Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Majorities: A majority is more than half of a total. It can be used to describe a group of people, a number of votes, or a percentage. See also Minorities, Minority rights, Election systems, Democracy._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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John Rawls on Majorities - Dictionary of Arguments
I 230 Majority/minority/elections/politics/rights/justice/Rawls: it is sometimes objected to the majority rule that it does not take into account the strength of the needs and feelings of the minority. RawlsVs: it is a misunderstanding that the strength of feelings played a role in legislation. On the contrary: whenever laws and justice play a role, we must not judge according to feelings, but rather in such a way that justice is strengthened. It is about how fair the probable outcome will be. Similarly, if there is approximately equality between the parties involved: I 231 Everything depends on the fairness of the probable outcome. Problem: when the notions of justice in society diverge, it becomes more difficult to defend a pure majority rule. If suspicion and resentment prevail in a society, there may be no reliable procedures for making decisions. >Justice/Rawls. The crux of the matter here is that strength of emotions is not a yardstick for judging the legality of constitutional order. I 356 Majorities/Rawls: it is not written anywhere that the will of the majority is synonymous with law. If the majority can also write the Constitution, this does not guarantee that all elements are fair. I 357 If we criticise laws, we do so by showing that they would not have been elected under ideal conditions. I 359 Legislation/Rawls: is designed according to different principles than an ideal market; the ideal market requires different conditions of functioning and other principles. >Markets/Rawls, >Efficiency/Rawls). The goal of markets is efficiency, that of legislation is justice. While it is important to assume that ideal markets are efficient, legislation does not require all results to be fair. >Legislation/Rawls._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-19