Rawls, science and a valid social contract.

[iconoclast]

Rawls, science and a valid social contract.

If those behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance were aware, as part of a general knowledge about the world that we should encounter a nest of problems in the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and environmental degradation, because it serves what might reasonably be considered integral to everyone’s conception of the good, they would consider carefully the best arrangements to address these issues – and centralize valid knowledge of reality to the conduct of human affairs.

It follows from the occurrence of a valid and coherent understanding of the world that rationally selfish actors ignorant of their intelligence, talent and place in the world would agree a social contract to honor and employ valid knowledge for mutual benefit, and if that meant material equality within the bounds of sustainability, they would find other ways to celebrate those that made extraordinary contributions to society by virtue of a natural, and therefore arbitrarily inequitable share of intelligence or talent.

‘What such free individuals do know are general social, economic, psychological and physical theories of all kinds.’ (Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, p.884.)

In theory then they should be aware, and able to conclude that if global institutions bound to valid knowledge could supply everyone with a good material sufficiency within the bounds of environmental sustainability, it would be unreasonable to gamble the life of the species against a systematically slim chance of riches – even if, globally, they might estimate a 20% chance of living as decently as science might universally allow.

Of course, Rawls’ justice is the justice of national societies and democratic government and therefore it’s a little unfair to put it to a test it was not designed for. But still, Rawls aim is a theory of justice, and yet somehow the validity and impartiality of science did not appeal to him as a good basis for decision-making, in that it did not figure in the reasoning of those behind the veil.

‘A Theory of Justice’ was published in 1971, and clearly, it doesn’t occur to him – even while Wilson Clark’s ‘Energy for Survival – the alternative to extinction’ (as an example of available thought) was published in 1975.

Thirty-some years later science has moved on considerably. I will not try to describe the growing coherence of a scientific conception of reality over the previous thirty years, but technology vouchsafes the essential validity of this mode of understanding.

Computers have moved out of universities into the home, office and schoolroom – wide screen, high definition, a hundred and one channels and a billion and one pages at the press of a button – with audio, text and video available on a hand held device anywhere in the world.
Such advance as that providing such access to information is hugely significant to the value of valid knowledge, and something Rawls could hardly have foreseen. But equally, thirty some years later very few of the energy alternatives Clark sets out have been applied. And this juxtaposition is but one example from a long hypothetical list of social irrationalities caused by a sideways approach to knowledge Rawls himself was unaware of, even while he’s clearly well informed, very intelligent and deeply conscientious in his intellectual pursuit of justice.

Having checked these ideas against the conflicts and balances of rights and interests in justice Rawls elucidates so brilliantly, they do seem to hold up, favourably, to one of the most influential works on justice in the modern age – and were this not sufficient reason to maintain that a valid social contract is possible, it also seems that if Nozick’s people, in ‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’ (1974) cooperate only on terms that violate no-one’s rights, they also could cooperate on the basis of a scientific conception of reality.