Well, it`s official–I am in a PhD program.
And though there is no certain way to know this, to distinguish this from one of the many cruel tricks the universe usually plays on me, I can be relatively sure that this is the true state of being for me by two pieces of evidence: one I`m reading lots of books I would otherwise not read, and two, I`m writing papers that I would not otherwise write, and which no one will ever read–except maybe my professors; and hey, if we`re honest, then we`ll admit that even THAT is not guarenteed.
Sure, eventually I`ll have to face the notion of academic publishing–maybe. Or maybe I`ll be dragged kicking and screaming into it. Hopefully, I can write something so technical and jargon ridden that only me and my future graduate assistants will understand it–perhaps a post-deconstructionist reading of Modern Japanese politics from the perspective of an amputee attorney, that read backwards would sound like Pink Floyd album played forward.
Anyway, in an attempt to fill my blog up with more useless words, and to avoid writing anything new while I explore my dissertation about The Mimetics of Salaryman Folktale on Japanese Food Aid to Angola, I`m going to pull some gems from my undergrad papers to prove…well, I don`t know what I`m trying to prove–other than I don`t want all this time spent writing papers to go to waste.
Here is something I wrote for a philosophy class once…answering a question about the Moral Philosophy of John Rawls.
“What does Rawls mean by “Fair Play” and how is this supposed to justify our recognition of the moral authority of the state.”
Rawls defines “Fair Play” as a kind of social contract where “the advantages it yields can only be obtained if everyone, or nearly everyone, cooperates…under these conditions a person who has accepted the benefits of the scheme is bound by a duty of fair play to do his part and not take advantage of the free benefits by not cooperating” (146). He later says that the reason we should not seek to take advantage of the social contract, i.e. reaping the fruits without fulfilling the conditions (limitation of freedoms, labor, etc) is that “prior to some understanding as to how it is to be shared, if it can be shared at all, it belongs in fairness to no one” (146). Rawls seems to be alluding to an antecedent state of nature where no conception justice is established: without fair play from “everyone, or nearly everyone” the social contract breaks down and fairness ceases to exist, ergo one has a prima facie obligation not to break the social contract if he wishes to obtain the “advantages.” The obligation to follow the social contract, which Rawls terms a constitution, is contingent “upon our having accepted and our intention to continue accepting the benefits of a just scheme of cooperation that the constitution defines…thus the obligation to obey (or resist) an unjust law depends strongly on there being a just constitution” (147). The justification for an obligation to obey state authority lies in the justness of the original social contract. This is not to say that every act promulgated by constitutional procedure is just, only that a just constitution provides the best (perhaps “practical” is a better word) means for reconciling differing opinions: “The acceptance of a constitution is, then, a necessary political device to decide between conflicting legislative proposals” (146), further, Rawls argues that no constitution can eliminate the promulgation of unjust laws because “this depends on those who carry out the procedure. A constitution is not like a market reconciling interest to an optimum result” (148). Here, I believe, lies a paradox: we have a prima facie obligation to obey an unjust law because it is derived from a just constitution, even though the justness of a law depends on the people carrying it out (the majority). Even if a majority becomes tyrannical, we have an obligation to obey the constitution because it is just. The impetus for law is broken into two parts: 1) a just constitution 2) a majority, which can be both just and unjust. The unjustness of a law is derived from the second, however, we have an obligation to obey it soley on the merit of the first.
There seems to be more of a practical justification in Rawls argument than a moral argument. The acceptance of a constitution is the only way to reconcile opposing legislative viewpoints, and further, without the constitution as a device for engendering cooperation, the “advantages” that come from a civil society would not be possible. Much as in Rousseau’s idea of the social contract, the conception of a just constitution relies on the idea that “advantages” should be distributed equally to secure long-term stability, and that this is essential to justice. Although I believe this idea is implicit within Rawls’ use of language, he never explicitly discusses this.
Yes, as I look through my folders, I notice there are quite a few of these things lying around. I guess the short of it is, if you ever want to get down into some erudite moral philosophy, John Rawls might be your man…although Harold and Kumar 2 also has something to say on the human condition, I think–fairly brilliant in a B-Movie sort of way (by the way, watch the very end of the movie).
I think for my next post, I might put some original stuff on here. Or I might just throw up something from one of my most recent papers–believe it or not, I think my writing might actually be getting a bit worse. Not a surprise since I`ve been out of the country so long.
Anyway, maybe I`ll expose some of the details of my life next time…or maybe I`ll give you some details from my Mimetics of Salaryman Folktale.
Later people, from Daniel–he`s a grad student (or is he?).
