Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 27, 2012 15:52:47 GMT
Well, I've not done any philosophy but.... Yes? It seems to me rhetorical questions can be answered in ways that don't support your argument - and probably will be if the person doesn't already agree with you. ^^;
It's not clear the person you're talking about really is objective. They just don't seem to know precisely what their interests are going to be. You keep invoking things they'll probably want... but the information for that comes from their knowledge of the distribution of people and relationship types in their potential society, and once they have that information they can start to play the odds. They may not wish to be a child who's getting screwed over, but since there are many adults and relatively few children, they probably won't be....
And in order to counteract that you have to say that they'll adopt the wants and needs of whoever they end up being in that society. At which point, what's an objective truth just becomes a manifestation of social norms.
Or to put it more bluntly: You're using Rawl's argument to argue for a particular set of norms, to then invoke their existence as data in the argument just makes your reasoning circular.
Well, I'd rather say I'm borrowing a device from Rawls' thought experiment to see if I can create an imaginary person to fit the previous context of the debate. The person doesn't need to be moral or objective, just rationally self-interested. Their lack of knowledge about where they are in society (including the percentages) should allow them to determine what norms reach more preferred outcomes, therefore what norms for parents are reasonable.
I doubt it will convince anyone but it does demonstrate that the norms I have been defending are not self-defeating and therefore my joke was a good one.