Rawls’s veil of ignorance is supposedly justified because it makes the initial choice situation procedurally fair. It supposedly does this by preventing parties from using morally irrelevant information about the persons they represent to obtain an unfair bargaining advantage over others. The success of this argument rests crucially on the idea that at least some rational mutually disinterested parties without a veil of ignorance would in fact successfully use information about the persons they represent to obtain an unfair bargaining advantage over other parties. I will argue in this paper that even in a choice situation identical to Rawls’s Original Position except for the lack of a veil of ignorance, no party has any bargaining advantage over the other. I analyse the notion of a bargaining advantage in terms of the best alternative to negotiated agreement (BATNA) and the propensity towards unacceptable outcomes. A difference in BATNA between two parties is necessary in order for there to be a bargaining advantage of one over the other. Also, plausibly, outcomes that are unacceptable to only some of the parties contra-indicates equality of bargaining power. I show that all parties in a choice situation without a veil of ignorance have equally bad BATNA. I will show that the veil of ignorance is neither necessary nor sufficient to prevent unacceptable conceptions of justice from being agreed to in the Original Position. If the analysis of the Original Position is correct, there is no reason to think that a choice situation without a veil provides some parties a bargaining advantage over others. The analysis of Rawls’s argument also suggests an alternative justification of the veil of ignorance: that it is an appropriate simplification of another choice situation which would necessarily deliver the correct principles of justice.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 15 Apr 2014
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Anantharaman Muralidharan

About the Speaker:

Murali’s thesis is concerned with trying to find a more general justification for the Rawlsian framework. He isinterested in broadly trying to derive and defend a free-standing theory of justice. At the same time he isinterested in democracy and justifications for it. He is also interested in social epistemology and its implications for democracy.

The idea of reasonableness is one of the key ideas in Rawls’ Political Liberalism. I begin by highlighting Rawls’ main aim in the latter and some key features of his political conception of justice, followed by a brief exposition of three aspects of reasonableness. Specifically, I will elaborate on the rarely mentioned aspect of reasonable persons as having the desire to act from reasonableness and to be recognized (by other reasonable persons) as reasonable. I attempt to show the coherence of reasonableness with other aspects of Rawls’ Political Liberalism, and the role it plays within it. By doing so, I hope to indicate how we can begin responding to the usual worries about the possibility and relevance of Rawls’ Political Liberalism.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 8 Apr 2014
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Nicholas Cai
Moderator: Philippe Major

About the Speaker:

Nick’s primary interests are in the areas of Political Philosophy and the history of Political Philosophy. His honors thesis was a Rawlsian defense of Liberal Neutrality, focusing on the notion of Public Reason. His other research interests include Moral philosophy, German Idealism and Ancient Greek Philosophy, especially the connection between Politics, Religion, and Philosophy.

John Rawls argues in Political Liberalism that a conception of justice has to be freestanding, and theorizing ought to begin from the public political culture of a democratic society: a shared fund of fundamental ideas that is implicitly affirmed by the citizens in a democratic state. Conceptions of justice based on one comprehensive moral or philosophical doctrine will be oppressive to people who do not share that particular comprehensive doctrine.

In this presentation, I will offer criticisms against Rawls’s use of the public political culture in his theory. I argue that (i) Rawls is unable to offer any justification for liberalism in states that needs liberalism most, (ii) Rawls makes problematic assumptions about the fundamental ideas of a democratic society, and (iii) Rawls’s liberal prescriptions are already assumed when the fundamental ideas are drawn from a democratic society. The success of my arguments will pave the way for the possibility of establishing moral foundations for public reason liberalism.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 8 Apr 2014
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Li Qingyi
Moderator: Melvin Ng

About the Speaker:

Qingyi is working towards his M.A. in Philosophy and his area of interest is in political philosophy. His dissertation project examines the moral foundations of political philosophy, more specifically liberal neutrality. Other topics of interest in political philosophy include: liberal theory, methodological concerns in political philosophy, distributive justice and global justice. His interests also extend to moral philosophy.

In May, the citizens across the 28 European countries will elect their new 751 representatives at the European Parliament. What the Europeans will decide in May and in the near future is more than ever crucial for the Continent. Europe indeed needs to solve difficult issues, such as a stagnant GDP, high youth unemployment, together with diverging economic trajectories among the member states. The thorny situation can be solved only by specific, efficient and tough decisions, but are the European voters ready to do their duty? A recent survey casts doubt on the competence of the European voter.

Following, the recent commentary in WordPost, “Should Voters be tested?”, co-written with Prof. Daniel Bell, I propose to introduce a multiple choice test in order to improve the political knowledge of the European voters. I then i) defend our proposal from two objections, the “Communitarian argument” and the “Egalitarian argument”, and ii) explain some of the advantages of the test over two alternative solutions.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 1 Apr 2014
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Elena Ziliotti
Moderator: Jane Loo

About the Speaker:

Elena is a PhD student in the Join Program between NUS and King’s College London. Elena holds an M.A. in Analytic Philosophy from University of Barcelona UB (Spain) and an M.A. in Philosophy from University of Parma (Italy). As an undergraduate, she studied philosophy at the University of Parma and was a visiting student at the Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands). Elena’s main area of research is Political Philosophy. Her PhD dissertation will focus on Political Meritocracy, investigating the relation among this form of governance and the main strains of thought in Western political philosophy.