1. Philosophy 213 Dilemmas of Loyalty Day 17
Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?
Chapter 9 ~ What Do We Owe One Another
Dilemmas of Loyalty
Day 17

2. Bentham?
Kant?
Rawls?

3. The doctrine of moral individualism does not assume that people are selfish. It is rather a claim about what it means to be free. For the moral individualist, to be free is to be subject only to obligations I voluntarily incur... (213).

4. For Kant & Rawls... Individual Rights Precede “the Good”
Governments/Institutions Should Remain Neutral
The Dangers of Coercion, Partiality and Prejudice

5. So Why Apologize?
“The weakness of the liberal conception of freedom is bound up with its appeal. If we understand ourselves as free and independent selves, unbound by moral ties we haven’t chosen, we can’t make sense of a range of moral and political obligations that we commonly recognize, even prize. These include obligations of solidarity and loyalty, historic memory and religious faith—moral claims that arise from the communities and traditions that shape our identity…” [p. 220]

6. Moral Ties Social Contract Universal Imperative Your Communal
Narrative
Your Nature
Your End

7. Overarching
Narrative
Virtues
In Pursuit
of ...
Telos
End/Goal

8. Back to MacIntyre
I can only answer the question, ‘What am I do do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’

9. Membership & Belonging
Virtue
Phronesis
Prudential
Reasoning
Value Claims
Responsibilities

10. Sandel ~ Page 225 Natural Duties: universal; don’t require consent
Voluntary obligations: particular; requires consent
Obligations of solidarity: particular; don’t require consent

11. Competing Stories
Nation
Family
Livelihood
Ethnicity
Region
Religion

12. When does Solidarity border on Prejudice?

20. Public Discourse—
Over-lapping
Consensus? or
a Meta-Narrative
that’s Out-There?

22. Overlapping Consensus
A Pluralism of Incompatible Yet Reasonable Comprehensive Doctrines (p. 13).
A Conception of Justice that would be Acceptable by Anyone Accepting the Essentials of a Democratic Regime...
Limited... to the Political Essentials...
Rawls Defines “Justice” for the sake of a well- ordered and Reasonable Pluralism.

26. “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions...” ~John Rawls
But in the Post-Modern World, We Doubt Whether Reason Can Establish Our Concept of Equality and Fairness (Justice) As Foundational.

27. Tradition or Religious
This Belief
In Equality
Must Be
Free-Standing
Not Dependent
Upon Any Extraneous
Tradition or Religious
Institution

28. “While not necessarily denying outright the existence of objective reality, order or truth, the postmodern pragmatist posits an a priori methodological skepticism regarding the possibility that human reason could ever demonstrate its existence, or correspond consciously and evidently to it if it did happen to exist…"
~Thaddeus Kosinski

29. A Story of All Stories?

30. For Next Class Read Pages 315—328 in Justice: A Reader
Quote #9 is due.