MacIntyre vs. Rawls: Liberalism's implicit virtue-based foundations

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“On the modern view, the justification of the virtues depends upon some prior justification of rules and principles, and if the latter becomes radically problematic, as they have, so must the former” (MacIntyre). Discuss with reference to both Rawls and MacIntyre.


1. Abstract

MacIntyre’s dismissive assessment of the state of modern moral thought is flawed. The rules and principles of the modern view can be shown to rest on a prior account of the virtues, rather than vice versa, in a way that resolves the apparently insoluble problems which MacIntyre criticises. Once we have a reason to aspire to acquire particular virtues, we posses rational criteria by which to judge competing sets of rules and principles.


2. Introduction

According to Alasdair MacIntyre, the world is in a “state of grave disorder” (MacIntyre 1985: 2), governed by “barbarians” (ibid.: 263) and possessed of an incoherent moral vocabulary which is no more than a disguise for arbitrary outbursts of emotion aimed at the manipulation of others (ibid.: 24). This is in stark contrast to John Rawls’ optimistic view of contemporary forms of moral enquiry, the character of which he has done much to shape. Given Rawls’ immense status in the world of contemporary moral philosophy, it is appropriate that his theory be used as a test case for assessing the validity of MacIntyre’s claims against the whole modern view.

…we regard Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness as the paradigmatic statement of contemporary liberalism (Mulhall 1996: xv)

If Rawls’ principles can be rescued from the charge of being “radically problematic”, then the power of MacIntyre’s apocalyptic assertions will have been greatly diminished. If MacIntyre succeeds and even Rawls’ theory turns out to be as hopelessly incoherent and arbitrary as is claimed, then we had better start praying for the imminent arrival of MacIntyre’s new St. Benedict (MacIntyre 1985: 263).

In assessing MacIntyre’s criticisms against Rawls’ theory , I will address in turn the two distinct but related claims about the modern view contained in the title quote. Firstly, that modern virtues are envisaged as a consequence of rules and principles and secondly, that these principles are radically problematic. My conclusion about the first claim emerges as a result of my argument regarding the second claim, and as such, it is the allegedly problematic nature of Rawls’ principles to which I shall now turn and to which the bulk of the essay shall be devoted.


3. Radically problematic principles?

3.1. Arbitrary and incommensurable premises?

According to MacIntyre, Rawls and other modern philosophers have utterly failed in their attempts to provide rational criteria for deeming something just or unjust. Because of this absence of rational criteria, when we call something just, we are doing no more than expressing our arbitrary personal preference. But MacIntyre is not denying that modern philosophers offer coherent rational arguments, only that these arguments are derived from certain premises which are no more than unjustifiable assertions.

…a process of justificatory reasoning must always terminate with the assertion of some rule or principle for which no further reason can be given (MacIntyre 1985: 20)

If this is the case, then modern moral disagreement about the requirements of justice have, except in cases where basic premises are shared, no more hope of achieving rational resolution than does a disagreement about whether red or blue is the more pleasing colour.

The first step in determining whether this is the true nature of Rawls’ argument will be to identify his basic premises. It will then be possible to consider whether there exists any rational reason for adopting them.


3.1.1. Rawls’s premises

According to Rawls, the correct principles of (distributive) justice are those which would be chosen by people situated in the “original position” as a perpetually binding contract. However, it is important to be aware that the original position is no more than “a device for teasing out the implications of certain moral premises” (Kymlicka 2001: 61). The legitimacy of the chosen principles rests not on their being chosen in the original position, but upon on validity of the moral premises embodied in it. If the contract people choose in the original position does not adequately embody those premises, its characteristics are to be altered (Rawls 1999: 17). The purpose of the original position is to clarify, not to justify.

…the role of [the original position] is simply to represent an argument from certain premises to certain conclusions given certain restrictions. (Matravers 2000: 141)

What are those premises? Three central intuitions can be identified. Firstly, we cannot be said to deserve anything by virtue of characteristics we have not chosen, such as our family, genetic inheritance or upbringing.

…the outcome of the natural lottery… is arbitrary from a moral perspective. (Rawls 1999: 64)

Secondly, at least in so far as we cannot claim to deserve differential treatment by virtue of choices, everyone is entitled to be treated equally. Thirdly, a person’s beliefs and aims - his conception of the good - though not unchosen, do not make him deserving of differential treatment (Rawls 1999: 393). Since our achievements can be mostly traced back to unchosen factors (ibid.: 89), and since it is impracticable to identify the extent to which those achievements can be traced to our choices (ibid.: 274), it follows from the first premise that differences in achievement are also irrelevant to distributive justice.*

…all differences in achievement are based on morally arbitrary factors… what is morally arbitrary should make no difference to how well people do in terms of primary goods. (Barry 1989: 226)

What this comes down to is a radical assertion of moral equality – i.e. nobody has any independently-justifiable claim to a greater degree of welfare than anybody else, regardless of historical circumstances and past actions; instead everybody has an independently-justifiable claim to equal welfare.


The arbitrariness of the world must be corrected (Rawls, 1999: 122)

To embody his egalitarian premises, Rawls places over the original position a “veil of ignorance”, such that nobody knows what position they will occupy in society, nor what conception of the good they will hold (ibid.: 118) and will find it prudent to assume they will turn out to be part of the least well-off group (ibid.: 149-150). In this way, Rawls can ensure that, by thinking in terms of this “purely hypothetical situation” (ibid.: 11), we will arrive at principles of justice which embody “the right of each individual to equal concern and respect” (Daniels 1975: xxi) regardless of differences which should be irrelevant to justice.

The egalitarian liberalism which he develops and the conception of the good on which it depends are extremely persuasive, but the original position serves to model rather than to justify them (Nagel 1975: 15)

Many of Rawls’ critics question whether his principles adequately embody his premises (e.g. Kymlicka 2001: 70-72, Nagel 1975: 9). But such disagreements are irrelevant to this essay – they escape MacIntyre’s wrath since they have shared premises by which disputes can, potentially at least, be resolved rationally.


3.1.2. Robert Nozick and incommensurable premises

Only when Rawls’ critics challenge his basic assumptions do we start to see why MacIntyre considers modern moral debate to be so futile. MacIntyre identifies Robert Nozick as such a critic (MacIntyre 1985: 248).

Nozick uses a number of arguments to refute Rawls’ theory of justice but where his criticisms become MacIntyrean is in his questioning of the justification for Rawls’ central premise:

Why ought people’s holdings to be equal, in the absence of special moral reason to deviate from equality? (Nozick 1974: 222)

Nozick concludes that Rawls can give no justification for this claim - it is simply asserted. Without any reason to accept this premise, we have no reason to accept the principles which flow from it.

Interestingly, Rawls seems to acknowledge this apparently arbitrary clause at the heart of his argument, but does not consider it a problem. His entire argument rests on the assumption that “the conditions embodied in the description of the original position are ones which we do in fact accept” (Rawls 1999: 19). Through reading A Theory of Justice, Rawls hopes that we, already sharing his basic premises, will also come to share his vision of the kind of principles which flow from the premises.

If men’s intuitive priority judgements are similar, it does not matter, practically speaking, that they cannot formulate the principles which account for these convictions, or even whether such principles, exist. (ibid.: 39)

Like MacIntyre, Rawls is pessimistic is about philosophy’s hopes of providing an objective basis for morality:

For while some moral principles may seem natural and even obvious, there are great obstacles to maintaining that they are necessarily true, or even to explaining what is meant by this. (ibid.: 506)

What is strange about Nozick’s criticism is that his own theory fares no better. Like Rawls, Nozick must assume we share his intuitions in order to justify his own claim that justice is a matter of legitimate entitlements and a minimal state. His highlighting of some of the extreme consequences of the consistent enforcement of equality (Nozick 1974: 107) are examples of this appeal to shared intuitions. According to Nozick, the only way such disturbing policies as enforced redistribution of body parts could be ruled out is by basing our morality on a set of inviolable rights. Similarly, he asserts that if people have acquired their lands without coercion, “it is pellucidly clear in this situation who is entitled to what” (ibid.: 185) and that this is because we recognise that people have a natural right to what is acquired without coercion.

Nozick’s arguments come down to a strong claim that “individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)” (ibid.: ix). But as MacIntyre points out, “the truth is plain: there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and unicorns” (MacIntyre 1985: 69). Legal rights may be enforced by a given state, but Nozick is talking about absolute moral rights, which exist independently of whether a government has enshrined them in law. For Nozick’s argument to work he must, like Rawls, presuppose that we already share his basic premises. Like moral equality, the importance of a certain set of rights must simply be asserted.

Thus Rawls and Nozick’s arguments are incommensurable - we have no rational criteria for deciding between the two; and neither philosopher justifies the premises from which his principles are derived. To say we believe Rawls’ premise of moral equality to be more just than Nozick’s premise of absolute property rights can have no more rational basis than saying we prefer the colour red over the colour blue.

…our pluralist culture possesses no method of weighing, no rational criterion for deciding between claims based on legitimate entitlement against claims based on need (MacIntyre 1985: 246)

The same can be said for disagreements between Rawls’ theory and other moral philosophies which base their theories on different premises. Utilitarianism is based on the premise that what is just is what maximises the good, while other philosophies tend to be based on a combination of human rights and equality, or on a radically different set of rights.

Thus MacIntyre appears to be correct in claiming that modern moral philosophy is nothing more than arbitrary personal preferences masquerading as objective truths (MacIntyre 1985: 20). Before reaching a definitive conclusion on this matter however, it is necessary to address MacIntyre’s second criticism of contemporary morality.


3.2. The question of motivation

3.2.1. The problem

MacIntyre’s claim is that since the modern moral scheme can offer no motivation for obeying just rules “the principles which depict the ethical way of life are to be adopted for no reason” (MacIntyre 1985: 42). Even if we accept a given set of rules as just, why should we accept their authority when they interfere with our freedom and our self-interest?

The problem is recognised by Rawls, though he approaches it from a different angle. Having outlined the appropriate rules of justice, Rawls wants to show that a justly-governed society would be “stable” – that its citizens would have good reason to uphold and obey its laws (Rawls 1999: 450). The problem of stability turns out to be indistinguishable from the problem of motivation. In attempting to show that we do have sufficient motivation, Rawls, like MacIntyre, “commits himself… to the ancient doctrine that no act can be regarded as rational unless it is for the good of the agent to perform it” (Barry 1995: 885).

Brian Barry and Stanley Bates argue that such a commitment is unnecessary. The recognition that a particular action is just is motivation enough:

People will act justly [in cases where justice and self-interest conflict] because they have a sense of justice. (Bates 1999: 78)

But this response does not resolve anything. It is true that most people have some sort of a sense of justice and a general desire for justice to be done. But it is also true that we have many other desires which will inevitably come into conflict with our desire for justice. There is no obvious reason to think that the desire for justice will ineluctably win out. Instead, “what must be sought is an account of why the motivation triggered by the recognition that something is just is of a different kind, not a different strength, from other desires” (Matravers 2000: 138). Why should the desire for justice be given priority?

Bates and Barry claim that an answer cannot be found: any attempt to found the desire for justice on something other than unreasoned conscientiousness is futile (Bates 1999: 69). To illustrate this, Barry gives the example of a much-desired round-the-world holiday, the funds for which cannot be raised except by unjust means:

I am told by Rawls that I must somehow persuade myself that it would not be for my good at all. For only that thought can motivate me to refrain from taking the trip unjustly if the opportunity should arise. This is the absurdity into which Rawls is led by his rejection of ‘the doctrine of the purely conscientious act' (Barry 1995: 889)

But this scenario is an absurdity only if we accept Barry’s very narrow conception of his own good. A more subtle account of self-interest shows that Rawls’ aims may not be so ludicrous after all.


3.2.2. We do have reason to be just

What exactly is it that the sense of justice engenders a desire for? Firstly, there is a desire for a certain state of affairs – a world where everyone is given their due**. Secondly, it is a desire to be a certain kind of person – one that is committed to and acts in accordance with, just principles. To pursue principles of justice is to characterise ourselves as a just person – the two are inextricably linked. Rawls acknowledges this in his account of how we come to acquire a sense of justice:

…just as during the earlier phase of the morality of association he may want to be a good sport, say, he now wishes to be a just person. (Rawls 1999: 414)

For the purposes of this essay, it is not necessary to assess the validity of Rawls’ moral psychology. Rawls’ account is just one plausible example of the many ways in which different people find reason over the course of their lives to want to live in accordance with a particular set of principles. One might simply be so repelled by experiences of cruelty and unfairness that one becomes determined never to resemble the objective of one’s revulsion, resolving instead to become a moral, just person. Perhaps one enters a career where a major concern is the alleviation of suffering of some kind, and in recognising the crucial role played by just principles in resolving such problems, one becomes interested in supporting such principles generally as an extension of doing one’s job. More mundanely, one may be inspired by the high ideals of a trusted and admired associate, or feel compelled to live up to the ideals and standards of a community with which one strongly identifies. It is not uncommon to find our social context prompting us to be just people.

And the nature of the desire to be a particular kind of person, in this case a just person, means we are logically compelled to prioritise it over the desire for a particular object or experience, such as Barry’s round-the-world trip. This is because “the disposition to justice, once adopted, cannot be given up simply because justice may result in pain or unhappiness” (Mendus 2000: 168). Either we possess a particular character trait or we do not; a person who acts justly on some occasions and unjustly on others, depending on the circumstances, is not just.

Our actions express who we are, and if we lead our lives with no aim other than the maximisation of our happiness, that characterises us as a hedonist. If we act justly, that characterises us as a just person. Barry and Bates’ arguments are based on the assumption that our good is always synonymous with our happiness, but Mendus shows that the human good cannot be conceived of so crudely. In Barry’s example, the good that is attained from the round-the-world trip comes at the price of a more subtle and essential good – the integrity of identity. So when the sustenance of selfhood is prioritised above the moment-to-moment pursuit of happiness, a person who has already chosen to be just possesses good reason to behave justly even when it may cause him to lose out in some way.


3.2.3. But is the reason arbitrary?

However, MacIntyre might claim that a person who has chosen to be just, rather than having recognised it as something which one ought to do regardless of one’s preferences, is still behaving arbitrarily. People may indeed have reasons for choosing to be just, but these reasons are still rationally unjustifiable – they are no more than emotional reactions to one’s experiences and social environment***. Is it possible to have a rational reason for choosing an end? This is an immense and problematic question, but MacIntyre’s own account of morality provides some grounds for concluding that an end chosen for a reason derived from one’s social context is, by MacIntyre’s own standards, to count as rational.

MacIntyre argues that modernity’s arbitrary ends stem from the absence in modern thought of the concepts of a practice, the narrative unity of human life and a tradition (MacIntyre 1985: 225, 273). But these three concepts are not incompatible with the idea of choosing our ends. On the contrary, it is by responding to our social context, our tradition, that we are presented with choices about ends and prompted towards a particular decision, and it is by considering our life as a narrative whole that we discover reason to sustain those choices (Mulhall 1996: 88); Mendus’ emphasis on personal integrity is no different from MacIntyre’s emphasis on conceiving of our life as a unity (MacIntyre 1985: 217). Likewise, Rawls’ claim that we discover the value of particular virtues by engaging in cooperative associations (Rawls 1999: 413)**** is remarkably similar to MacIntyre’s claim that the value of the virtues is initially recognised through engagement in practices (MacIntyre 1985: 191) – “a socially established cooperative human activity” (ibid.: 187). So while there are many important differences between the two, it seems that the distinction between the liberal account of how our social context and personal experience provides reasons to choose particular ends and MacIntyre’s account of how particular social contexts “generate new ends and new conceptions of ends” (ibid.: 273) is sufficiently blurred to greatly diminish any hypothetical argument by MacIntyre that ends chosen for context-derived reasons are, like ends chosen for no reason at all, senseless and arbitrary.

Of course none of this amounts to a proof that ends chosen for context-derived reasons are to count as rational, but then it is difficult to see how MacIntyre can give an entirely unproblematic account of our having rational reasons to pursue given ends. He clearly considers pre-modern societies such as Aristotle’s Athens to have possessed coherent and rational moral systems (ibid.: 59), but in what sense is the fact that the community has prescribed someone a definite role to fulfil meant to provide him with a rational reason for following that role if even it goes against his own self-interest? We have good reason to challenge the rationality of moral systems which MacIntyre judges unproblematic. Therefore, by MacIntyre’s own standards, I think it legitimate to conclude that there exist rational reasons, specific to our social context, to choose particular ends.

So MacIntyre is wrong to say that we can have no rational motive for freely choosing to adopt a particular set of restrictive principles as authoritative. He mistake was to overlook the fact that to adopt the principles of justice is to characterise oneself as a just person – something which our social context can give us good reason to aspire to be. But if the principles of justice are based on arbitrary assertions, isn’t being a just person a meaningless concept? In actuality, the reasons we have for wanting to be a particular kind of person, are reasons which show that premises of justice are not senseless assertions.


3.3. Incommensurable, but not arbitrary, premises

Rawls acknowledges that what causes us to support and accept the principles of justice is a “sense of justice” (Rawls 1999: 415). It is possible to see this sense of justice as consisting of a collection of virtues which find their expression in Rawls’ premises. Equality – a disposition to treat everybody’s interests evenly – is the most obvious such virtue. Since equality is a derivative of the virtue of compassion, the desire to support and obey Rawls’ principles (I shall assume here that the principles do indeed follow from the premises) is synonymous with the desire to be a compassionate person, and express oneself as such through one’s political relations with fellow citizens. Therefore if we have rational reason for pursuing this end we have a rational reason for adopting Rawls’ principles over others. In the previous section it was argued that our social context can give us reason for wanting to be a just person, though the definition of a just person may vary radically. One common such definition equates being just with being compassionate and egalitarian.

To support a particular kind of political system is to do what is in our power to express a certain kind of attitude to others. Returning to the example of Nozick and Rawls’ incommensurable premises, it would be rational for a person who has reason to be compassionate, to choose Rawls’ principles over Nozick’s. To support Rawls’ principles is to express oneself as someone concerned with everybody’s interests equally. To support Nozick’s principles is to express oneself as someone concerned with minimising the power of the state to treat people as means to an end – i.e. concerned only with one very specific aspect of other people’s interests at the expense of all other facets of their welfare. Edward McClennen argues that “the most effective way to express” a “communitarian commitment” to the well-being of others is to “regulate [one’s] affairs by reference to Rawls’ principle of justice as fairness” (McClennen 1999: 166).

By understanding premises about justice as ways of defining our relationship with others we find that each individual, assuming he has some idea of who he wants to be, has rational criteria for choosing between competing sets of incommensurable premises. But since we each have different ideas about what kind of people we want to be, how can we expect ideas about justice ever to converge? People may have rational reasons for disagreeing with each other but isn’t the end effect still radically problematic – modern politics as “civil war carried on by other means” (MacIntyre 1985: 253)?


3.4. A rational civil war?

In practice, conceptions of what kind of people we should be in defining our relationship to fellow citizens tend to be similar. We are expected to be compassionate (and thus egalitarian) and just (defined in this instance as a sensitivity to people’s responsibility for their choices).

This is demonstrated most clearly in contemporary political debate. For example on the issue of whether to raise taxes, a more right-wing politician will argue that high taxes will damage the economy in a way that hurts everyone, leading to job cuts and a reduced standard of living (characterising himself as compassionate and egalitarian), that people deserve what they have earned since they have chosen to work hard (just), that high taxes are an imposition on people’s autonomy (compassionate) and that the taxes will only be wasted on an ineffectual bureaucracy anyway (i.e. high taxes will not in practice result in an expression of compassion or justice). Rather than argue from different premises, a more left-wing politician will directly refute each of these claims, arguing that in fact a highly-taxed economy will be what is of most benefit to everyone rather than a limited few (characterising himself as compassionate and egalitarian), that people do not deserve what they earn since they were only able to earn it because of unchosen factors (just), that poverty is a worse imposition on people’s autonomy than high taxes (compassionate) and that government spending makes a big difference (and hence can result in an expression of the virtues).

Even if their real motives are quite otherwise, public debaters will always justify their proposals as if their motives were purely benevolent. Nobody wants to characterise themselves as selfish or arbitrarily discriminatory, and they will not be listened to in mainstream politics if they do so. Thus the character of a correctly-motivated politician and citizen is a subject on which there is considerable consensus. Even though the consensus is not perfect, mainstream disagreements focus not on questions such as whether absolute equality is the best embodiment of compassion, or how justice is to be weighed against equality, but on whether different policies really do express these virtues in practical way:

“The major arguments between the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ today are not about the importance of either holding people responsible for their choices or remedying unequal circumstances, but about several essentially empirical questions” (Kymlicka 2001: 158)

Much more could be said on this issue, but because of space constraints, and since MacIntyre never actually attacks the problem of incommensurable rational disagreement and may not consider it “radically problematic”, I do not want to linger on it and will turn instead to the second of the two questions which must be addressed in this essay.


4. Do Rawls’s virtues depend on the prior justification of his principles?

In Rawls’ most explicit reference to virtues, he provides what is apparently clear evidence that MacIntyre’s understanding of their place in the Rawlsian moral scheme is the correct one:

“The virtues are sentiments, that is, related families of dispositions and propensities regulated by a higher-order desire, in this case a desire to act from the corresponding moral principles” (Rawls 1999: 167)

However, as I have already shown, the “regulative higher-order desire”, i.e. the sense of justice, is, in effect, a virtue, even if Rawls chooses not to call it such. This virtue is dependent, not on a particular set of rules and principles, but on the desire to be a just person. The place of the virtues is far more subtle in Rawls’ theory than MacIntyre realises – the virtues are initially developed through social engagement (ibid.: 413) and this then leads to a particular appreciation for the virtue of justice, the prioritisation of which as regulative of one’s own life leads on to derivative virtues.

It might be argued that this destroys a “central feature” of Rawls’ theory: “the priority of the right over the good” (ibid.: 28). But if Rawls’ aim was the construction of a free-standing account of the right, derived independently of any account of the good (as defined as the rational end for a given life), then he has failed. As MacIntyre demonstrates in After Virtue, any such attempt must either make reference to an external metaphysical reality, or it must base itself on arbitrary assertions which cannot be justified.

But this reading of Rawls is misleading. Whatever Rawls himself says to the contrary, his theory is characterised not by an absence of any definite account of the good, but by a minimal account of the good. To say that each person ought to be “free to plan his life as he pleases (so long as his intentions are consistent with the principles of justice)” (ibid.: 392) is no different from saying that each person should be free to choose and pursue his own good, so long as, whatever else he chooses, he chooses to be just. Rawls’ lengthy arguments about our having rational motivation for affirming our sense of justice amount to an attempt to persuade us that, whatever else our rational end might consist of, being just is part of it.


4. Conclusion

So MacIntyre is wrong to condemn Rawls’ theory as senseless and arbitrary. Because Rawls argues that we aspire to be obey just rules only as a consequence of our prior aspiration to be virtuous, he implicitly acknowledges that his principles of justice are not derived from free-standing premises. Because of this, the incommensurability of his premises with competing theories is not a symptom of their being radically problematic, and the starting-point of his theory is returned to a position where, as MacIntyre himself acknowledges, there is potential for rational progress – that of asking the question “who am I?” and of trying to understand how our social context informs the answer to this question (MacIntyre 1985: 216).

But this illustrates how MacIntyre fails only because Rawls’ conception of the place of the virtues in his moral scheme is much closer to the former’s conception than MacIntyre himself recognises. Both see morality as emerging from a person’s aspiration to radically improve his or her character and both observe that this aspiration is a result of one’s social context. Similarly, Rawls succeeds in refuting MacIntyre almost by accident. In struggling to construct a theory in which the right is prior to the good, questions of personal moral aspiration and the rationality behind such aspirations become sidelined to a peripheral discussion of stability. In truth, such questions are what ultimately create and justify his whole theory.

MacIntyre is right to berate modern philosophy for failing to ask the question “what sort of person am I to become?” (MacIntyre 1985: 118). To try to construct free-standing moral rules which all people are obliged to obey regardless of their social particularity is indeed to base morality on “the ghost of conceptions of divine law” (ibid.: 111). Philosophers like Rawls would do well to remember that people will have reason to obey liberal rules only if they have reason to aspire to be liberal people.


Bibliography

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Footnotes

* In truth, Rawls’ reasons for dismissing all claims to differential treatment are somewhat more complicated than the ones recounted here. But since a more detailed account would require considerable argument, space constraints make it necessary to leave this issue aside. The argument of this essay does not rest on a perfectly accurate understanding of Rawls’ basic premises.

** Though obviously the nature of this world differs radically between different conceptions of justice.

*** This counter-argument can only be hypothetical since MacIntyre sees the modern ideology as one in which particular ways of life “are to be adopted for no reason, but for a choice that lies beyond reasons” (MacIntyre 1985: 42) and does not directly address any ideology in which ends can be chosen for reasons derived from a particular social context.

**** It is not paradoxical that Rawls’ just person ignores social particularities when considering questions of justice even though the reasons for him doing so are ultimately derived from his own social particularity.