Just back from taking Littlest Guy to a Yugioh tournament at the local toy store; about 15 kids, ranging from 7 (him) to an estimated 25 (guy with his wife and baby) playing a role-playing card game that is just astoundingly popular.
In my spare time, I did addition and scorekeeping while I was reading my way through Rawls, the ‘incidental time’ book I’ve been reading.
As might be imagined from the wide discrepancy in ages and abilities, playing involved a number of controversies and adjustments on the part of the players.
And as I sat there reading Chapter 3, I realized that I maybe would learn more about justice and fairness from watching and listening to the kids than I would by reading.
So I watched and listened and learned. And yes, I think Rawls would have learned a lot as well.
One of the major lessons – and what I see as one of the major flaws in Rawls. Fairness in games is crucial; if we feel the game is unfair, we won’t play. I saw it today, as the older players had to adjust their play to accomodate the younger, less experienced players – or else the younger players simply wouldn’t play. They would negotiate limits on the more experienced player’s gameplay, and where they couldn’t a reach satisfactory result, they would refuse to play.
What does this imply for political society?
Not much. It’s like this…my son could refuse to play this morning if he felt that the terms were unfair.
But he can’t refuse to participate in political society.
The classic restatement of the three laws of theremodynamics provide a lesson here:
1. You can’t win.
2. You can’t break even.
3. You’ve gotta play.
You know, a Hayek fan would probably look at those kids and their bargaining and say, “aha, spontaneous order!”
That said, your thought on John Rawls makes a lot of sense. I always thought Rawls did himself a great disservice by trying to ground his theory in the realm of nonsectarian Kantian metaphysics. People who aren’t political philosophers look at ToJ and they think the OP and the VoI are nonsensical. They understand that you “must play.”
If Rawls had stepped away from obscurantism for a moment and said, instead, that he believed a well-ordered society has its roots in applying the Golden Rule in all legislation, he would have many more adherents. But like Kant, he doesn’t want to use the Golden Rule because it has too many sticky religious connotations.
However, although the Golden Rule has a religious origin within Western society, it also exists as a nonsectarian cultural tradition, and is easily understood and appreciated as such, even by nonbelievers. Tradition is real in ways that thought experiments cannot be. And rights, not surprisingly, owe much more to tradition than Rawls seemed to understand.
3. You’ve gotta play.
Who says “You’ve Gotta Play?” There are plenty of people out there who do not “play.” They don’t vote and they don’t discuss issues. I personally want more “players” and so am willing to contemplate adjustments to the game to acomodate others. How about requiring a government to achieve at least a 50% turn out among those eligible to vote? At the very least we could deny any claim to a mandate if an election is won by less than 1% and with less than 30% participation.
Stan –
If those people think they don’t “play” they ought to think about all the laws and regulations they are subject to…
A.L.
I think this points out why the idea and practice of common law is so important. It represents a codification of the game transactions. It allows us in a crude sort of way to make justice measurable.
Common law is the attempt at justice.
Legislated laws merely strive for coherency and consistiency. This may be good attributes for microchips but humans are more diverse.
Supposedly in our system Judges and juries are designed to give at least some justice to the application of laws.
With Congress tying a judges hand in so many ways and the new very strict rules of evidence that prevent defendants from putting up an effective defence. In effect by not making the system taylor the punishment to the crime we are increasing injustice in an attempt to get predictable results.
Dear A.L.
There is a big difference between being subject to the results of government and being a participant in one’s own government. What interested me specifically about your post was the concept of adjusting the play of the game to allow for greater participation. I went on to suggest one half baked idea about rewarding the political system for increasing participation.
Stan –
Sorry I misinterpreted you. My point was that Rawls (and a number of other political philosophers make the mistake of assuming that political associations are as voluntary as my son’s games, when they aren’t.
They also assume that the same political societies are somehow voluntarily entered into by people who, like Athena, are somehow born fully-formed. Last time I checked, successful political societies are largely made up of those who were raised from childhood in those societies. Unsuccessful ones … communes, etc. have largely failed fairly rapidly.
A.L.