Philosophy semester 2

Justice

Questions to address as you do the required reading

-What do the following terms mean, and how are they related?

 The basic structure

 The original position
 The veil of ignorance

-What are Rawls’ two principles of justice? Why does their ordering matter?

-What is “the difference principle”, and how does it work?

- the basic structure of society for rawls is that in which justice is maximized . Defined as
justice as fairness. By basic structure, rawls means how the “major social institutions
distribute fundamental rights and dueties and determine the divison of advantages from
social cooperation. “the basic structure is primary because its effects are so profound
and present from the start.

- Rawls’s two principles of justice: equality principle- every citizen has the same claim
to a scheme of equal basic liberties, which must also be compatible with those of
every other citizen. Rawls enumerates an extensive list of basic civil and political
rights: freedom of conscience, expression and association; the right to a basic
income; and the right to exercise franchise
- Rawls reasoned that the two principles of justice would be fair because these are
precisely those that would be chosen impartially by rational, free and equal citizens,
had they no knowledge of their own individual or social circumstances
- Book: “each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of
equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties
for all”- first principle: this means that everyone has te same basic liverties, which
can never be taken away
- Second principle: social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions “first,
they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity, and second, they are to be the greatest benefit of the least
advantaged members of society.
- The second principle focused on equality. Rawls realized that a society could not
avoid inequalities among its people. Rawls insisted that a just society should find
ways to reduce inequalities in areas where it can act

Original position and veil of ignorance

- The original position- this was an imaginary meeting held under strict conditions that
permitted individuals to deliberate only by using their reason and logic. Their task
was to evaluate the principles of social justice and choose the best ones. Their
 decision would be binding on their society forever. To ensure the choice of social
justice principles to be impartial the person had to choose their justice principles
under a veil of ignorance. This meant that these individuals would know nothing
about their particular positions in society.
- Under the veil of ignorance these imaginary people would not know their own age,
sex, race, social class, religion, abilities, preferences, life goals. They would be
ignorant of the society from which they came. They would have general knowledge
about how such institutions as economic systems and govt worked
- Rawls argued that under the veil of ignorance could human beings reach a fair and
impartial agreement as true equals not biased by their place in society. They would
have to rely only on the human powers of reason to choose principles of social
justice for their society
- Average utility- maximizing the average wealth of the people and justice as fairness
- Rawls primary goods: wealth & income, rights and liberties, opportunities for
advancement and self-respect

Liberty lecture 2
-

- Negative liberty consists of freedom from something whereas positive freedom

consists of the ability to do something. Negative freedom thus consists of laws to
combat discrimination whereas positive enables those on limited incomes to lead a
more fulfilled and meaningful existence. The goal of negative freedom demands a
limited role of the state
- Berlin argued that positive liberty enables the individual to take control of their life.
Positive liberty can thus be understood to mean the freedom to perform an action of
some description. As such, positive liberty facilitates the creation of a welfare state
- Negative liberty reflects the absence of barriers and consraints. We thereby possess
negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to us. Berlin favoured
negative liberty because it means we are the masters of our own destiny. Negative
freedom upholds the notion of the unencumbered self.
In the passage: “the ‘positive’ sense of the word liberty derives from the wish on the
part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life and decisions to depend on
myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument of my
own.”
 The retreat to the inner citadel
- The doctrine that maintains that what I cannot have I must teach myself not to
desire, that a desire eliminated or resisted is as good as a desire satisfied. Whereof I
cannot be sure of, I cannot truly want.
Representation

Iconic sign- relation between signifier and signified is one of resemblance.

Signifier resembles signified.

Signifier- what you see hear, touch, smell etc.

Signified- meaning of what you see, hear etc.

- Indexical sign- relation between signifier and signified one of causation or existence.
- Signifier physically caused by or existentially related to signified.
- Signifier represents signified (thing they are standing for
- Symbolic- relation between signifier and signified which is one of convention, social
agreement.
- The relation between the signifier and signified has an Arbitrary nature - we decide,
we agree: thus cultural

Language
- Language reduced to its essentials is a nomenclature: a list of terms corresponding to
a list of things
- Arbor- tree and equos- horse
- Two elements are involved in the linguistic sign- concept and a sound pattern. The
sound pattern is not an actual sound but rather physical. It is the hearer’s
psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses
- This sound pattern can be called a ‘material’ element only in that it is the
representation of our sensory impression
- The psychological nature of our sound patterns becomes clear when we consider our
own linguistic activity. Without moving either lips, or tongue, we can talk to
ourselves or recite silently a piece of verse. We grasp the words of a language as
sound patterns
- Linguistic sign is a two-sided psychological entity, which may be represented by the
diagram
-
- A sign is a combination of a concept and a sound pattern. But it generally refers to
the sound pattern alone- the word form arbor. Arbor is called a sign because it
carriers with the concept ‘tree’ – that sensory part of the term implies references to
the whole

First principle: the sign is arbitrary.

- The link between signal and signification is arbitrary. There is no internal connection
between the idea ‘sister’ and the French sequence of sounds ‘s-o-r’ which acts as its
signal.
- The word symbol is sued to designate the linguistic sign, or that part of the linguistic
sign which we are calling the signal.
- This principle is the organising principle for the whole of linguistics, considered as a
science of language structure. They do not appear at first sight equally evident, and
one discovers them after many circuitous deviations, and so realises the
fundamental importance of the principle.
- Any modes of expression which rely upon signs that are entirely natural. For any
means of expression accepted in a society rests in principle upon a collective habit or
on convention. Signs of politeness, although often endowed with a certain natural
expressiveness are none the less fixed by rule
- It is this rule which renders them obligatory, not their intrinsic value. Thus we may
therefore say that signs which are entirely arbitrary convery better than others the
ideal semiological process

Objections against the principle that linguistic signs are arbitrary

- Onomatopoeic words show that signals not always arbitrary. French words like fouet
(WHIP) or glas (knell) may strike the ear as having a certain suggestive sonority but
this is not intrinsic to the words themselves; it suffices to look at the latin orgins-
fouet comes from latin fagus (beech tree). The suggestive quality of the modern
pronunciation of these words is a fortuitous result of phonetic evolution
- Genuine onomatopoeia are the approximate imitation, already partly
conventionalised, of certain sounds
- The French word pigeon comes from vulgar latin pipo, itself of onomatopoeic origin,
which proves that such type of words themselves may lose their original character
and take on that of the linguistic sign in general, which is unmotivated

Objection 2- similar considerations apply to exclamations-

Exclamations are regarded as spontaneous expressions called forth, as it were, by
nature. But in most cases it is difficult to accept that there is a necessary link between
the exclamatory signal and its signification
- The French exclamation aie! Corresponds to the german Au!. Moreover, it is known
that many exclamations were orginally meaningful words: devil, god’s death,
mordieu!
- In short, onomatopoeic and exclamatory words are rather marginal phenomena, and
their symbolic origin is to some extent disputable