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Exercise a

Introduction

As you have seen in the material above, justice can be at least partially derived from an imagined social contract where rationally self-interested individuals negotiate how society should distribute access to primary goods such as (1) liberties and rights, (2) opportunities and powers, and (3) wages and wealth. Social contract theory thus devises a negotiation whose end result generates principles and procedures of distributive justice. In this activities section, you will carry out two different versions of the social contract, one without what Rawls terms a veil of ignorance and the other under the veil of ignorance.

First, you will participate in a natural lottery. From a hat (or box) you will draw one of the following:

    The natural lottery

  • You (or your group) has been born as a woman
  • You (or your group) has been born as Michael Jordan. (You have talents that would make you an excellent basketball player if these are properly developed.
  • You (or your group) has been born as Albert Hirschmann, a German of Jewish dissent who comes of age in the 1930s in Nazi Germany. You have extraordinary mental talents and have a good preliminary education but are now living in a world where people of your descent are the objects of persecution.
  • You (or your group) has been born as a graduate from the Harvard MBA program.
  • You (or your group) has been born in a nation that occupies what is now called the "Global South." (Haiti would be a good example.)
  • You (or your group) has been born as a Black man who has always lived in Detroit, MI.

    Some key assumptions to guide you all through the negotiation process.

  • Your group has interests that need to be protected in this process. You can try to integrate interests, compromise interests, or tradeoff interests with one another.
  • You and the other parties to the contract are rationally self-interested. As such you are interested in maximizing access to Primary Goods such as rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth.
  • You are willing to accept constraints to your primary goods but only if other groups also do so. In other words, you should not unilaterally give up your group’s access to any primary goods since these compose rational-self interest and are also essential to survival.
  • This contract is supposedly neutral as to different conceptions of the self, for example, whether the self is essentially or non-essentially related to any community. But it tends in the direction of what MacPherson terms “possessive individualism.” In this case, there is a human nature that is prior to an independent of any relation to other individuals or to a community. Hobbes reduces this human nature to acquisitiveness or unlimited desire. Locke and Rousseau see a “fellow feeling” as balancing or checking acquisitive desire.

Negotiate a new social contract with the other groups.

Negotiate a contract whose structure represents the best procedure for distributing goods, risks, and harms among the different stakeholders listed in one. Be prepared to defend your contract against claims that it privileges one of these groups over another.

Questions & Answers

what is mutation
Janga Reply
what is a cell
Sifune Reply
how is urine form
Sifune
what is antagonism?
mahase Reply
classification of plants, gymnosperm features.
Linsy Reply
what is the features of gymnosperm
Linsy
how many types of solid did we have
Samuel Reply
what is an ionic bond
Samuel
What is Atoms
Daprince Reply
what is fallopian tube
Merolyn
what is bladder
Merolyn
what's bulbourethral gland
Eduek Reply
urine is formed in the nephron of the renal medulla in the kidney. It starts from filtration, then selective reabsorption and finally secretion
onuoha Reply
State the evolution relation and relevance between endoplasmic reticulum and cytoskeleton as it relates to cell.
Jeremiah
what is heart
Konadu Reply
how is urine formed in human
Konadu
how is urine formed in human
Rahma
what is the diference between a cavity and a canal
Pelagie Reply
what is the causative agent of malaria
Diamond
malaria is caused by an insect called mosquito.
Naomi
Malaria is cause by female anopheles mosquito
Isaac
Malaria is caused by plasmodium Female anopheles mosquitoe is d carrier
Olalekan
a canal is more needed in a root but a cavity is a bad effect
Commander
what are pathogens
Don Reply
In biology, a pathogen (Greek: πάθος pathos "suffering", "passion" and -γενής -genēs "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is anything that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term pathogen came into use in the 1880s.[1][2
Zainab
A virus
Commander
Definition of respiration
Muhsin Reply
respiration is the process in which we breath in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide
Achor
how are lungs work
Commander
where does digestion begins
Achiri Reply
in the mouth
EZEKIEL
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Rashima Reply
stimulates the follicle to release the mature ovum into the oviduct
Davonte
what are the functions of Endocrine and pituitary gland
Chinaza
endocrine secrete hormone and regulate body process
Achor
while pituitary gland is an example of endocrine system and it's found in the Brain
Achor
what's biology?
Egbodo Reply
Biology is the study of living organisms, divided into many specialized field that cover their morphology, physiology,anatomy, behaviour,origin and distribution.
Lisah
biology is the study of life.
Alfreda
Biology is the study of how living organisms live and survive in a specific environment
Sifune
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Source:  OpenStax, Business, government, and society. OpenStax CNX. Mar 04, 2014 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10560/1.6
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