Utilitarian models of the state, subordinating individual rights to a calculus of maximum social welfare, have long been a de facto orthodoxy among political philosophers. Yet they run counter to the basic liberal concept of fairness, which deeply characterizes the intuitive American response to injustice, and provide succor to those who espouse radical solutions to social problems--socialism on the one hand and the new conservatism on the other. Those comfortable with these dogmas should take note of the philosophical revival of the once discarded notion of the social contract. This idea receives its fullest exposition in John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice."

Rather than adopt Rousseau's vision of naturalma--a picture almost impossible to conjure up in the face of more recent scientific knowledge--the new contractarians postulate a group of rational men and women gathered for the purpose of elucidating a concept of justice which will guide their affairs. They further assume that these people make their decision behind a veil of ignorance; that is, they are totally ignorant for now of their position in society--their race, their gender, their place in the social order. Yet the principles at which they arrive will bind them once the veil is lifted.

Starting from this original position, it can be logically demonstrated that rational beings would arrive at a decision ensuring the maximum possible justice and liberty for even the meanest member of society. Thus, freedom of speech, for example, would be inviolable, whereas the utilitarian could easily justify its abridgment for a greater social good. Second, social and economic inequality, which are the inevitable result of the lottery of birth, should be arranged such that they inhere in offices and stations in life available to all and thus are, by consensus, seen to be to everyone's advantage. Injustice, then, is defined as an unequal distribution of good things, with liberty being first among them.

While it can be and has been argued that the blind choosers envisioned by the new contractarians might well choose to gamble on the outcome of the social order, such arguments are ultimately lacking in interest. The point of the contractarian view does not lie in what real people "would" do in an admittedly impossible situation. Rather, it is to provide an abstract model that is intuitively satisfactory because, in fact, it corresponds to the ideas of "fairness" so deeply rooted in the American national psyche.

3/8/2006 2:15:06 PM

Utilitarian models are going down!!1

3/8/2006 3:34:43 PM

3/8/2006 4:34:55 PM

<shrug>

3/8/2006 4:42:07 PM