( 212 ) Black Rights/White Wrongsthe principles here are principles for correcting actual unfair white racial
advantage.
Can we arrive at these principles (PCJ~I) through the utilization of a
Rawlsian, or modified Rawlsian, framework? I believe that we can, but it
will require a reorientation of Rawls’s apparatus as a “device of representa-
tion.” For we are now trying to represent a different kind of choice situa-
tion, a choice sensitized to the historic realities of white racial domination
(“white supremacy”).
What is the essence, the valuable core, of Rawls? It is, I would claim, the
innovation of resurrecting social contract theory in the form of a thought-
experiment involving veiled prudential choice within carefully stipulated
parameters as a means of generating principles of justice. Despite the criti-
cisms I have made throughout of Rawls, this core still seems to me to be a
significant contribution to political philosophy. We can represent it as in
Figure E.3.
So for people interested in tackling race within a Rawlsian framework,
the strategy has then typically been to work with P1, P2 (as derived in
the ideal- theory context), which we can now more precisely and formally
identify as [PDJ1, PDJ2]I. One then tries to apply these principles— that
is, [BL → (FEO → DP)]I— to race. For example, as discussed in chapter 9,
Tommie Shelby’s attempted appropriation of FEO for this end.
My suggested alternative strategy: Rather than try to tweak PDJ1 and
PDJ2 in this way, let us run a different thought- experiment custom designed
for non- ideal theory. So though in both cases the “contract” as a “device of
representation” is being used to derive principles of justice that are consis-
tent with central liberal values, the conceptual difference between the two
exercises is made quite explicit. In the first case, we are seeking principles
of distributive justice for an ideal society [PDJ]I; in the second case we are
Figure E.3 John Rawls’s thought- experiment
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