Rawls vs. Nozick

It pretty much doesn't IIRC, insofar as it has no impact on the present. It's not important that blacks were worse off 200 years ago, but that they're worse off today.

Also Rawls only intended his entire theory of justice to be applied at a national level.

>>7977638
What if we look at the Indian Removal Act in 1830.


Would you say that people under the veil of ignorance would not require any people of America today to pay repartitions to native Americans because they did not preform any injustices on them, but rather if any of the guilty parties (i.e. Andrew Jackson) were still alive, the society under the 'veil' would find them guilty for currently benefiting off of stolen property?

>>7977681
reparations, not repartitions lol

>>7977602
You need to re-read Rawls if you think that question makes any sense.

I don't really know anything about this, but I think it's one of Charles Mills's criticism of Rawls. See the Racial Contract.

That said, not sure why the veil of ignorance must be blind to past injustices. We just take the thought experiment to be situated in a particular society with a particular history. Imagine we were to go behind the veil and decide how the US should do things from now on, with the knowledge of the history of slavery, fucking up the native americans, etc. You don't get to know, behind the veil, whether you're going to turn out to be a black boy in inner city chicago or on a native american reserve or a middle class white kid. It seems like it might be rational, from this knowledge, to want to have things like reparations or whatever, to make up for past injustices, at least if those past injustices still have some sort of lasting effect.

>>7977638
rofl, just had an exam for class today on these two assholes. Basically, the 'veil of ignorance' is only a thought experiment for considering a priori principles of justice that are carried out only after the veil is lifted, so to speak. But yeah, your question is pretty much Sandel's critique of both these clowns, being too ahistorical and abstract with their theories.

>>7977702
I understand Rawls. I guess I should re-phrase my question. Can the 'veil of ignorance' rectify past injustices? I know that Rawls focuses on current "time-slices" but in theory, could a judicial system under the 'veil' justly rectify past injustices?

>>7977739
Why couldn't it? Current time-slices have memories.

>>7977602
>past injustices


nice spooks here:
>choosing to live in the past
>choosing to fall for the injustice meme

>>797776
That is exactly what I think. I'm just trying to see if anyone has any objections.

theories like this are laughable worthless horseshit and if you think reparations are a good idea then you're a waterheaded dipshit

>>7978222
You sound like a Christian who was just told about evolution. Close-minded fuck.

>>7977739
Can one go back in time? No? Then no. Rawls' theory does not care if blacks were enslaved in 1850, he does not care that they were segregated in 1950. His theory of justice is race blind, time blind and culture blind. It is ONLY about who is poor and who is not, in the time and place you are applying it. It is about redistributing surplus social welfare to the worst off in society no matter how they got there.

>>7979005
Granted there are a lot of people who would stand opposed to Rawls on merely ideological grounds. Rawls probably offers the most reasonable theory of social justice out there, he doesn't misuse history like those who came after him and does not have a myopic focus on equality. His theory allows for some inequality and hierarchy insofar as they benefit the worst off in society, while other thinkers are more anarchistic and claim that any hierarchy is necessarily damaging.

I oppose redistributionism simply because I don't believe that most who have wealth redistributed to them do anything meaningful with it in the long run and that includes cross generational transfer of wealth, which should only be allowed due to the positive effects it has on human thought processes and encourages the elderly to save wisely and continue investment in equities which spur innovation and growth rather than consume wildly towards the end of their lives. But if I had a commissar's gun pointed to my head and was asked which thinker has the least bad way of thinking about redistribution I'd probably say Rawls.

>>7977602
I don't get it, why was Nozick attracted to retards like that ancap guy? Although at least he BTFO redistribution, so long as all trades were voluntary.

Not to challenge or advocate the veil of ignorance, but has anyone else ever wondered whether the outcome depends a lot on the individual's soteriology? For instance, I could imagine Hindus looking at the veil of ignorance and seeing that it supports the caste system--including its implicit opposition to alleviating poverty.

>>7977602
It doesn't, and that's the point. Rawls' theory, as he himself says, is one of "pure procedural justice". It means that the point is not whether the end principle agreed upon is fair, but that the procedure used to arrive at that principle is fair. Even if you have suffered injustice in the past, behind the veil of ignorance and reason accordingly.