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THE INSTABILITY OF JOHN RAWLS'S “STABILITY FOR THE RIGHT REASONS”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2017

Hun Chung
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Abstract

John Rawls's most mature notion of political order is “stability for the right reasons.” Stability for the right reasons is the kind of political order that Rawls hoped a well-ordered society could ideally achieve. In this paper, I demonstrate through the tools of modern game theory, the instability of “stability for the right reasons.” Specifically, I will show that a well-ordered society can completely destabilize by the introduction of an arbitrarily small number of non-compliers whenever individuals fail to achieve full common knowledge ever so slightly.

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Episteme , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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