism. Rawls wants to correct this utilitarian view to include a society in which “those who are at the same level of talent and ability ... have the same prospects of success regardless of their initial place in the social system” (63). Ultimately, Rawls proposes that “Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are … to the greatest expected benefit of the least advantaged” (72). A way to justify immigration using utilitarianism is to argue that additional immigrants will increase the overall happiness of the society even if natives are worse-off because of various scarcities. I am curious who Rawls considers the least advantaged person in the society. If that definition is the least fortunate citizen in a society at a specific time, then Rawls could not be in favor of immigration. This is a massive generalization about immigration, but it would make sense that additional immigrants would not benefit the least fortunate person, even if an additional immigrant would increase the overall well-being of a society. In this way, Rawls’ hope of justice seems to be more similar to an edited version of utilitarianism than the vision outlined in the principle of efficiency.