“I mean isn’t Global Capitalism the kind of thing America started out fighting against?”
“Not really, D, considering how even early Americans used trade with foreign countries as a means to generate wealth. Our military even fought wars to defend and expand our economic opportunities and leverage. The Spanish American war was HARDLY fought for the principals taught to us in Public Schools, and neither were the smaller scale wars in individual Central and South American countries during and after…such as those in Panama and Ecuador. We were not the originators of Globalism (I think it’s safe to say that the British Empire and it’s various ‘trade companies’ were), but we learned it well enough.” -Shawn
In a dramatic reversal from my initial impression of Rawl’s, I find him getting more interesting as I get further into the audio book -that is while I actually read it. Maybe it was the dramatic plot twists or the really luscious sex scenes, or maybe it was just Rawl’s analytic insistence on the precision of terms (Voltaire: if you want to talk to me, define your terms (that is giving me a lot of new terminology and distinctions to play with: that which satisfies the criteria by which I approach any text (in the postmodern sense/hermeneutic of what can be interpreted: a matter of what I can use.
(And I would note how much I appreciate (even if it is not a style I would choose work in and despite my resentment towards Analytic smugness which dismisses continental approaches (the way Rawls (much like Searle (builds his arguments in such a concise way. Rawls seems to work really hard to get his point clearly across to the reader as can be seen in his tendency to repeat important points to his thesis.)
In this case, I would like to focus on the connected terms of the rational and the reasonable. The rational can be primarily focused on what is in the interest of a given individual or group that individual happens to reside in. The reasonable has to do with how a given proposal affects those outside of the individual or individuals that propose it. I return to Shawn’s point to apply the point:
“Not really, D, considering how even early Americans used trade with foreign countries as a means to generate wealth. Our military even fought wars to defend and expand our economic opportunities and leverage. The Spanish American war was HARDLY fought for the principals taught to us in Public Schools, and neither were the smaller scale wars in individual Central and South American countries during and after…such as those in Panama and Ecuador. We were not the originators of Globalism (I think it’s safe to say that the British Empire and it’s various ‘trade companies’ were), but we learned it well enough.”
What we see here is what Rawls would consider a misuse of war according to the Laws of Peoples –that is war, according to him, being mainly delegated to self defense. What Shawn is describing here is a perfectly rational use of war in that it serves the interest of the individuals instigating it. We have to put in mind here is that rationality is about what serves the purposes of a given goal. Reasonableness, on the other hand, is about looking beyond one’s self interest and considering the self interest (the rationality (of the other. Therefore, what we see in Shawn’s description is America’s rational application of war while also seeing an equally unreasonable application of it. And this is a direct violation of the Laws of Peoples, that which must transcend the infrastructural technologies (doctrines, laws, etc. (we put in place if we are to be a truly free and just society.
What I see in this is Rawl’s relationship and reaction to his relationship with Robert Nozick (a famous libertarian (who was also a peer and friend to Rawls. Rawls, at one point, directly criticizes the libertarian position which I will try to quote later. But his argument that rationality and the reasonable are both crucial to the Laws of the Peoples while giving the import he does to the reasonable strikes me as a criticism folded into the respect he felt for his friend. And we can see this as well in:
“A reasonably just Law of Peoples is Utopian in that it uses political (moral) ideals, principles, and concepts to specify the reasonably right and just political and social arrangements for the Society of Peoples. In the domestic case, liberal conceptions of justice distinguish between the reasonable and the rational, and LIE BETWEEN ALTRUISM ON ONE SIDE AND EGOISM ON THE OTHER [emphasis mine]”