Arminius wrote:That everything is about happiness and suffering?
I was referring to the "equality of opportunity" maxim. It is imo not just any maxim but a very plausible interpretation of the one fundamental principle of western if not human morality, treat like cases alike.
Arminius wrote:Hmm ok, seems I maybe have misunderstood it. According to Stanford, there are disputes about how this should be interpreted.
My knowledge about the is-ought problem is quite limited, I can't really challenge any sophisticated metaphysical arguments about it but I know for a fact that it hasn't been resolved for any ethical statement.
Arminius wrote:What argument did Rawls use for his original position principle?
Two different ones actually. Once the directly luck egalitarian one: All underserved differences should be avoided or compensated for, hence equality of opprtunity as far as possible and redistribution etc.
The second one is his more famous one, the OP and the reflective equilibrium. He argues that we should create an OP as we would consider fair and then look at the consequences of it. If the consequences are outrageous in our considered judgement we have to look at the OP again and decide if we made unwarranted assumption. If we didn't then we have to reconsider our judgement about what constitutes outrageous, otherwise we change the setup of the OP. This is supposed to be loop which ends when we have adjusted our moral judgement and the OP to a degree that we can agree with the initial setup as well as the outcomes, reaching the "reflective equilibrium".
Arminius wrote:Also, how dependent are Rawls' ideas on each other? For example, a survey showed that most people do not prefer the Difference principle over the alternatives (though from behind a veil of ignorance, it does make sense to me). How does this affect his other conclusions?
The first argument obviously is not dependent on how much people like his principles. They simply follow and you can't deny them as much as you can't deny that 1+1=2 if you share the basic assumptions.
The second case is trickier. Theoretically those people who can't agree with the difference principle would need to change the OP to achieve reflective equilibrium. However, if they do it they might suddenly introduce features they might as strongly disagree with as they disagree with the difference principle, or even stronger! Then they have to make a choice and I think in most cases people can't but accept Rawls basic assumption. There are similar surveys that show that people share Rawls' assumption about what constitutes fair equality of opportunity.
Rawls construction of the OP and the reflective equilibrium might appear awkward and cumbersome but it serves a clear purpose. It wants to present a unified theory of the state that can challenge utilitarianism and for this one thing is most important: consistency. It must get rid of contradictory intuitions and I think his reflective equilibrium is a good idea in that respect.