What does Rawls ultimately do differently than Utilitarianism?

     I think Rawls does some pretty brilliant thinking in parts of this essay, but I was left a little disappointed in how he distinguished his theory of justice as fairness from utilitarianism and perfectionism. His distinction between the concept of justice from "the various conceptions of justice" as the shared territory between various conceptions grounds his analysis of morality in a way other philosophers we have read did not (Rawls 5). Rather than making sweeping claims about what people necessarily believe and moving from there, he sets a more reasonable aim of trying to develop a framework that most closely serves as many rational views on justice as possible. This approach makes much more sense to me, as justice so clearly means so many different things to different people, and we even frequently self-contradict our own notions of justice in our actions. 

    Having laid out this strength of justice as fairness, he then goes on to critique utilitarian positions saying they "do not take seriously the distinction between persons" (Rawls 24). He argues that since utilitarianism relies on having a single spectator make decisions on what distributions are good/just, it does not adequately account for the variety of views on justice. I must be in some way confused, because this sounds exactly like the process by which his original positions relies on making judgments having insured that "particular inclinations and aspirations, and persons' conceptions of their good do not affect the principles adopted" (Rawls 16, 17). I would have assumed the single spectator is essentially doing the same thing when they carry "out the required organization of the desires of all persons into one coherent system of desires" (Rawls 24). If anything, I'd support a moral framework that takes ones own intuitional judgement on maximizing utility without necessarily requiring that you somehow incorporate everyone's beliefs. There is good cause for humility and accepting some of what other people say simply on the basis that you have good reason to believe you are wrong (in the sense that you could be convinced with further thought and discussion), but if everyone else is a psychopath, I have no choice but to maximize the good purely by my own morality. Rawls makes the argument that justice can be somewhat objectified by considering what a "rational" actor would do, but rationality ultimately contains a degree of subjectivity. I still like his framework in thinking about how we could arrive at a common sense of justice by combining different conceptions, though his method of ranking conceptions seems flawed.

    For example, he makes the claim that "since each desires to protect his interests ... no one has reason to acquiesce in an enduring loss for himself in order to bring about a greater net balance of satisfaction" (Rawls 13). But why can't my interest itself be to maximize the greater net balance of satisfaction? Why is that necessarily irrational? In his intro he states that "justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others," and I think he uses the above line of logic in the context of his "original position" model to support this claim (Rawls 3). To me, this reads as dogma. Maybe I'm just very irrational, but even from an original position vantage point, I find Omelas more just than our society today. I feel like I'm missing something in his argument, but I'm not sure what. 

See you all tomorrow! 

Aidan :)