Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

utilitarianism’ mentioned above. The ‘object’, for Rawls, is a fair society, rather than just the sum of everyone’s individual happiness.

Rawls argues against utilitarianism. We each have a narrative of how we’d like our lives to turn out, he suggested, and this rarely if ever involves simply maximising pleasure. Instead, we will often include the well-being of others and the general good in our understanding of what makes for a rewarding and fulfilled life. As Rawls suggested, we would have to rely then on narrative (and accept that it is only provisional) in order to provide the underlying ethical sensibilities to give us even a start at a theory of distribution — and then a full theory of justice.

Utilitarianism, Rawls, and Nozick all start with a presumed morality. In utilitarianism this is often not defined. In Rawls, it is mainly what will best serve the life goals of the individual (but assumes that these will be benign — if not actually positive — for the individual and for the rest of society at large). In Nozick, it seems to be about the freedom and rights of the individual.

A ‘property rights’ theory of justice, in contrast to Rawls, argues that any redistribution of wealth is essentially theft. If someone has obtained something, either by acquisition (through work or money, for instance) or by transfer (a gift or an inheritance) then they deserve to keep this. Nozick, for instance, comes down opposed to distribution (at least so far as the state is concerned) but there is still the presumption of ‘egocentric’ — in other words, purely selfish — ‘ethics’ at the back of

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