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December 12, 2006
Dignity
I found this bit from Sigrid Fry-Revere to odd to ignore:
If I were the worst off behind Rawls’ ”veil of ignorance” I would want people to treat me with respect. I would not want society to rob me of whatever little bit of dignity, self-respect and integrity I may still possess. I would want others to help me because they wanted to. I hope that I would have, or develop, some form of redeeming characteristic that would justify someone’s love, respect, willingness to help, or support.
But let's say you don't: Let's say you're ugly, or deformed, or cranky, or born to a small family where the parents have died, or a shy introvert. In that case, you should be left to languish, simply because you lacked the attributes, circumstances, or particular social connections to attract individual charity? Bizarre. Meanwhile, the idea that you lose more dignity through anonymous, routine state transfers than explicit charity from particular members of your community or social circle is, to me, utterly baffling. I'd feel much better getting a disability check than feeling ashamed or indebted around my neighbor.
Meanwhile, Julian has more.
December 12, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
"If I were the worst off behind Rawls’ ”veil of ignorance” I would want people to treat me with respect."
This strikes me as completely backwards. In fact, it is Rawls unwillingness to treat Burrell with respect that lowers the veil of ignorance from the administration/police power struggle.
Posted by: Petey | Dec 12, 2006 3:18:47 PM
Ezra, I take some issue with this. I agree with the gist, but I wonder about your dignity distinction. Preferring anonymous help to the help of one's "kin," if you will, seems to go against something I have always assumed was an important philosophical piece of liberalism: that we are all in this together. I.e., we are all, in a sense, kin; distance and unfamiliarity don't reduce our ties of societal obligation.
You have pointed out before that market economies (with the accompanying rich-poor spectrum) aren't necessarily a "natural" way to organize a society; many societies have organized themselves far more communally absent any government requirement that they do so. I would think that one of the goals of liberalism's artificially redistributive policies would be to make more equitable social structures seem more natural.
I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this, since I can't seem to extricate the words I'm using from mental images of Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat leading to the open communal society. But in the nebulous formulations of my mind, what I am trying to say is quite different from that. It's more about recognizing the why of protecting the poor and working class through doing it and seeing its positive effects. Then it may no longer feel like some sort of onerous chore for the wealthy, which makes future efforts to do so even more efficient and effective and mutually beneficial.
But if keeping the assisted at arm's length is required to protect their dignity, it calls into doubt whether such a transformation is even possible. If the benefactor and beneficiary must avoid feelings of obligation (and the attendant guilt), then the idea of social responsibility itself seems in trouble, since that's what it is: a mutual obligation. So do we, as liberals, hope to transform the way people look at their social roles? Or do we just hope to distribute assistance and protect rights in order to guarantee some minimum level of comfort and personal freedom? That's certainly a worthy thing to do and I'm on board with it, but it's a much less profound long term goal than I'd always hoped.
Posted by: jhupp | Dec 12, 2006 4:02:13 PM
Preferring anonymous help to the help of one's "kin," if you will, seems to go against something I have always assumed was an important philosophical piece of liberalism: that we are all in this together.
It's not a matter of kin. As it appears in the real world, "charity" comes with ideological or religious ties - I'd much rather any form of aid, domestic or international, was administered by a disinterested bureacracy for rational policy objectives than used as a means of persuading people to adopt a certain religion, avoid certain "immoral" practises, or any other paternalistic ties.
The Salvation Army has a place, but if all aid was run by the Sallys, everyone using it would either have to convert to their brand of Christianity or face continual harassment.
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | Dec 12, 2006 4:09:29 PM
I do receive disability checks. And honestly, I feel it allows me more dignity than otherwise. I would feel terrible being directly dependent on support from my network of friends. The measly amount of my disability payment at least allows me some semblance of independence and peace of mind.
Also, as SS disability is an insurance program, not a "handout," it also comes with a sense of having "earned" the payout, having put in one's time to be able to receive it. We don't heap scorn on those whose auto insurance pays for them to repair a crashed car, after all, whereas donations from those in the community would have an entirely different connotation attached.
Posted by: Amanda | Dec 12, 2006 4:13:49 PM
I think Amanda gets much of my meaning right. The impersonal payout of a bureaucracy may still be a hand-out, but it doesn't come with feelings of guilt or indebtedness to anyone in particular. Indeed, the Jewish religion has long recognized a hierarchy of poverty, with the highest form being donations where the donor didn't know the recipient and the recipient didn't know the donor -- thus there would be no feelings of shame or entitlement on either side.
Posted by: Ezra | Dec 12, 2006 4:39:50 PM
Rawls wrote a lot about self-respect. He considered the social bases of self-respect to be a primary good, even "perhaps the most important primary good" (TJ). He argued that one of the ways that society can provide a basis for its citizens' self-respect is by trying to ensure that they have access to the resources that they need in order to pursue their plans of life.
To criticize Rawls' principles of justice for undermining self-respect, while making no mention whatsoever of anything that Rawls has written about self-respect, is rather bizarre.
Posted by: Blar | Dec 12, 2006 4:48:58 PM
Hello all,
I said I would want to be someone worth helping. I didn't say I wouldn't help someone who didn't seem worth helping. I also never said I didn't think insurance was a good idea. The point is that under a government welfare system, the money comes from someone who didn't voluntarily give it up (at least not everyone did). It is taken by force. I believe in helping the worst off. I believe taking care of others is essential to our moral growth as individuals and as a community. I am involved in numerous charities -- and not only by giving money but by actively volunteering. I have also taken people in -- not just relatives, but peole I didn't know. (I found a woman who had been beaten by her boyfriend crying in the woods -- she ended up living with me for three months before she was ready to strke out on her own.)My children and I regularly help at the food bank and used to have a trained therapy dog that we regularly took for nursing home visits. Up until recently I used to do monthly training sessions at the juvenile detention center in non-violent dispute resolution. I've volunteered at a battered womens shelter and manned a crisis hot line, among other thngs.
There are two points here -- one is that governments (as Rawls suggests they should) take money from one person to give to another against their will. The second point is that when there are government services, individuals aren't taking on the responsibilities to care for others on their own. They depend on government to do so for them. This prevents them from having the inclination, the need, and to some extent even the opportunity to get involved in helping others. I think it is a better world -- and we are talking about ideal worlds when we discuss Rawls and his political theory - if people give because they want to help a particular person because they like them in some way, or because they just want to be a good person.
Anonimous distribution systems deny people the oportunity and the incentive to be good people -- it also allows them to avoid human interaction. I once had a teacher come to class late (This happned in the days before cell phones) -- She complained: "I was accosted by a woman who had lost her way. She was not all there and she couldn't find her way home. She handed me a piece of paper and I had to take her home. GD I pay my taxes, I shouldn't have to deal with such things." She thought of herself as a good liberal.
Think about it. Should taking care of those who can't take care of themselves really be the responsibility of government institutions -- the responsibility of only those who want to make it their vocation, or should it be something we all participate in as part of humanity? We should take care of each other and not by taking money by force from people and redistributing it anonymously. We should take active responsibility for our fellow human beings and be part of their lives and have them be part of ours. That is what it means to be a human community. I'm not saying that people should be forced to help others, I'm saying they should want to do so -- and not by paying someone else (government) to do it for them, but because they understand that it is their moral responsibility as part of the human race to take an interest in their fellow human beings.
Posted by: Sigrid Fry-Revere | Dec 12, 2006 5:28:27 PM
Just to add a couple points to the interesting comments:
Sigrid doesn't actually take issue with Rawls on his ideal of distributive outcome, only with the means of achieving it. (This cancels to some extent my comment in the previous thread on this.)
Even though Sigrid doesn't appear to like this idea as much, it's also worth noticing that help can be given anonymously by nongovernmental means, if it's felt that this would be better.
The big question for me is whether relying on private means is as practical as relying on public means. I see Sigrid's points, but I'm only willing to pay so much in terms of effectiveness to preserve the advantages of private, voluntary aid.
Posted by: Sanpete | Dec 12, 2006 6:27:03 PM
I think Sigrid's disagreement with Rawls isn't occurring where she's placed her argument. It seems to me that Rawls would not necessarily have a problem with how she constructs the individual. Rather, there is a profound disagreement about the concept of government.
Rawls envisioned something akin to a social contract. People accept the social contract with government because of the fundamental realizations that occur when they're placed behind the veil of ignorance.
In his worldview, because governmental action is taken with the consent of the people being governed, the redistribution that occurs entails no loss of dignity to anyone involved. Individuals agreed to be taxed. Consequently, welfare recipients need not feel guilty about receiving assistance. It's conceptually no different from a charity because the initial act of creating the government was a voluntary decision.
Posted by: Andrew | Dec 12, 2006 7:04:49 PM
The point is that under a government welfare system, the money comes from someone who didn't voluntarily give it up (at least not everyone did). It is taken by force.
I want to have sex with dozens of women each day, forcibly if necessary. I am prevented from doing so by force (or the threat thereof). I want to take neat things that other people own. I am prevented from doing so by force. I'd rather not pay the taxes my society needs in order to function. They are taken from me by force.
The only, ONLY human being that has a right to call himself a true libertarian is an abandoned new-born baby. EVERYONE else is or has been dependent on family, community, and country. As such, their "liberty" is compromised by entanglement with the obligations of participating in that family, community and country.
If those obligations include being forced to pay money to support social welfare, so be it. The argument that this is immoral per se, made by anyone OTHER than an abandoned baby, can be ignored.
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | Dec 12, 2006 7:05:59 PM
I do with the libertarian faction understood what "force" means, rather than merely equating it with governmental taxation. There are power relations all over society and one of the things we should all draw from Rawls is that the accident of birth has an enormous influence on our position within those power relations. If you're on the short end of the stick to start with, then governmental injustices are not the only ones you suffer. But then, few libertarians have lived in a society that contains the kind of inequalities their proposals encourage. Hence they have no basic understanding of what it looks like. I'd recommend every libertarian be sent off to live in Calcutta or Darfur (on a good income) for a couple of years. The ones who come back libertarian may be people with no empathy or compassion, but at least they won't be advocating their philosophies out of ignorance.
Posted by: Meh | Dec 12, 2006 7:09:36 PM
Andrew, I think Sigrid's could be restated this way: it's contrary to my dignity to receive aid from those who only consent to give it because they're concerned that they might need it themselves (the reason they consent behind the veil), rather because they want to help me or others like me, besides themselves. Therefore I, and likewise others, shouldn't consent to such government. I may not be entirely getting your point, but it seems to me that would be a problem for Rawls and is different from accepting aid from a charity, where people generally give to help others rather to insure against their own poverty.
Phoenician, libertarians don't oppose all force and loss of liberty. They oppose it in cases where, for one reason or another, it isn't called for. Sigrid believes it isn't called for to help others.
Meh, libertarians would very likely disagree with you about the causes of inequality in the places you mention.
Posted by: Sanpete | Dec 12, 2006 8:01:43 PM
The argument that this is immoral per se, made by anyone OTHER than an abandoned baby, can be ignored.
How desperate you are to be "right".
Posted by: Fred Jones | Dec 12, 2006 9:16:15 PM
Phoenician -
I don't know where the hell you get the idea that libertarians don't believe in familial or community "entanglements" from. Pure libertarian philosophy is that all government should be used for is policing and a common defense. They say nothing about not supporting/engaging with family or community, they just don't see it as the governments job. I dissagree strongly, but damn, call it like it is.
Pure libertarian philosophy aside, few libertarians get into that kind of purity. Most fall somewhat short of libertarian absolutes, many of them, in regards to public or publicly funded education - though many support voucher programs.
There is plenty to dissagree with in libertarian philosophy, one need not resort to gross mis-characterisations, such as yours.
For the underlying discussion, I still don't understand the problem with fighting together on issues of civil liberties and not worry about some all encompassing alliance. Such an alliance is impossible, there are too many areas of fundamental dissagreement. But we are placing partisanship ahead of some very important issues, if we don't work together where we agree. Working together on common ground, can only be healthy when we are opposition.
Posted by: DuWayne | Dec 12, 2006 10:05:30 PM
If I were the worst off behind Rawls’ ”veil of ignorance”... I hope that I would have, or develop, some form of redeeming characteristic that would justify someone’s love, respect, willingness to help, or support.
But isn't the whole point of the veil of ignorance that it's constructed before we actually experience any resolution of actual life-draw -- even what society we'll live in, or what we'll want once we're born into it? Behind the veil, everything is potential. There's not enough "self" yet to create a basis for personal responsibility. The idea, as I understand it, is to ask how much we'd want to insure ourselves, before we know anything -- including whether we'd actually "want people to respect us" once we learn our draw, or about what are own faults and weaknesses will be. That's the power of the concept, and Rawls posits we'd first want to insure ourselves a qualified liberty and, conditional on that, a degree of public insurance against suffering.
Posted by: Laura | Dec 12, 2006 10:12:39 PM
Sanpete,
I'll take the blame for not clearly explaining myself the first time.
Rawls made 5 basic assumptions about human behavior. He pulled these from the Liberal tradition of thought extending from Socrates through Adam Smith, et al. He contended that everyone would agree to these 5 postulates.
There are two at issue in this discussion. The first is that people are self-interested. They look to make sure that they take care of their needs. The second is that they are other regarding. They look to take care of others' needs as well.
Thus, when they consent to form a government they do so not only because they think they may gain some benefit from it, but because they see an opportunity to benefit others.
There are two reasons why individuals do not need to feel guilty about welfare: a) taxpayers consent to be governed and taxed--and so not because they might benefit from it, but because they have a desire to help people; and b) welfare is given out in order to expand the whole pie.
In addition, Rawls wasn't necessarily a fan of direct hand-outs. An ideal form of welfare for Rawls would not be food stamps. It would be subsidizing higher pay for teacers in impoverished areas. Or giving scholarships to the best students who were willing to get an education degree and then teach in an impoverished area.
Rawls thought that the ideal situation was true equality. But he thought it was highly implausible to achieve it. He recognized that there is a tension between equality and liberty and believed that equality ought not to come at the expense of liberty. So he elevated liberty to the top spot in his hierarchy of values. He also defined liberty as the opportunity to behave as a Liberal. A Liberal in the philosophical sense, that is to say, the chance to live the Good Life.
He was a believer in 'trickle up' economics, so to speak. Helping people at the bottom, he would say, necessarily helps people at the top. Which is another reason why you wouldn't have to feel guilty about accepting a hand-out: you're actually helping the taxpayer who funded it.
Posted by: Andrew | Dec 12, 2006 11:00:10 PM
Hi Again,
This discussion is very interesting. I'm enjoying your comments and learning something too.
I think ultimately my point is that the best kind of caring isn’t anonymous, and that our society would be better off if we all gave each other more time instead of expecting government to do it for us. Anonymous caring is better than not caring at all, but it isn’t my ideal. It is hard for me to accept as a logical foundation for society a philosophical construct that depends on forcing people to give by taxing them instead of by finding ways to encourage them to be more active participants in their communities. The fact that the taxation takes place after a supposed social contract doesn’t help me much, because I wouldn’t agree to such a contract, and I’m sure there are others who, like me, would hold out in the hope of a better social order.
I don’t think I’m over simplifying when I say – Rawls is arguing that reasonable people who don’t know their position in life would agree to be taxed for the sake of the worst-off. This is a brilliant argument – but I, for one, would not sign such a social contract because I think we can do better – we can find a way to encourage people to give to those who are struggling or, even better, encourage them to get directly involved in helping them personally.
The other important point is that none of us have actually agreed to a social contract, so for people like me who believe many government programs are counterproductive, I am forced to pay taxes to support those programs against my will. My solution would be to find a way to give people more realistic tax credits for not only donating to charity but for time spent doing volunteer work -- such tax credits would at least make the choice of giving through taxes or through doing good works personally a realistic choice.
On the point of dignity, it is important to note that when someone agrees to Rawls’ social contact, they agree to pay to support the worst-off even if they later need to be forced to do so – in other words, they can’t change their mind if they find out they personally aren’t one of the worst-off or if government ends up deciding that they should be giving more than they feel comfortable giving – at that point the arrangement becomes coercive and the moral status of the recipient is a status I would not want to have –I would not want to be in the position of being helped by someone who resents having to help me.
Just a quick example of how the redistribution of goods can backfire: When I was a kid and lived in PG County in Maryland just outside of D.C, I once heard the father of one of my classmates ranting that he had noticed that a girl in our class whose family received government assistance had braces. He was irate. I didn’t understand why he would care, until I heard him tell his wife; “I work my A off, and for what -- so that so and so [the girl on assistance] can have braces, while I have to take out a loan to get my own daughter braces.” I realize that this is an example of the system gone wrong, but stories like this aren’t as uncommon as you might think.
My final point is that people should be helping each other no matter where they are in the supposed hierarchy. It isn’t just those who are better off who should be obligated (or forced) to help those who are worst-off. We should all want to help all. In my volunteer work, I was not at all surprised to see that it often was those who had the least to offer financially who had the most to offer in other respects. I also saw that often the opposite was true – those who were financially well off, needed help, emotionally, or otherwise. People need both to give and receive to grow morally and they need this no matter what their supposed position in the hierarchy of most to least well off. It is a gross oversimplification of these important and complicated human interactions to think that redistributing goods from the haves to the have-nots (however you might define the goods in question), will solve things. Worse yet, such redistribution creates a false sense that things are being taken care of, allows people to ignore their personal responsibility to become involved, and far too often creates anger and resentment. This is why I feel Rawls theory, albeit enticing, is dangerous. I’m not saying we shouldn’t help others, that should be clear by now, what I’m saying is that Rawls is suggesting a less than optimal way of achieving that goal.
Thanks for listening. Take care, Sigrid
Posted by: Sigrid Fry-Revere | Dec 12, 2006 11:39:33 PM
I don't know where the hell you get the idea that libertarians don't believe in familial or community "entanglements" from. Pure libertarian philosophy is that all government should be used for is policing and a common defense.
Said philosophy is based on the a priori assumption that the individual's "rights" exist free of the government. They do not. Individuals exist because of contributions by the family, by the community and by the nation, and thus are limited by obligations incurred as part of this. This is why I invoke that abandoned baby as a metaphor - he is the only really free human being, and thus the only one that can invoke pure "liberty".
Once you accept that all liberty is bounded by the individual first existing within a communitarian setting, then any moral argument for government being limited to policing and defense is fatally weakened.
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | Dec 12, 2006 11:45:23 PM
P.S. I've gone to school in four different countries each time in the local schools, not private, American, or international schools, and over the years I've visited 40 countries. I paid my own way through college, in part by cleaning bathrooms. I paid my way through graduate school, among other things, by waitressing and driving a school bus. I have four children, one of whom is handicapped. And, yes, I'm a libertarian -- not because I'm young, naive, or wealthy. I'm a libertarian because I believe that to truly be good, people have to actively choose to do good and follow through by actively involving themselves in the life of their community. I favor systems that encourage such moral growth, not those that I've seen do the opposite. Please note I also don't think libertarianism necessitates laissez-faire capitalism. Communalism, or other forms of social order, are reasonable choices as far as I can see, as long as the relationship is entered into voluntarily and provides for reasonable conditons under which someone can leave. For example, I believe families are communal in nature.
Posted by: Sigrid Fry-Revere | Dec 13, 2006 12:15:52 AM
I always hear libertarians say stuff like that, and it makes me chuckle. Let me suggest they perform an experiment:
1. Find a person who depends on a government program of any sort---can be a farmer getting subsidies, a parent with children in the public schools, or whatever.
2. Ask that person "wouldn't it be great if that program didn't exist?"
3. Repeat one million times. I'll give them an over under of five serious answers of "yes", and will bet the under.
Sorta similar to how neocons used to act as though, if they were Iraqis, they would be totally grateful if the US invaded...
Posted by: JoshA | Dec 13, 2006 12:48:24 AM
I paid my own way through college, in part by cleaning bathrooms.
Did you pay for the schooling that qualified you for college?
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | Dec 13, 2006 1:07:36 AM
Laura, as I understand it (but it's been a long time), the veil of ignorance is supposed to remove any factor that might introduce injustice through a special interest. That would include knowledge that one would have any redeeming characteristic--it's a good point that Sigrid can't base her argument on that assumption. Normal desires couldn't be ruled out, though, because they don't introduce any special interest (and without them there would be no motive for any kind of distribution). We can want to eat, for example. I'm not sure Rawls could (or tried to) argue that a desire for respect is a factor to exclude, as it's universal enough. A view of respect as particular as Sigrid's might be a problem, which could mean perhaps her objection to Rawls isn't sound in the way I was thinking before. (Would help if I remembered Rawls better.)
That doesn't mean it can't be made into a valid objection to Rawls. Sigrid need not accept the assumptions that underlie the Original Position. She might argue that it doesn't take sufficient stock of the importance of her view of respect, among other things. I think Rawls would reply that her position amounted to a rejection of some classical liberal principles underlying the Original Position that she professes to accept, which include no special pleading for special moral views when determining universal, impartial principles of justice that bind all. Sigrid would have to show why that isn't so. I don't think she gives Rawls his due, but I don't know enough to press the point.
Andrew, the way I remember Rawls, those in the Original Position are to act essentially from self-interest. Possibly the principles you cite are to be used in constructing the Original Position, but I don't think they directly apply in it. I'm not sure how your point (b) works in relation to Sigrid's concerns, partly because it isn't clear that welfare is designed to increase the whole pie, or that it would be the best way to increase it. But that's an objection to welfare, not Rawls, as you would point out.
Posted by: Sanpete | Dec 13, 2006 1:44:01 AM
Sanpete,
In the Original Position, self-interest does have the premier position among Rawls' five assumptions about human nature. But there are four others. Mea culpa: my memory's imperfect so I'd have to dig up my notes to find the three I can't recall; and I have no idea where they went.
Yes, I would point out that your objection is to welfare as it's currently construed, rather than to something Rawls would create. My biggest problem with Rawls is that much of what he's created is a-ok in the fantasyland of the Original Position and veil of ignorance.
We don't live in that world. So while, according to Rawls, ideally we'd all have agreed to the social contract of the welfare state, that's not reality.
But that's why I think Sigrid was arguing the wrong turf. The ground Rawls staked out is in an ideal place that can't be found her on Earth. It's how things out to look if everyone used his thought experiment and set about shaping a government out of it.
Sigrid's argument could almost be stated that, empirically, government welfare entails a loss of dignity. And that because Rawls was in favor of welfare, he therefore promoted a system that treads on liberty.
I'm not going to say that it's invalid to criticise Rawls via empiricism, but I don't think it addresses his points on their merits.
I think you're on the money when you say that Rawls would argue that Sigrid's position reflects a rejection of some "classical liberal principles underlying the Original Position" that she professes to accept. There's a disagreement on fundamental assumptions about human nature present. And I think the discussion of dignity served to mask it.
And Sigrid, it's nice to see you participating in the thread. I have to think a little more before addressing your comments directly. My apologies for not having done so sooner.
Posted by: Andrew | Dec 13, 2006 3:50:23 AM
I don't remember at all how much weight Rawls puts on the social contract, but I think it's possible, and useful, to understand what he does as deriving a set of ideals to use as guidelines for what is consistent with our basic shared assumptions about justice, even if you don't like the whole idea of a social contract. Of course, his assumptions and derivation aren't beyond dispute, but they provide a rallying point that many find attractive. As you've suggested, Andrew, Sigrid probably agrees more with Rawls than she realizes.
Posted by: Sanpete | Dec 13, 2006 4:18:12 AM
After a little more thought, I think I remember the 5 postulates. I may even have the right order. Going to have to find my notes for verification.
According to Rawls, Human in the Original Position are:
1)reasonable and rational--they have the capability to think and to make logical decisions;
2)self-interested--they pursue ends that are good for themselves;
3)mutually disinterested; they seek to acquire as much as they can for themselves, but they do not actively seek to prevent others from doing so;
4)other-regarding--they will help others when they can; and
5)risk-averse--they will not chance harm for the sake of benefit to themselves.
However, the Original Position does not actually exist. It is completely ahistorical. Even if it did, Rawls certainly placed himself outside of it, kind of as an ideal observer. But he felt that everyone in the world could agree to those five things which he took from Classical Liberal thought.
Maybe it would do us good to hash out more exactly the rest of his thought experiment before proceeding? If there's interst I can take the time to do so.
Posted by: Andrew | Dec 13, 2006 4:49:40 AM
