Monday, December 26, 2005

JC in the OP

I just finished an Ethics course in which we read some readings from John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. Rawls proposes that all social justice should be decide in the original position, or as my ethics professor called it, the OP. In the OP, people are blind to their individual circumstances…They don’t know if they are black or white, rich or poor, male or female and so forth. Because of this blindness, when deciding terms for social justice, people in the OP will agree to terms that are as close to equal as possible. Rawls also has a principle called the difference principle, where no inequality can exist without it benefiting the lesser advantaged.

It’s probably because my Ethics professor used so many acronyms that it occurred to me when I saw a JC bumper sticker to place Jesus Christ in the OP. I’m not big on Christianity, but my theory is that if Jesus Christ was deciding principles in the original position, the crucifixion would have never occurred. Jesus would have been blind to the fact that he was the son of God in the OP, and would therefore simply choose equal principles, not principles that would have subjected someone to being a martyr for the greater good, as a Utilitarian might do.

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