Relative to equally virtual members
"Rawls’s veil of ignorance may be intellectually sophisticated, but it is also very alien to our lived experience as humans. How can we imagine ourselves as deliberating, disembodied humans and at the same time situate ourselves relative to equally virtual members of a yet-to-be-established ideal community?" (Jonathan Conlin, Critical Lives-Adam Smith)
I couldn't figure the emphasized phrase out, what does that mean?
Top answer
Conlin claims that we as human beings cannot divorce our thinking from daily reality enough to execute Rawls's program. We are supposed to ignore all our strengths and shortcomings and then imagine a society constructed in such a way as to be fair to everyone. This entails imagining our participating in ("situate ourselves relative to") that society, not as ourselves but as our imaginary selves, and not with others as themselves but as people as imaginary as we are ("equally virtual members").
- Conlin claims that we as human beings cannot divorce our thinking from daily reality enough to execute Rawls's program.
- We are supposed to ignore all our strengths and shortcomings and then imagine a society constructed in such a way as to be fair to everyone.
- This entails imagining our participating in ("situate ourselves relative to") that society, not as ourselves but as our imaginary selves, and not with others as themselves but as people as imaginary as we are ("equally virtual members").
- I find a lot of things annoying, but elegant variation in writing is in the top 100.
- He had to switch from "imagine" to "virtual" because he thought it was better to sound slick than to be clear.
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Conlin claims that we as human beings cannot divorce our thinking from daily reality enough to execute Rawls's program. We are supposed to ignore all our strengths and shortcomings and then imagine a society constructed in such a way as to be fair to everyone. This entails imagining our participating in ("situate ourselves relative to") that society, not as ourselves but as our imaginary selve
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