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The Veil Of Ignorance

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Par   •  17 Avril 2013  •  Dissertation  •  1 056 Mots (5 Pages)  •  859 Vues

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The society and the veil of ignorance

-Bipolarity in the human quest of interests-

This assignment is based on my interpretations of “the veil of ignorance” chapter in Rawls theory. I would like to precise that I couldn’t pretend to understand this theory without positioning it in a wider context of lectures and authors. This essay must be analyzed as a path from the lecture to the comprehension. It tries to answer a simple question: Is the human building a society based on his reason or just responding to his instincts? And to develop the Rawls answer to this observation, I will base my assignment on two human inclinations: greed and reason.

Adam Smith is one of the most important liberalist thinkers. Theorist of trade and creator of “the invisible hand” theory, he has always took his vision of the human nature as a basis of his arguments. In his opinion, all the individuals constituting society are led by their greed. To maximize their interest, their happiness, they have to compete with all the other individuals, parts of society.

This theory could be called the “anti-communitarian” theory.

Other thinkers, Machiavelli for example, gave the same definition of the human nature. A selfish, interested and predator individual. In his famous book, The Prince, Machiavelli said that in each individual, in each part of society, a prince is inside each of us. Led by greed and obsessed by power, the prince will consider the society as a handle able context to reach the power.

Those theories are based on the vilest instincts of the human, his wish of domination, his hunger of power. I think we all have a wish of being this lion, dominating the society.

Other thinkers consider the individual as a social animal. Hobbes, Kant, or Rousseau are some examples. They said an individual is dependent of a society to live surely and affluently. In this way of thinking, the man is like an ant, depending on the other for his survival.

In this vision authors make an assessment listing the human advantages in his natural dispositions. The point is: no coat to fight the cold, no hooks, and no claws to defend from predators… The only advantage is his ability to think, his reason.

This ability allows him to think, and to understand one thing: to survive he has to cooperate with his fellow men.

Thus lead to exchanges (I protect you, you feed me), and the increase of those exchanges leads to the creation of a society. The individual is now a part of the society, a citizen, dependent on the welfare of this social group.

Those two visions seem to be opposed, and incompatible.

I think those opposite tendencies are both part of the human. The greed is the instinct; the desire of social structure is the reason. The main problem is to consider them both, and to combine them as a more complex definition of the human nature and interests.

The good news is: Lions never eat Ants.

Some authors have exposed theories combining this bipolar nature, those different quests of interests.

Rousseau was one of the first to talk about this complexity in his “du Contrat Social”.

He

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