Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site tilt.FUN Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!tilt!chenr From: chenr@tilt.FUN (Ray Chen) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Judging political axioms Message-ID: <247@tilt.FUN> Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 17:04:13 EST Article-I.D.: tilt.247 Posted: Fri Mar 8 17:04:13 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 04:58:06 EST Distribution: net Organization: Princeton University EECS Dept Lines: 70 The point has been made that in debating political systems, people invariably debate until they get down to the basic principles or axioms that form the foundation of the systems they are championing. There they arrive at an impasse since they have no way to debate axioms in a rational manner as an axiom is by definition assumed or taken on faith. Some have taken the approach to attempting to derive their axioms from a historical perspective. Although this may be a better approach then simply assuming axioms on faith, many people still regard this method with suspicion as historical "truths" can not be guaranteed to be so and even if they were, the set of historical truths must be a subset of the set of political truths. Thus, limiting oneself to historical truths would be an unnecessarily restrictive step when constructing a political theory. Axioms in political theories are usually assumed because the consequences of applying the axioms to a society produce results that are regarded as just. The problem to me, then, seems to be a matter of defining justice. The Libertarians offer a formulation of justice which might be interpreted as "justice as non-coercion". I happen to hold another view of justice: "justice as fairness". In a system that is fair, the principles of justice governing that system are produced by a fair procedure. The advantages of such a system is that the principles of justice are not decided a priori, nor are they set in concrete once they are decided on. If new developments in political theory unearth new facts or theories, the procedure can be run again to generate new principles that take into account the new developments. This procedure also provides a framework in which to debate various axioms. The question, then, is what is a fair procedure? Answer: A fair procedure is one in which a one would be willing to live with the outcome no matter which person you actually ended up being in that procedure. In other words, take the example of a labor arbritration. A fair arbitration would be a arbitration whose consequences you would be willing to abide by if you were a member of the union or part of the management of the company. A final note about justice and fairness. Most people do this anyway when deciding whether or not something is fair/right/just, but it should be formalized, just so we know what we're all talking about. The process is called "Reflective Equilibrium". Basically, each person has a set of general principles that governs what he/she thinks is right, and is constantly running across more and more situations to which those principles apply. Reflective equilibrium simply states that there should be no contradictions between the general principles and the examples. So, if you run across an example that you think is X and some principle(s) say it's Y, then either the principle(s) has to be thrown out or adjusted, or you have to revise your conclusion about the example. (These conclusions often come about as a "gut feeling" or some such thing.) When there are NO internal inconsistencies, then your value system is in a state of reflective equilibrium. Reflective equilibrium is a good tool to use when looking at political systems, as often people are tempted to overlook little inconsistencies. I claim that any set of beliefs you hold to be true should be in full reflective equilibrium with your other beliefs. Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr P.S. -- This discussion will continue if people decide it's worth their time and mine. (i.e. I see or get some intelligent, non-flaming, responses.) Being busy these days, I'm trying to refrain from posting stuff, but given the NCP discussion (Paul Torek and Barry Fagin), I thought people might be interested in this.