Considered judgements again

Abstract

John Rawls seeks an Archimedean point for judging the basic structure of society according to the principles of social justice. Steven Lukes, among others, believes that that Archimedean point for judging the basic structure of society eludes him (Lukes, 1077, pp. 154-174, and pp. 177-180; Nielsen, 1977, pp. 39-46). Rawls, he claims, has not been able to show us what the underlying design of a perfectly just well-ordered society would look like. He has produced a theory of liberal democratic justice, but he has not been able to show us that his theory of justice and his principles of justice are the theory and the principles that rational persons with a sense of justice and fairness would choose if they were reasoning carefully and impartially with the full relevant background information requisite for such impartial judgements. What is the central reason, according to Lukes, why Rawls has failed? He has failed because, at a very fundamental point, he must resort to an appeal, in estab? lishing his principles, to our considered judgements, and to our firmest convic? tions about what is right and wrong, just and unjust, such as our belief that racial discrimination is unjust or that religious intolerance is unjust. But here, Lukes ob? serves, Rawls is being ethnocentric. These are "our" convictions, meaning by 4 4our' ' but a tiny segment of the human race, living at a particular time and place. Indeed we are in reality making a quite unproblematic reference only to a subculture of that culture, namely to Westernized human beings of more or less liberal sentiments. How can we justifiably use such culturally specific beliefs, at such a very fundamental point, to check the correctness of our theories and postu? lated moral principles? And recall that Rawls does in fact appeal, to check our principles and theories, to our firmest considered convictions. That he also advo? cates checking less firmly embedded convictions by reference to moral principles or that he advocates checking, in a deliberately circular manner, even our most firmly embedded convictions by our favored moral principles and by our favored social theories (social theories that are not normatively neutral), does not gainsay the fact that at crucial points the method of reflective equilibrium requires that we check both our theories and our principles against our most firmly embedded con? sidered convictions. No matter how wide the reflective equilibrium is, there is no