Veil of Ignorance

I had not thought of this before, but Tuesday's presentation on the veil of ignorance made me think of this decision-making system in a different way. The basic premise of this thought process requires one to make decisions by stripping away any biases and labels such as race,gender and ethnicity. This seems impossible to realistically put into practice. It presents an ideal and Utopian-like thought.

However interpreting this ethical approach in a different way can bring a more rational application. It also essentially means making decisions without taking into consideration what is best for you and instead possibly thinking of what is based for a group of people, say that cannot speak for themselves. When you think about it in this way I think the ethical approach can be more realistically applied. It can be seen as the response to utilitarianism because rather than thinking about the majority, you are thinking about the minority or the least powerful and making decisions that will do the least harm to people that fall in those groups.

Happy Medium

Is our system broken? After spending about two minutes with any Washingtonian and probably any citizen for that matter, the answer will be a resounding yes. This gloom and doom question seems to always make its way into conversation. We are left to wonder about the functionality of government, when one hears on the news the threat of government shutdowns and the constant indecisive nature of Congress. The year of 2011 seemed to be a year for this news.

Each person has a different idea about the problem, but what seems to be at the root of it is the lack of compromise. We have a group of people on two sides of the political spectrum and nobody is willing to meet halfway. This idea of finding a middle road is exactly what Aristotle was suggesting when he said find the happy medium between the two extremes. This is a simple solution on the surface, but the truth is if you have two clear cut sides, than what’s in the middle is obscure and fuzzy, making it hard to find exactly where the midpoint lies.


I think "people" is the key word here. I tend to agree with those that say its the people in government and not the system that's the problem. I am not saying everyone is a problem, but there is a definite stigma out there that people in government are not considering the interests of the nation as a whole. That they are not following the thought of utilitarianism and doing what's best for the greatest number and surely are not considering every citizen. 


It will be interesting to see how this next election plays out. Will the voting reflect the public's outcry for a government more willing to work together? And with their disenchantment with the people in government? I guess we will see.  

“The greatest good for the greatest amount of people,” this core explanation of utilitarianism sounds great on the surface. After all, it aims to make the majority of people happy right? The only problem is, by its very definition, it neglects the minority. It does not say “greatest good for all people.” This is why the ethical guideline cannot be used to guide the thought process in all situations.

Sure it works for some situations. The idea of giving voice to the majority, rather than the select and powerful few is what established the foundation of this country. If you have to make decisions, and let’s face it all of us do every day, than there has to be some compromise. The truth is not everyone will be happy with the outcome.

But what happens when this majority uses their numbers to overrule and exploit the minority? The majority begins to exert its beliefs and values on this small group. A look at history can show us that when no voice is given to this small group than these people end up being hurt or put down in some way. For me, it brings to mind the treatment of Native Americans in the United States during the 1800s. Government decisions such as the 1830 Indian Removal Act and the idea that Native Americans must be assimilated into the American society provide an example of the majority forcing the minority to take on their culture, language, clothing…ect.

      “I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.”

                                                                                                                 -John Stuart Mill

Amazon case

I am a strong believer in freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas. Although, sometimes I disagree with the opinions of others, I believe it is their right to voice those opinions. In so many areas of this world people do not have this right. They cannot freely speak their mind without fear. In some cases though, when speech could cause harm and violence to others, than I believe people forfeit their freedom. The long-debated question about freedom of speech is what exactly falls under the scope of its protection?

In the initial decision to keep selling the book, Amazon invoked this freedom of speech protection. For me the problem with their argument is they did not take into account the rules for when free speech is not protected. When speech is deemed obscene it is not protected under the first amendment. The guidelines for determining whether or not speech is obscene were outlined by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California. They are as follows:

1.The "average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest."

2.The work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law.

3.The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

For me the book in question in the Amazon case would be deemed obscene because it fits all of the aforementioned standards outlined by the court. Did no one at Amazon bring this up when making their initial decision? It seems to me that they did not.

Now, trying to control the information that appears on the Internet would be impossible. There is no way to take down all the obscene language and images, but if the material is found, and in this particular case being sold, a company cannot just look the other way. This is why I believe that Amazon did the right thing in the end to take it down. Unfortunately, the endless of nature of the Internet, makes this effort seem inconsequential in the large scheme of things.

The Frenzy

Competition. Deadlines.  In the rush to get the story out first, especially in the atmosphere where news and information is instant, sometimes the facts get misconstrued or worse turn out to be inaccurate. It is easy to say in hindsight that time should have been taken to evaluate the information. They should have triple checked the facts and cultivated a fully accurate picture. The reality of the matter is people do not want to wait for that story. They want the most up-to-date information as it happens. If it is not provided, people will just go to another source that has the information. This means readership is lost, but more importantly the credibility of the source that did not report it is questioned.  How come they did not cover it when others did? What else do they not report? Can they be trusted if they are withholding this information? These questions began swirling in the curious minds of people.

Has the audience dictated this need to be constantly fed information or have journalists created this environment? I think that both groups have influence on each other, but the question of who initiated it is not black and white. I classify it as one of those “what came first the chicken or the egg?” situations.  Journalists put the information out there because it is their job to reflect light on what happens in our society. Their audience expects them to provide this information and when they do not, the very core value of journalism is questioned---truth.

Unfortunately, when this need for information becomes apparent is during stories that illuminate human tragedy. People have a fascination with watching others fail or be struck by misfortunes. It is unfortunate, but true. Nobody would have talked about the lives of two Fort Worth college students, but the murder of two Fort Worth college students in 1993 makes front-page news. The public becomes fixated on it and wants to know all the juicy details. This fixation puts journalists in a tough situation. They must provide the up-to-date news because it is what the public wants to read. This means though some information that comes to light could be invalidated at a later date. In the murder case of the two Fort Worth girls, two of the police’s early suspects were eventually cleared, but this came after their lives became magnified under the lens of the media.

Although not on the same level as murder, the recent events at TCU bring about a similar public fascination and sensational headlines. Journalists can easily get caught up in feeding the public’s need for information, but I caution them to take a moment to think about the repercussions of reporting information before it is verified.Is the information really valuable if it is not verified by an authoritative source?

A can of worms

Silence is golden…well maybe not all the time. The recent debacle between Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood demonstrated how important it is for an organization to communicate their message. Silence can lead one to wonder and jump to conclusions. Being proactive and clearly communicating the message means people will know exactly where you stand. Organizations can also use the attention to educate as some local affiliates of Komen did or as Planned Parenthood did.

Silence opens up a can of worms out of which endless possibilities permeate. Was Komen's initial decision a political statement? Was it's subsequent revoke a result of political pressure? How much funding goes to Planned Parenthood? Are all Komen foundation affiliates affected by the initial decision to pull funding?

Veil of Ignorance

John Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance presents an interesting and unrealistic scenario. Would we treat people the same way if we all existed at an equal state free of labels and classifications such as race, gender and titles? It is easy to quickly resound yes, but how can one imagine such a world? Our world is inherent with differences---night and day, hot and cold, rain and sun, female and male, rich and poor, religious and nonreligious, republican and democrat…the list is endless.

For argument’s sake let’s pretend that this world of equality was possible. How would an event such as a political election play out? Right now media outlets have flooded us with news about the upcoming presidential election. The end goal of this is that someone will break free from the pack and stand out among the rest, be different. In Rawls’s society this kind of competition would not happen. Since everyone is equal, there would not be individuals competing to procure an office that places them at higher authority than others.

However, maybe there still are elections and politicians did not participate with labels such as party affiliations. Maybe people would vote differently because they did not see a label, but only the individual.