Television had proved that people will look at anything rather than at each other. Principles of justice should be general. That is, it must be possible to formulate them without the use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names, or rigged definite descriptions. Thus the predicates used in their statemen should express general properties and relations. Unfortunately deep philosophical difficulties seem to bar the way to a satisfactory account of these matters. In presenting a theory of justice one is entitled to avoid the problem of defining general properties and relations and to be guided by what seems reasonable. Further, since the parties have no specific information about themselves or their situation, they cannot identify themselves anyway. Even if a person could get others to agree, one does not know how to tailor principles to one’s advantage. The parties are effectively forced to stick to general principles, understanding the notion here in an intuitive fashion. The naturalness of this condition lies in part in the fact that first principles must be capable of serving as a public charter of a well ordered society in perpetuity. Being unconditional, they always hold (under the circumstances of justice), and the knowledge of them must be open to individuals in any generation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

Thus, to understand these principles should not require a knowledge of contingent particulars, and surely not a reference to individuals or associations. Traditionally the most obvious test of this condition is the idea that what is right is that which accords with God’s will. However, in fact this doctrine is normally supported by an argument from general principles. For example, Locke held that the fundamental principle of morals is the following: if one person is created by another (in the theological sense), then that person has a duty to comply with the precepts set to one by one’s creator. This principle is perfectly general and given the nature of the World on Locke’s view, it singles out God as the legitimate moral authority. The generality condition is not violated although it may appear so at first. Nest, principles are to be universal in application. They must hold for everyone in virtue of their being moral persons. Thus I assume that each can understand these principles and use them in one’s deliberations. This imposes an upper bound of sorts on how complex they can be, and on the kinds of number of distinctions they draw. Moreover, a principle is ruled out if it would be self-contradictory, or self-defeating, for everyone to act upon it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

Similarly, should a principle be reasonable to follow only when others conform to a different one, it is also inadmissible. Principles are to be chosen in view of the consequences of everyone’s complying with them. As defined, generality and universality are distinct conditions. For example, egoism in the form of first-person dictatorship (Everyone is to serve my—or Pericles’—interest) satisfies universality but not generality. While all could act in accordance with this principle, and the results might in some cases not be at all bad, depending on the interests of the dictator, the personal pronoun (or the name) violated the first condition. Again, general principles may not be universal. They may be framed to hold for a restricted class of individuals, for instance those singled out by special biological or social characteristics, such as hair colour or class situation, or whatever. To be sure in the course of their lives individuals acquire obligations and assume duties that are peculiar to them. Nevertheless, these various duties and obligations are the consequence of first principles that hold for all as moral persons; the derivation of these requirements as a common basis. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

A third condition is that of publicity, which arises naturally from a contractarian standpoint. The parties assume that they are choosing principles for a public conception of justice. Public Right is the sum total of those laws which require to be made universally public in order to produce a state of right. No right in a state can be tacitly and treacherously included by a secret reservation, and least of all a right which the people claim to be a part of the constitution, for a laws within it must be thought of as arising out of public will. Thus if a constitution allowed rebellion, it would have to declare this right publicly and make clear how it might be implemented. This condition is to apply to a society’s conception of justice. It is suppose that everyone will know about these principles all that one would know if their acceptance were the result of an agreement. Thus the general awareness of their universal acceptance should have desirable effect and support the stability of social cooperation. The difference between this condition and that of universality is that the latter leads one to assess principles on the basis of their being intelligently and regularly followed by everyone. However, it is possible that all should understand and follow a principle and yet this fact not be widely known or explicitly recognized. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

The point of the publicity condition is to have the parties evaluate conceptions of justice as publicly acknowledged and fully effective moral constitutions of social life. The publicity condition is clearly implicit in Kant’s doctrine of the categorical imperative insofar as it requires us to act in accordance with principles that one would be willing as a rational being to enact as laws for a kingdom of ends. He thought of this kingdom as an ethical commonwealth, as it were, which has such moral principles for its public charter. A further condition is that a conception of right must impose an ordering on conflicting claims. This requirement springs directly from the role of its principles in adjusting competing demands. There is a difficulty, however, in deciding what counts as an ordering. It is clearly desirable that a conception of justice be complete, that is, able to order all the claims that can arise (or that are likely to in practice). And the ordering should in general be transitive: if, say, a first arrangement of the basic structure is ranked more just than a second, and the second more than just a third, then the first should be more just than the third. These formal conditions are natural enough, though not always easy to satisfy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

 However, is trial by combat a form of adjudication? After all, physical conflict and resort to arms result in an ordering; certain claims do win out over others. The main objection to this ordering is not that it may be intransitive. Rather, it is to avoid the appeal to force and cunning that the principles of right and justice are accepted. Thus I assumes that to each according to one’s threat advantage is not a conception of justice. It fails to establish an ordering in the required sense, an ordering based on certain relevant aspects of persons and their situation which are independent from the social position. For example, if it turns out that the fair division of playing time between Matthew and Luke depends on their preference, and these in turn are connected with the instruments they wish to play. Since Matthew has a threat advantage over Luke, arising from the fact that Matthew, the trumpeter, prefers both of them playing at once to neither of them playing, whereas Luke, the pianist, prefers silence to a cacophony, Matthew is allotted twenty-six evenings of play to Luke’s seventeen. If the situation were reversed, the threat advantage would be with Luke. However, we have only to suppose that Matthew is a jazz enthusiast who plays the drums, and Luke a violinist who plays sonatas, in which case it will be fair on this analysis for Matthew to play whenever and as often as he likes, assuming as it is plausible to assume that he does not care whether Luke plays or not. Clearly something has gone wrong. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

 What is lacking is a suitable definition of status quo that is acceptable from a moral point of view. We cannot take various contingencies as known and individual preferences as given and expect to elucidate the concept of justice (or fairness) by theories of bargaining. The conception of the original position is designed to meet the problem of the appropriate status quo. But this may be similarly defective from an ethical point of view. The fifth and last condition is that of finality. The parities are to assess the system of principles as the final court of appeal in practical reasoning. There are no higher standards to which arguments in support of claims can be addressed; reasoning successfully from these principles is conclusive. If we think in terms of the fully general theory which has principles for all the virtues, then such a theory specifies the totality of relevant considerations and their appropriate weights, and its requirements are decisive. They override the demands of law and custom, and of social rules generally. We are to arrange and respect social institutions as the principles of right and justice direct. Conclusions from these principles also override considerations of prudence and self-interest. This does no mean that these principles insist upon self-sacrifice; for in drawing up the conception of right the parties take their interests into account as best they can. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

The claims of personal prudence are already given an appropriate weight within the full system of principles. The complete scheme is final in that when the course of practical reasoning it defines has reached its conclusion, the question is settled. The claims of existing social arrangements and of self-interest have been duly allowed for. We cannot at the end count them a second time because we do not like the result. Taken together, then, these conditions on conceptions of right come to this: a conception of right is a set of principles, generally in form and universal in application, that is to be publicly recognized as a final court appeal for ordering the conflicting claims of moral persons. Principles of justice are identified by their special five conditions exclude none of the traditional conceptions of justice. It should be noted, however, that they do rule out the listed variants of egoism. The generality condition eliminates both first-person dictatorship and the free-rider forms, since in each case a proper name, or pronoun, or a rigged definite description is needed, either to single out the dictator or to characterize the free-rider. Generality does not, however, exclude general egoism, for each person is allowed to do whatever, in one’s judgment, is most likely to further one’s own aims. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

The principle here can clearly be expressed in perfectly general way. It is the ordering condition which renders general egoism inadmissible, for if everyone is authorized to advance one’s aims as one pleases, or if everyone ought to advance one’s own interests, competing claims are not ranked at all and the outcome is determined by force and cunning. The several kinds of egoism, then, do not appear on the list presented to the parties. They are eliminated by the formal constraints. Of course, this is not a surprising conclusion, since it is obvious that by choosing one of the other conceptions the persons in the original position can do much better for themselves. Once they ask which principles all should agree to, no form of egoism is a serious candidate for consideration in any case. This only confirms what we knew already, namely, that although egoism is logically consistent and in this sense not irrational, it is incompatible with wat we intuitively regard as the moral point of view. The significance of egoism philosophically is not as an alternative conception of right but as a challenge to any such conception. In justice as fairness this is reflected in the fact that we can interpret general egoism as the no-agreement. If the were unable to reach an understanding, it is what parties would be stuck with. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

Artifice has so much got the upper hand that the fictitious dares to usurp the place of the real. The overvaluation of productivity that is afflicting our age has so thrived and its par-technical glance has set up a senseless exclusiveness of its own that even genuinely creative people allow their organic skills to degenerate into an autonomous growth to satisfy the demand of the day. What the born deceivers never had, they give up: the ground where the roots of a genuinely lived life alone can grow. They mean, they strive for, and at last they contain nothing but creativity. Instead of bringing forth a natural creation, in a gradual selective progression from experiences to thoughts, from thought to words, from words to themselves out turning all experience to account as public communication; they renounce true necessity and give themselves over to the arbitrary. They poison experience, for already while it is taking place they are dominated by the will to produce. Thus they prostitute their lives and are cheated of the reward for their ignominy; for how can they expect to create anything save the artificial and the transitory? They forfeit both life and art, and all that they gain is the applause of their production-mad contemporaries. However, it seems to me that the will to create is a legitimate part of the experience of every productive human. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

Thus the painter is the person who paints with all one’s senses. One’s seeing is already a painting, for what one sees is not merely what one’s physical sight receives: it is something, two-dimensionally intensified, that vision produces. And this producing does not come later, but is present in one’s seeing. Even one’s hearing, one’s smelling, are already painting, for they enrich for one the graphic character of the thing; they give one not only sensations but also stimulations. In the same way the poet creates poetry with all one’s senses; in each of one’s experiences the form in which it will be phrased is immediately announced. One’s perceiving is already a transformation of the thing perceived into the stuff of poetry, and in its becoming each impression presents itself to one as an expression of rhythmic validity. That is need so. However, this dynamic element that you find in the experience of the creative is no will to create but an ability to create. This potentiality of form also accompanies every experience that befalls the non-artistic human and is given an issue as often as one lifts an image out of the stream of perception and inserts it into one’s memory as something single, definite, and meaningful in itself. For the creative human this potentiality of form is a specific one, directed into the language of one’s particular art. If an intention is expressed in this direction, it is that of one’s genius, not that of a self-conscious resolution.  #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

The dynamic element of one’s experience does not affect is wholeness and purity. It is otherwise when in perceiving one already cherishes the deliberate intention of utilizing what one perceives. Then one disturbs the experience stunts its growth, and taints the process of its becoming. Only the unarbitrary can grow properly and bear mature and healthy fruit. That humans are legitimately creative who experiences so strongly and formatively that one’s experiences unite into an image that demands to be set forth, and who then works at one’s task with full consciousness of one’s art. However, one who interferes with spontaneity of perceiving, who does not allow the inner selection and formation to prevail, but instead inserts an aim from the beginning, has forfeited the meaning of this perception, the meaning that lies above all aims. And one who meets humans with a double glance, an open one that invites one that invites one’s fellows to sincerity and the concealed one of the observer stemming from a conscious aim; one who is friendship and in love is cleft into two humans, one who surrenders oneself to one’s feelings and another who is already standing by to exploit them—this individual cannot be delivered by any creative talent from the blight that one has brought upon oneself and one’s work, for one has poisoned the springs of one’s life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

You wish, then, to reintroduce int aesthetics the ethical principle that we have finally succeeded in banishing from it? What was banished from aesthetics was an ideology that had degenerated into rhetoric and had thereby become false. It certainly signified a conquest of sure ground wen the perspective was established that evaluated a work of art—approving or rejecting it—not by its relation to the aspirations of the aspirations of the artist buy by its intrinsic qualities. Now for the first tie we can, without promoting misunderstanding, strive towards the deeper insight: that this approval affords entrance into the other circle only, but in the inner circle those works alone count that have given form to the meaning of being. Similarly, a gain in clarity and solidity was achieved when it was recognized that the significance of an artist does not depend upon one’s morals: now for the first time we can attain the deeper clarity that in inner development mastery and power accrue only to that artist who is worthy of one’s art. The way people use language is braided together tightly with the way they think. While we do not need to think in language (a child can think prior to language acquisition, and, in fact, since language is a vehicle for thought, language presupposed thought and not vice versa), nevertheless, language development is critical for cultivating a careful, precise, attentive mind. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

Most people today do not use good grammar or syntax in sentence construction. Interestingly, the demise of grammar and syntax reflects a change in the main way language is currently used. Today, we primarily use langue to express emotions, create experiences, or get someone to do something, like buy a product. Careful thought is not always relevant to these modern appropriations of language. How many television commercials actually persuade us to buy something on the basis of an articulate defense of a product! The devaluation of grammar correlates closely with a devaluation of the mind, truth, and thought. When a main purpose of language is the careful precise expression of thought, grammar and syntax become critical because they make such expression of thought possible. If we Christians are to develop our minds, we must take greater care to improve our syntax and grammar, and we must expect this from each other. From years of experience grading student papers, I can tell you that is a student’s grammar is poor, one has a difficult tie developing a coherent line of thought clearly and carefully. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

Let us give ourselves permission to correct one another’s grammar with a gentle, nonarrogant spirit in our fellowship meetings. Is not a developed intellectual love for God worth the price of an initial embarrassment at such correction? After all, the alternative is to continue to allow one another to speak incorrectly and fail to realize the intellectual benefits that come from the correct use of language. Having seen the importance of a Christian mind, and having (hopefully) been persuaded of the importance of good thinking, ordered language, and good grammar, you may be asking, “Okay, wat is well-reasoning thinking?” Let us look now at an introduction of some of the principles that govern reasoning and why they are important to the mind. Why Logic? Besides cultivating virtue, taking study as a spiritual discipline, and being more disciplined about your grammar and syntax, you should be acquainted with certain logical tools that constitute the very nature of thought. Even young children use these tools without knowing the names for them. If you really want to develop your intellectual skills, you should memorize these and practice using them and recognizing their presence in things you hear or read. We Christians must never forget that our God is a God of truth, reason, and logic. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

He speaks wisdom to His children, invites them to reason and argue with God logically, and demands that they present in logical fashion the reason why they believe. The image of God within us includes the faculty of abstract reasoning and logical thought. In Romans, the apostle Paul presents in a careful, logical fashion a host of Old Testament text about the nature of sin, judgment, and justification. In public debate, Jesus Himself regularly used careful logic to refute opponents’ arguments and present them with a carefully reasoned alternative. When John Wesley told a group of ministers to become proficient in logic as a part of their calling, he was expressing a deep understanding of the Christian faith as that faith is depicted in the Bible and throughout church history. In logic, an argument is defined as a group of statements containing premises and a conclusion in which the former are claimed as support for the latter. Using an argument is not the same as being argumentative. In using an argument, one simply supports a conclusion with premises. Being argumentative is a defensive personality defect. Christians are required by God to argue, not to be argumentative. “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. However, do this with gentleness and respect,” reports 1 Peter 3.15. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

Arguments are either deductive or inductive. In a valid deductive argument, if the premises are true, then the conclusions must be true. For example, “(1) All dogs are ducks, (2) All ducks are cats, (3) Therefore, all dogs are cats,” is a valid deductive argument. In spite of the fact that premises 1 and 2 are false, if they were true, the conclusion would have to be true. In an inductive argument, the premises do not guarantee but merely provide support or grounds for the truth of the conclusion. An inductive argument with true premises does not guarantee but only makes probably the truth of its conclusion. It would be possible to have a good inductive argument with true premises and a false conclusion. For example, “(1) Ninety-five perfect of people who receive the antibiotic get well, (2) We are about to give John the antibiotic, (3) Therefore, John is about to get well” is a good inductive argument. Premises 1 and 2 do in fact provide good support for the conclusion, even though the premises could be true and the conclusion false. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

Deductive arguments can be either valid or invalid. As we have seen, if a deductive argument is valid, its conclusion must be true if its premises are true. An invalid deductive argument is one in which the premises could be true but the conclusion false. For example, “(1) All dogs are mammals, (2) All cats are mammals, (3) Therefore, all dogs are cats: is invalid because it contains true premises and a false conclusion. A sound argument is a deductive argument with true premises (and therefore, a true conclusion), and this is what we want to employ as best we can. A syllogism is deductive argument that consists of exactly two premises and one conclusion. The argument above about dogs and cats is a syllogism (an invalid one). If you wish, call it self-making—this process of using one’s own mental powers, one’s own emotional energies, to actualize the new being that is one’s best self. It does not seek like a mendicant for free transformation by another person, a guru. It makes use of the highest kind of imagination, a deeply relaxed suggestive visualization. Whatever is called for to being on enlightenment exists within oneself already, but it is latent and undeveloped. By study, exercise, and practice the aspirant can be one’s own teacher. Sooner or later one will have to take this work into one’s own hands. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

The notion that someone else can or will do it for one is delusory, the belief that a guru can absolve one’s duty is adolescent wishful thinking. If the result is to have any lasting value, it must be self-wrought or in the end the aspirant will have to start again, use this approach, and throw away the negative thought the one is helpless without someone else who must be sought and found. The kind of teacher who is really useful will put no emphasis upon oneself but upon the aspirant’s own work, and then see one at intervals only. Once the materials needed are pointed out, the student should teach oneself; and this one can do only through self-practice. “And it came to pass that in the latter end of the eighteenth year those armies of robbers had prepared for battle, and began to come down and to sally forth from the hills, and out of the mountains, and the wilderness, and their strongholds, and their secret paces, and began to take possession of the lands, both which were in the land south and which were in the land north, and began to take possession of all the lands which ad been deserted by the Nephites, and the cities which had been left desolate. However, behold, there were no wild beasts nor game in those lands which had been deserted by the Nephites, and there was no game for the robbers save it were in the wilderness. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

“And the robbers could not exist save it were in the wilderness, for the want of food; for the Nephites had left their lands desolate, and had gathered their flocks and their lands desolate, and had gathered their flocks and their herds and all their substance, and they were in one body. Therefore, there was no chance for the robbers to plunder and to obtain food, save it were to come up in open battle against the Nephites; and the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to destroy the robbers from off the face of the land; and thus the eighteenth year did pass away. And it came to pass that in the nineteenth year Giddianhi found that it was expedient that he should go up to battle against the Nephites, for there was no way that they could subsist save it were to plunder and rob and murder. And they durst not spread themselves upon the face of the land insomuch that they could raise grain, lest the Nephites should come upon them and slay them; therefore Giddianhi gave commandment unto his armies that in this year they should go up to battle against the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

“And it came to pass that they did come up to battle; and it was in the sixth month; and behold, great and terrible was the day that they did come up to battle; and they had a lamb-skin about their loins, and they were dyed in blood, and their hears were shorn, and they had head-plates upon them; and great and terrible was the appearance of the armies of Giddianhi, because of their armor, and because of the being dyed in blood. And it came to pass that the armies of the Nephites, when they say the appearance of the army of Giddianhi, had all fallen to the Earth, and did lift their cries to the Lord their God, that he would spare them and deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. And it came to pass that when the armies of Giddianhi saw this they began to shout with a loud voice, because of their joy, for they had supposed that the Nephites had fallen with fear because of the terror of their armies. However, in this thing there were disappointed, for the Nephites did not fear them; but they did fear their God and did supplicate him for protection; therefore, when the armies of Giddianhi did rush upon them they were prepared to meet them; yea, in the strength of the Lord they did receive them. And the battle commenced in this sixth month. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

 “And great and terrible was the battle thereof, yea, great and terrible was the battle thereof, yea, great and terrible was the slaughter thereof, insomuch that there was never known so great a slaughter among all the people of Lehi since he left Jerusalem. And notwithstanding the threatenings and the oaths which Giddianhi had made, before, the Nephites did beat them, insomuch that they did fall back from before them. And it came to pass that Gidgddioni commanded that his armies should pursue them as far as the borders of the wilderness, and that they should not spare any that should fall into their hands by the way; and thus they did pursue them and did slay them, to the borders of the wilderness, even until they had fulfilled the commandments of Gidgiddoni. And it came to pass that Giddianhi, wh has stood and fought with boldness, was pursed as he fled; and being weary because of his much fighting he was overtaken and slain. And thus was the end of Giddianhi the robber. And it came to pass that the armies of the Nephites did return again to their place of security. And it came to pass that this nineteenth year did pass away, and the robbers did not come again in the twentieth year. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

“And in the twenty and first year they did not come up to battle, but they came up on all sides to lay siege round about the people of Nephi; for they did suppose that if they should cut off from all their outward privileges, that they could cause them to yield themselves up according to their wishes. Now they had appointed unto themselves another leader, whose name was Zemnarihah; therefore it was Zemnarihah that did cause that this siege should take place. However, behold, this was an advantage to the Nephites; for it was impossible for the robbers to lay siege sufficiently long to have any effect upon the Nephites, because of their much provision which they had laid up in store, and because of the scantiness of provisions among the robbers; for behold, they had nothing save it were meat for their subsistence, which meat they did obtain in the wilderness; and it came to pass that the wild game became scarce in the wilderness insomuch that the robbers were about to perish with hunger. And the Nephites were continually marching out by day and by night, and falling upon their armies, and cutting them off by thousands and by tens of thousands.  #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

“And thus it became the desire of the people of Zemnarihah to withdraw from their design, because of the great destruction which came upon them by night and by day. And it came t pass that Zemnarihah did give command unto his people that they should withdraw themselves from the siege, and march into the furthermost parts of the land northward. And now, Gidgiddoni being aware of their design, and knowing of their weakness because of the want of food, and the great slaughter which had been made among them, therefore he did send out his armies in the night-tie, and did cut off the way of their retreat, and did place his armies in the way of their retreat. And this did they do in the night-time, and got on their march beyond the robbers began their march, they were met by the armies of the Nephites both in their front an in their rear. And the robbers who were on the south were also cut off in their place of retreat. And all these things were done by command of Gidgiddoni. And there were many thousands who did yield themselves up prisoners unto the Nephites, and the remainder of them were slain. And their leader, Zemnarihah, was taken and hanged upon a tree, yea, even upon the top thereof until he was dead. And when they had hanged him until he was dead they did fell the tree to the Earth, and did cry with a loud voice. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

“He said: May the Lord preserve his people in righteousness and in holiness of heart, that they may cause t be felled to the Earth all who shall seek to slay them because of power and secret combinations, even as this man hath been felled to the Earth. And they did rejoice and cry again with one voice, saying: May the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, protect this people in righteousness, so long as they shall call on the name of their God for protection. And it came to pass that they did break forth, all as one, in singing, an praising their God for the great thing which he had done for them, in preserving them from falling into the hands of their enemies. Yea, they did cry: Hosanna to the Most High God. And they did cry: Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty, the Most High God. And their hearts were swollen with joy, unto the gushing out of many tears, because of the great goodness of God in delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; and they knew it was because of their repentance and their humility that they had been delivered from an everlasting destruction,” reports 3 Nephi 4.1-33. O God, Whom none can love except they hate the thing that is evil, and Who willedst by Thy Son our Saviour to redeem us from iniquity; please deliver us when we are tempted to look on sin without abhorrence, and let virtue of His Passion come between us and the enemy of our souls; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

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