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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Mere contemplation of self-interest is inadequate to generate a general will.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Mandeville and Smith demonstrate that aggregated self-interest can produce outcomes that track collective welfare without requiring virtuous motivation.
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    • 2.If market mechanisms or institutional design can align private interest with public good, virtue is instrumentally dispensable for generating general-will-like outcomes.
      ?

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    • 3.Rousseau conflates the psychological source of willing with the structural conditions sufficient for convergent general willing.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rawls's veil of ignorance shows that rational self-interest under appropriate epistemic constraints logically entails principles of general welfare.
      ?

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    • 2.If constrained self-interest is sufficient to derive principles of justice, then virtue is not a necessary condition but merely one sufficient path among several.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Selfish citizens who can will the general will might still not be moved to obey it (a compliance problem).
      ?

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    • 2.Citizen virtue is a necessary condition for the emergence of the general will in the first place.
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