#6 - Specific Reference, Weaken

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[canoekoh]

I get how C works, but wouldn't B also work? If B is true, there would be no just arrangement since ppl would know what they want / don't want. Hence, it would no longer be necessary for everyone to get a minimum amount of these primary goods.

[David Boyle]

I get how C works, but wouldn't B also work? If B is true, there would be no just arrangement since ppl would know what they want / don't want. Hence, it would no longer be necessary for everyone to get a minimum amount of these primary goods.

Hello,

Answer B is wrong because the "veil of ignorance" is a device that is meant to be ideal, not exactly reflect real life. (It may be meant to affect real life and get people to be fairer, but still, it's a hypothetical device, a thought experiment.)

Hope this helps,
David

[dtodaizzle]

Is (D) wrong because satisfaction is irrelevant to whether or not people can accomplish their goals?

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi dtodaizzle,

D is wrong because it is actually irrelevant; even if D were true, people would still try to get at LEAST a minimum amount of primary goods, and so in the original position they would try to secure a minimum amount (or more) of primary goods for everyone.

[ninamichelle]

I'm not really satisfied with the response as to why B is incorrect...how can the original position be dismissed as an 'ideal', when the paragraph in question seems to still be within the same realm of hypothetical thinking? There's no real indication that this 'thought experiment' has ended - at this point the author is still just talking about what Rawls thinks/assumes.

I keep reading over the specific sentence in question and I am wondering, is it because in lines 49-51 the author states "any individual in the original position...", thereby ruling out that station in life, abilities, tastes, and gender could be known, in accordance with the qualities of the 'original position' as identified in the fourth paragraph? In other words, the author actually states that the ideal of the original condition is intact, so we cannot refute that the "everyone" in question could possibly know their station in life - that is what qualifies them as being "in the original position". Therefore we must attack the soundness of the claim by focusing on the conclusion that being in the original position is a sufficient condition for agreeing "that everyone should get at least a minimum..."?

Any insight would help, thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

You may be overthinking this one a bit, ninamichelle - the "original position" is a purely hypothetical one, so when we talk about someone being in that position we are not talking about the real world, but the hypothetical one. It's not whether the thought experiment has concluded or is ongoing, but that the original position exists only in the thought experiment. We have no reason to believe that such a position bears any resemblance to the real world.

Answer choice B is saying that the hypothetical situation is, in practice, impossible, but this does nothing to call into question the claim about the hypothetical situation. A colleague here in the forum recently posted a similar example that I'll steal: suppose I said "if unicorns were real, they would be hunted for their horns". Does a response of "they aren't real" do anything to undermine that claim? Nope, not a bit. Reality is irrelevant to the "what if" scenario about the unicorns, and it is just as irrelevant to an analysis of the internal logic of the hypothetical situation.

Answer C is the one that weakens here, because if it is true, then the hypothetical person in the original position still might take a big gamble that they might get the biggest share of whatever they are dividing. That hypothetical person might cut a cake in half and then divide one half into smaller shares, in the hope that they would end up with the giant half-cake slice.

Reading through your analysis, I think you are ultimately saying the same thing as I am here - with the original position "intact" we can ignore claims that refute their possibility. Possibility is not the issue, reality doesn't matter; all that matters is the conditions of the thought experiment and the assumptions that underlie that experiment.

Good work, if a bit overwrought. Keep at it, and keep it simple!

[ninamichelle]

Answer choice B is saying that the hypothetical situation is, in practice, impossible, but this does nothing to call into question the claim about the hypothetical situation. A colleague here in the forum recently posted a similar example that I'll steal: suppose I said "if unicorns were real, they would be hunted for their horns". Does a response of "they aren't real" do anything to undermine that claim? Nope, not a bit. Reality is irrelevant to the "what if" scenario about the unicorns, and it is just as irrelevant to an analysis of the internal logic of the hypothetical situation.

Omg, thank you. This was all I needed to see the light. A bit of overthinking for sure, but this question was driving me crazy for days! Thanks for clarifying

[mthomp24]

I initially eliminated C because of the use of the phrase “some people.” Yes, it may be true that there are “some people” who would risk the loss of a primary good, but couldn’t one say that those people are not people in the original position? Then answer C would not do anything to the argument because it’s not addressing the group at hand. Or is Rawls saying that all humans are in the original position?

Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi M. Thomp,

Remember that in the passage, we're dealing with a thought experiment which only holds true of the constraints of the "veil of ignorance" are met, putting everyone in the "original position." The author is explicitly stating that his/her inference is only applicable to those in this "original position," regardless of whether that is a realistic appraisal of society or not. So what this question is asking us to do is to weaken the conclusion that people in the original position will always agree that everyone should get a minimum guaranteed amount of primary goods, because, based on self-interest and ignorance, none of these people want to lack any of these goods themselves. (C) weakens this argument by knocking out this premise, as if some people value certain primary goods much more highly than others, to the point of being willing to forego having some of them, then they wouldn't necessarily demand a minimum amount of all primary goods for all people.

Hope this clears things up!