John Rawls---continued

      We left off with the discussion of the salary differential between Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Judy, and between the average schoolteacher and David Letterman, and made the observation that David and Judy were lucky they lived in a society that loves TV stars. Moving right along ------

   The successful often overlook the contingency of luck as an aspect of their success. Many of us are fortunate to possess, at least in some measure, the qualities our society happens to prize. In a capitalist society, it helps to have entrepreneurial drive. In a bureaucratic society, it helps to get on easily and smoothly with superiors. In a mass democratic society, it helps to look god on television, and to speak in short, superficial sound bites. In a litigious society, it helps to go to law school, and to have the logical and reasoning skills that will allow you to score well on the LSATs.
   That our society values these things is not our doing.  Suppose that we, with our talents, inhabited not a technologically advanced, highly litigious society like ours, but a hunting society, or a warrior society, or a society that conferred its highest rewards and prestige on those who displayed physical strength, or religious piety. What would become of our talents then ? Clearly, they wouldn't get us very far. And no doubt some of us would develop others. But would we be less worthy or less virtuous than we are now ? 
   Rawls answer is NO. We might receive less, and properly so. But while we would be entitled to less, we would be no less worthy, no less deserving than others. The same is true of those in our society who lack prestigious positions, and possess fewer of the talents that our society happens to reward.
   So, while we are entitled to the benefits that the rules of the game promise for the exercise of our talents, it is a mistake and a conceit to suppose that we deserve in the first place a society that values the qualities we have in abundance. In a meritocratic society, most people think that worldly success reflects what we deserve ; the idea is not easy to dislodge. Whether distributive justice can be detached altogether from moral desert is a question I want to explore in much greater depth. 

                                IS LIFE UNFAIR ?

   In 1980, as Ronald Reagan ran for president, the economist Milton Friedman published a bestselling book, co-authored with his wife, Rose, called Free to Choose. It was a spirited, unapologetic defense of the free-market economy, and it became a textbook ---even an anthem ---for the Reagan years. In defending laissez-faire principles against egalitarian objections, Friedman made a surprising concession. He acknowledged that those who grow up in wealthy families and attend elite schools have an unfair advantage over those from less privileged backgrounds. He also conceded that those who, through no doing of their own, inherit talents and gifts have an unfair advantage over others. Unlike Rawls, however, Friedman insisted that we should not try to remedy this unfairness. Instead, we should learn to live with it, and enjoy the benefits it brings : 

     Life is not fair. It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore. There's nothing fair . . . about Muhammad Ali's having been born with the skill that made him a great fighter . . . It is certainly not fair that Muhammad Ali should be able to earn millions in one night. But wouldn't it have been even more unfair to the people who enjoyed watching him if, in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, Muhammad Ali had not been permitted to earn more for one night's fight . . . than the lowest man on the totem pole could get for a day's unskilled work on the docks ?

  In A Theory of Justice, Rawls rejects the counsel of complacence that Friedman's view reflects. In a stirring passage, Rawls states a familiar truth we often forget : The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be . 

     We should reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust ; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. 

   Rawls proposes that we deal with these facts by agreeing "to share one another's fate," and to avail ourselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit." Whether or not his theory of justice ultimately succeeds, it represents the most compelling case for a more equal society that American political philosophy has yet produced.