ePILogue (as PRoLogue) ( 211 )Now we need to remind ourselves how very limited (by Rawls’s own
acknowledgment) the scope of these principles is. As a reminder, let us put
them inside identifying and constraining brackets:
PDJ [(BL→→FEODP)]I
That is, these are principles of distributive justice for an ideal (I) well- ordered
society, that being a society which is (a) a cooperative venture for mutual
advantage, in which (b) the rules are designed for fair and reciprocal ben-
efit, and (c) people generally follow the rules.
However, we are not, of course, in such a society. We are in a non- ideal
(~I) ill- ordered society, which was historically established as (a) a coercive
and exploitative venture for differential white advantage, and in which
(b) the rules are generally designed for white benefit. So how could PDJI
be the appropriate principles of justice for such a society? Obviously, they
cannot. What we want are principles of corrective justice that will eliminate
illicit white advantage. How should they be conceptualized?
In A Theory of Justice, in the attempt to establish (problematically, for
Fleischacker) the continuity of his approach with the classical, here
Aristotelian, tradition, Rawls refers to pleonexia, “gaining some [illicit]
advantage for oneself by seizing what belongs to another, his property, his
reward, his office, and the like, or by denying a person that which is due to
him, the fulfilment of a promise, the repayment of a debt, the showing of
proper respect, and so on.”^23 I suggest we think of illicit white advantage/
white privilege as a form of racial pleonexia, historic and current, which
needs to be corrected for. Let us call it ∆, the illicit white differential. So
what we are seeking are
PCJ[P1(B∆∆L)**P2(EO) P3(R∆ espect)]~I
Translated into prose, these would be principles of corrective justice, P1,
P2, P3, for eliminating illicit white advantage/ white privilege/ racial pleo-
nexia in whites’ basic liberties, opportunities, and social respect, in a non-
ideal, ill- ordered, white supremacist society.
Some clarificatory points: (a) Respect is included as a basic social good
in keeping with both Kantian and Rawlsian norms, and the need for cor-
recting the founding of the polity on the systematic disrespect, dissin’, of
people of color. (b) The asterisks indicate uncertainty about the princi-
ples’ ordering; from what Rawls says, P1 → P2, but where would P3 fit?
(c) EO is listed rather than FEO, and the DP is not mentioned, because
even for whites neither FEO nor the DP were ever institutionalized, and