Rawls, science and a valid social contract.

Political Legitimacy.



It's immediately obvious how government bound to valid knowledge would satisfy both these criteria. The valid and impartial truth of science is a rightful source of authority, and scientifically conceived, the ends and purposes of government would be rightful.
It might therefore be argued that neither of these conditions are presently fulfilled, but outside yesterday, council workers were clearing up huge plies of leaves - quickly before the kids got out of school, and the high street was busy with people getting a few things in for the weekend. It's not immediately obvious why political arrangements allowing for such rightful and decent social practices should be considered illegitimate, but in Theory A we showed that all conceptual schemes have limited validity.

'Newton's theory of planetary motion seemed to generate adequate predictions of the motions of the planets for most of the time, but the planet Mercury at perihelion did not conform to the conceptual scheme that explained all else. If we were to maintain that Newton's theories were 'true' we would need an extra theoretical explanation for the location of Mercury at perihelion. But to assert that Newton's theories were therefore 'false' is overstating the case, not least in that they produced adequate predictions for most planets most of the time. Further, they contained within them much founded knowledge - most basically that there are planets, that there are regularities in their motions and so on.
Einstein improved considerably upon Newton's accuracy of prediction for planetary motion, however, according to Einstein's figures, when approximating the mass of a galaxy we find that it does not contain enough mass, by some considerable degree, to maintain its structural cohesion. Hence, 9/10ths of the universe is missing.'

For this reason we proposed that we should consider all conceptual schemes variously valid of reality rather than true or false in the absolute sense. It's not that religion, nation and capitalism - as social, political and economic conceptual schemes have no explanatory potential or validity, it's that they have limited validity. Considered in this light a fuller and more nuanced understanding of legitimacy is enabled. It is not a simple dichotomy - legitimate/illegitimate, but a matter of some arrangements being more or less legitimate than others. (and reciprocally, more or less illegitimate!)

Although we have traveled a long way around to arrive at a common sense understanding that all government is bad but some is worse than others - now we approach the question from the right direction. Given a variously valid conception of legitimacy it's possible and reasonable to ask how we maximize the legitimacy of government?



In 'Rawls, science and a valid social contract' we argued, that from the original position free, self-interested people would agree a social contract to honor and employ valid knowledge for mutual benefit. Scientifically conceived, the interests of the governed would include addressing the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and environmental degradation - global issues necessitating global government bound to employ knowledge and technology to balance welfare and sustainability.

The legitimacy of a scientific polity would therefore derive from a rightful source of authority and satisfy the rightful ends of government. It would serve the interests of the governed and be chosen by free self-interested people. It would be just in that it was chosen by free, self-interested people, and that action in the course of valid and impartial knowledge would promote justice.

But while it's easy to pick these arrangements from behind a veil of ignorance, there was no meeting under an oak tree now lost in the mists of history. Instead we've suffered the slow and painful social evolution of arrangements we invest our identities in, and draw our values and purposes from. The discontinuity involved in adopting radically different ideas, methods and purposes could not be ordinarily be justified by the theoretical superiority of said ideas, but due to the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and environmental degradation the century ahead is likely to be marked by such vast discontinuities it's possible we won't survive.

Were it possible to address these threats in terms of evolved arrangements, similarly it would be unjustified to risk the discontinuity involved in such change - but given the occurrence of a highly valid and broadly coherent knowledge of reality it's now unreasonable to argue that we cannot survive a top down transition but can survive the next century without one. Religiously divided sovereign political groups in economic and military competition are systematically barred from doing what's necessary to address these threats, and in the interests of the governed should legitimately consider cooperation in global government.

I think I would be careful about assuming knowledge of ecological and sustainability would be present behind the veil of ignorance. I think it is very easy to run into great difficulties if we try and include specialized knowledge of any kind, as we prejudice the original position towards our own given bias. If we were to include environmental issues in the original position, certainly we would expect rationalizing risk-minimizing actors to take certain positions. However, we might expect them to take other, different positions if we included other, different specialized informations.

For example, if we included detailed economic or financial theory and knowledge in the original position, we might expect our actors to become more sympathetic towards the market. Or, if instead we included detailed Marxist knowledge, we would probably think our actors would be more menable to socialism.

So by complicating the original position I think we are really contaminating Rawls' argument, and the original position as a thought excercise itself. I don't think it is necessarily obvious that environmental knowledge should be include behind the veil of ignorance, but not financial, or cultural, or national knowledge.

In short, by inserting specialized knowledge behind the veil of ignorance, you are biasing the original position and the subsequent society we might expect it to produce towards positions you find favorable a priori.

Grant,

First of all, thank you for your comment, and thank you ever so much more that it's an intelligent point.

'In short, by inserting specialized knowledge behind the veil of ignorance, you are biasing the original position and the subsequent society we might expect it to produce towards positions you find favorable a priori.'

However, i would argue that what you describe as 'ecology and sustainability' are areas of knowledge founded in science - they are not market theory, political or social theory, they are inherent to a sceinctific conception of reality.

According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

'What such free individuals do know are general social, economic, psychological and physical theories of all kinds.'

And so my argument is that this is not specialized or theoretical knowledge, but founded in a scientific conception of reality and human nature - but nice try!

regards, iconoclast.

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