week 5 post 2

    John Rawl attempts to approach similar philosophical ideas to Immanuel Kant in a more effective manner.  Immanuel Kant was known to use his philosophy for racially driven tactics and known for a notably narcissistic outlook on philosophy.  Due to this, many of his concepts were designed to fit specific narratives, which left many of the philosophies as incomplete answers to the world.  However, John Rawl does try to address these ideas and in a more egalitarian style. Egalitarianism is the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities, and to achieve this principle, equity is necessary.  Rawl breaks this down to distributive justice. The distributive principle he comes up with says that we indeed have social and economic inequalities, which are an inevitable part of  Human Societies design.  However, the principle says that we need an equal distribution of income and wealth.  This means that only those social and economic inequalities that should be permitted should work to benefit the least well-off in society.  This plays on the idea of equity.  To be functional, we should not reject all income inequality and wealth. However, the test of this inequality should be, "does this inequality of income and wealth work to the benefit of everyone, especially those at the bottom of the income chain?"

    Rawls' philosophy tells us that the distribution of income, wealth, and opportunities should not be based on factors that people are naturally born into, instead of hard work and natural ability. The most straightforward metaphor for this is that if you let everyone run in a race, everyone can enter the race, but some people start at different starting points, and because of that, that race is not going to be fair.  Due to extreme poverty, some people might start behind the line; due to extreme wealth, some people might be placed much farther ahead in the race, which gives them a much better chance of winning. This race stands for society; those born into wealth are decided the champions of the race before they ever have to prove themselves. This is visible in a study of the top 146 selective colleges and universities in the United States.  In 2003, this study showed that only 3% of students in these top universities Came From The Bottom quarter of the income scale.  This elitist phenomenon has not changed over time.  In 2017 a study showed that some colleges have more people from the top 1% than the bottom 60%.   in an increasingly volatile society and economy,  it is scientifically proven that adopting our brains to egalitarian Styles can help build a more productive, peaceful Society. Egalitarianism is yet another philosophical lens through which the world can be viewed.