To create a peaceful world order there needs to be rules. The rules need to apply to all. When I first heard of John Rawls' Veil of Ignorance, or the idea of Original Position, it made perfect sense; it gave a name to something I had been thinking of for a some time.
One World of One People, the dreamed of future of the Boundless Cosmopolitan, will require rules to be made behind a veil of ignorance. I know of the wayward steps of the past, but the United States I grew up with seemed to at least lean in that direction. Today, I think we will find it difficult to take a moral position against nations that torture and preemptively invade other countries until we get our own affairs in order. If we are indeed entering a multi-polar world, the rules of the game will be even more important.
One of these days, I'll get around to reading all of Rawls' A Theory of Justice: Original Edition
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, by Kwame Anthony Appiah
, by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington
, by Bradley Thayer
, by Amartya Sen
, by Franklin Foer
, by Amartya Sen
, by George Soros
, by E.O. Wilson
, by Carl Coon
, by Peter Singer
, by Immanuel Kant
, by Emery Reves
, by Samuel Huntington
, by Jeffrey Sachs
, by Jeremy Rifkin
, by Fareed Zakaria
, by Strobe Talbott
, by Ian Bremmer
, by Fareed Zakaria
, by Ronald Glossop
2 comments:
If humanity ever reaches a point where they are willing to accept a set of rules as necessary and immutable, then, in my opinion, humanity will have transcended the need for and function of rules. Perhaps, rather than try and design these rules and implement them through “A Veil of Ignorance”, we should attempt to exalt humanity out of moral infancy, through moral adolescence and into moral adulthood. Rules, being the mothers of morality, could go on vacation, or maybe pick up a hobby—since humanity would no longer need to be told that sharing is good and fighting is bad. Perhaps I’m just being idealistic, I do that sometimes.
I think we accept rules as necessary right now, and that will always be true. Transcendence of that nature is something beyond current comprehension. I doubt we'll reach the point where rules will be immutable either, maybe we can come to grips with universal values, but things evolve. There's always a better way.
Creating rules behind a veil of ignorance is something like moral adulthood, I think. Currently, we know our original position and want rules to protect that position, just as a two year old has her toy and it's hers and no one else's, whereby she says, "go get your own damn it!"
I think "Rules, being the mothers of morality" is backwards, Morality is the mother of rules. And mothers never go on vacation, just ask one :)
Idealism is good. Idealistically onward!
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