Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 1:57 am
The philosopher John Rawl devised a thought experiment. He suggested we imagine the society we would want to be plopped into if we did not know which role in the social structure we would be plopped into. It's simple, but powerful.
A meritocracy. I'll put my skillset against the crowd any day of the week.
In the Veil Of Ignorance thought experiment you have no forewarning that you will be born into a rich state such as France or Denmark, or a poor one such as Iraq or Louisiana. You don't know whether you will be able bodied or disabled, clever or smooth-brained, male or female. Nor whether you will belong to priviliged social class or ethnic group and so on.
Your task is to design the rules of a society you will be born into without having any information about which rules would benefit you.
Indeed, and given the circumstances of the choice, the most logical design would be a marxist one. A society in which u would have roughly the same gains regardless of the place or the type of person u end up being when u arrive.
Think about it. If u design a capitalist society, but end up in Louisiana as a black woman with one leg living next door to Henry having to listen to him shoot off his guns all day in the backyard, you're fucked. So since u can't be sure u won't be her, u gotta design a society that will screw her the least.
Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 1:57 am
The philosopher John Rawl devised a thought experiment. He suggested we imagine the society we would want to be plopped into if we did not know which role in the social structure we would be plopped into. It's simple, but powerful.
A meritocracy. I'll put my skillset against the crowd any day of the week.
In the Veil Of Ignorance thought experiment you have no forewarning that you will be born into a rich state such as France or Denmark, or a poor one such as Iraq or Louisiana. You don't know whether you will be able bodied or disabled, clever or smooth-brained, male or female. Nor whether you will belong to priviliged social class or ethnic group and so on.
Your task is to design the rules of a society you will be born into without having any information about which rules would benefit you.
So in other words it is erroneous to use the descriptor "you", since the person we're talking about isn't you.
A meritocracy. I'll put my skillset against the crowd any day of the week.
In the Veil Of Ignorance thought experiment you have no forewarning that you will be born into a rich state such as France or Denmark, or a poor one such as Iraq or Louisiana. You don't know whether you will be able bodied or disabled, clever or smooth-brained, male or female. Nor whether you will belong to priviliged social class or ethnic group and so on.
Your task is to design the rules of a society you will be born into without having any information about which rules would benefit you.
So in other words it is erroneous to use the descriptor "you", since the person we're talking about isn't you.
Yeah, I am sure that is the one thing that makes it an impractical experiment.
"You" does not suggest that you need think only of yourself. Of course you might not want to be a slave (like 80% of the population in the Golden Age of Athens).
Meritocracy is a slippery word. What constitutes merit? Giving one's goods to the needy? If so, the givers rule in a meritocracy.
Alexiev wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2024 3:56 am
"You" does not suggest that you need think only of yourself. Of course you might not want to be a slave (like 80% of the population in the Golden Age of Athens).
Meritocracy is a slippery word. What constitutes merit? Giving one's goods to the needy? If so, the givers rule in a meritocracy.
This experiment was designed by a white male, son of a prominant attorney, who attended an Ivy league school, married an Ivy leaguer and received a PhD at an Ivy league school, then became a professor at another Ivy.
It's a lot more relevant for some of us with less of a head start in life to look at where we started and where we ended up under the current system and conclude, hey the way things are allows for folks to be rewarded for hard work and savvy, as opposed to one's station at birth.
"Meritocracy is a slippery word. What constitutes merit?"
This is a most profound and pressing question, sir. About this question i can know this much for sure; after examining the nature of it in practical material terms i find that merit is not just the measure of a talent or skill by itself, and that we do not recognize the expression of such as meritorious unless its product is something of value... something tangible. Otherwise, what appears as a talent or a skill would be indistinguishable from any other arbitrary action or movement, without purpose or use, and as such would not be called more or less meritorious than anything else.
Uncommodified talent and skill would simply be the ability to do something arbitrary, very well.
