Overheads til 7

Ligheder mellem Rawls og Ackerman:

· Both theories share "a principled reluctance to embed political commitments in any single comprehensive philosophy of life." (Ackerman (1994), p.365)

· Accordingly, Ackerman endorses the aim of an overlapping consensus, trying to gain adherence from as large a part of citizens as possible.

· In combination with the endorsement of an overlapping consensus, Ackerman believes that a liberal theory of justice must be freestanding.

· The theories share an emphasis on the idea of public reason

The result (or perhaps fulcrum starting ideal) is a society where no one is ever allowed to use the phrase

“I am better (or more deserving, or more qualified, or more entitled) than you”,

but is always allowed to use the phrase

“I am at least as good (or deserving, or qualified, or entitled) as you are.”

Rationality: Whenever anybody questions the legitimacy of another’s power, the power holder must respond not by suppressing the questioner but by giving a reason that explains why he is more entitled to the resource than the questioner is.[1]

Consistency. The reasons advanced by a power wielder on one occasion must not be inconsistent with the reasons he advances to justify his other claims to power.[2]

Ackerman claims that “If there is anything distinctive about liberalism, it must be in the kinds of reasons liberals rely on to legitimate their claims to scarce resources” (SJLS, p.7.) Accordingly, neutrality is defined in the following manner:

Neutrality. No reason is a good reason if it requires the powerholder to assert: (a) that his conception of the good is better that that asserted by any of his fellow citizens, or, (b) that, regardless of his conception of the good, he is intrinsically superior to one or more of his fellow citizens.[3]

[There is a]…perfect parallelism between the role of political conversation within a liberal state, and the role of philosophical conversation in defense of a liberal state…The task of philosophical conversation is to make it possible for a person to reason his way to Neutrality without declaring that the path he has chosen is intrinsically better than any other route to liberalism.[4]

On the other hand, Ackerman later says that

…there is no reason to insist that the reasons advanced in support of an entire practice be identical to those that are admissible within the practice. Applying [this] point to the present problem: while Neutrality excludes a broad range of normative argument from the practice of liberal politics, it does not follow that these arguments should also be excluded when the subject is the justification of the entire practice of liberal argument, considered as a whole. Indeed, it would be a category mistake to imagine that there could be a Neutral justification for the practice of Neutral justification – for Neutrality makes no sense except as a part of the practice it constitutes.[5]

While everybody has an opinion about the good life, none can be known to be superior to any other. It follows that anyone who asserts that either he or his aims are intrinsically superior doesn’t know what he is talking about. Yet this is precisely the move barred by Neutrality.[6]

…surely the only way you can ever come to know the good is by transcending, rather than suppressing, your doubts. If you are simply pretending your doubts do not exist, you can never say for sure what you might say if you ever had the courage to confront them head on. Yet if you yourself might well discard your present beliefs, how could you possibly say that you know them to be true? At best, you hope that X is good.[7]

· The practice and membership of religious cults, prophesising the end of the world and/or that suicide is the only road to salvation

· Astrology

· Mind-numbing, repetitive labour with none or little chances of challenges and improvement

· Community and love vs. loneliness and emotional autism

· Egoism vs. compassion: Is it plausible to say that Scrooge's way of life was as valuable when he was a callous miser as when he changed his ways?

Alcoholism and drug addiction vs. relative soberness. Can we rally say that the way of life of the alcoholic or drug addict is as valuable as the one whose indulgences does not preclude autonomy and reflective thinking? (Cf.: Caney (1996), pp.277f)

…you might think that you can only learn anything true about the good when you are free to experiment in life without some authoritative teacher intervening whenever he thinks you’re wrong.[8]

1) In order to achieve a good (moral) character (alternatively; to live a valuable life), it is necessary

a) To have a range of different options from which to choose

b) To value the life one leads and the options one chooses for the right reasons

2) One values the life one leads for the right reasons only if one is aware of other options and ideals than the ones one has actually chosen, and when one critically evaluates and compares them and makes one’s choices on the basis of this evaluation and comparison.

The critical step is the following:

3) Thus, in order to value the life one leads and the options one chooses for the right reasons, one must have available a range of unworthy or bad options.[9]

Assume…that you think you know what the good life is and that it is of a kind that can be forced on others; then the only question is whether the right people will be doing the forcing…People adept in gaining power are hardly known for their depth of moral insight; the very effort to engross power corrupts…[10]

1) The state might make mistakes about the good life because a) all men are fallible, including politicians; b) power corrupts, therefore politicians are more likely to seek their own good than to promote the common good; c) even if a politician is both able to discern what is good and wishes to promote it, his endeavour might falter due to bureaucracy.

2) If the state might make mistakes about the good, then it should not seek to promote any conceptions of the good life.

3) Therefore, the state should not promote any conceptions of the good life. It should instead adopt a policy of neutrality.

Even if you don’t think you need to experiment, you may adopt a conception of the good that gives a central place to autonomous deliberation and deny that it is possible to force a person to be good. On this view, the intrusion of non-Neutral argument into power talk will seem self-defeating at best – since it threatens to divert people from the true means of cultivating a truly good life.[11]

1) Autonomy is valuable

2) Any attempt from the state to force an agent to live a good life makes autonomy impossible

3) Therefore, the state should not force an agent to live a good life

1*) Autonomy is the most valuable thing there is

1**) Autonomy is the only valuable thing there is[12]

1) taxing undesirable options more heavily than others;

2) offering incentives to citizens in order to make them pursue valuable goals;

3) (non-rationally) cause them to prefer valuable goals;

4) create social forms and practices of a kind that will facilitate the achievement of the preferred goals;

5) giving legal recognition to favoured practices, and probably many more

…the use of ‘directive’ techniques of moral education, including exhortation, reward, punishment, and personal example, to cause students to acquire desirable habits and preferences. They also include employing the techniques of advertising to instill an aversion to drug use and other unwholesome activities; encouraging writers to portray women in nonstereotyped ways; hiring workers who are positive ‘role models’ for persons with low aspirations; making work a condition of public assistance to alter the habits of recipients; and trying to reform criminals by incarcerating them.[13]

2*) Any attempt from the state to induce an agent to live a better life makes autonomy impossible

The government's decision to tax fox hunting, for example, will be justified by exactly those factors which a potential hunter ought to consider when making the decision whether to opt for this pastime. As an autonomous agent, the hunter should be the one responding to these considerations, and those are the only considerations they should be responding to when making the choice. The imposition of the tax, then, is necessarily manipulative, for it influences a person's decision by distorting that individual's understanding of the merits of the choice.[14]

[6] SJLS, p.11. Remark that Ackerman deftly avoids to discuss why neutrality, equality, etc., is not the subject of due scepticism.

[12] This way, we also avoid the possible pitfall that two or more valuable things could outweigh autonomy even though autonomy is the single most valuable thing there is.