Pogge 4-5

I didn’t post on Rawls for last class, so I thought I should spend a bit more time trying to unpack Pogge’s critique before class on Thursday since it seems like Rawls will be a major force in our discussion. I’ve only read idiosyncratic, anthologized excerpts of Rawls, so I’m going to try to piece together one of Pogge’s critiques as I understand it right now; feel free (anyone) to point me in the right direction if I’ve misread.

Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, sets forth a “difference principle” which states that inequalities in distribution are acceptable only if they are a part of a system that advantages the least advantaged individual within the system. However, he rejects this principle as a requirement of global justice because “it is unacceptable for one people to bear certain costs of decisions made by another” (111). I think I share Pogge’s confusion here. Why would Rawls say people are bound together by a communal decision under the veil of ignorance when it is on a national level but that decision would not apply on an international level? I feel like Rawls would have an answer here (this seems to be a fairly large issue), but maybe he doesn’t.

I was also struck by his powerful comparison between everyone who isn’t taking steps to change the global order and Nazi sympathizers at the end of chapter 5. While he makes the comparison in the conclusion to the chapter and then says that the point is not “to liken our conduct to that of Nazi sympathizers,” (something that I think may be a bit of an untruth—I think he wants us to make that comparison as part of a call to action—why else would he include it?) I think putting the two ideas side-by-side had a very powerful effect on me. Did others feel the same?