A statue of Justitia, Roman goddess of justice

Required Readings

Discussion Questions

(Write out brief answers to this week's discussion questions and submit them via a direct message to me on Slack no later than 11:59pm on Sunday, September 19th. Your answers should be brief, no more than a few sentences each. Be prepared to discuss them in class.)

1. Rawls argues that in order to design a just society, we should imagine ourselves in a purely hypothetical situation that he calls ``the original position.'' What would it be like to be in the original position?

2. Why would imagining ourselves in the original position help us to design a just society? Put another way: why would the people in the original position tend to design rules and social institutions that were fair?

3. Rawls' second principle of justice says that "social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society." Give an example of a situation in which an inequality of wealth or power would result in compensating benefits for the least wealthy or powerful people in a society.

Zoom Meeting

This week's Zoom meeting will be on Monday, September 20th, 11:10AM–12:25PM. Here is the link to join.