On Applying Sympathy Hypothesis To Solve The Aporia Of Rawls's Universalizable Moral Method

The claim of universalization of morality is important content of western moral theory.The original position in Rawls's justice theory demonstrates two fundamental characteristics of the universalizable moral method,i.e.universal applicability and put oneself in other's shoes or empathy.First of all,Rawls considers the two principles of justice including the difference principles which selected by himself should be chosen by the choice subjectss consistently in the perspective providing by original position.This demonstrates the first fundamental characteristic of the universalizable moral method,i.e.universal applicability.Second,the shielding of the background information of choice subjectss guarantees the choice subjectss put themselves in every possible situation to make judgements and choices,i.e.consider the empathetic preferences in every possible situation.This demonstrates the second fundamental characteristic of the universalizable moral method,i.e.empathy.From the claim of universalization of moral principle point of view,Rawls's original position method is attempt to deduce the universalizable moral principles by put oneself in every possible situation,i.e.guarantees the universality of moral principles by empathetic method.However,by analyzing we will find that there are two theoretical difficulties in the original position.First of all,through the analysis of the applicable scope of the universalizable moral principles we will find that we can only deduce the universalizable moral principles from the reverse reciprocity situation.The reverse reciprocity situation refers to the situation in which everyone should be confronted with certain reverse situation.This reverse reciprocity situation can also be found in Kant's universalizable moral principles.By contrast,the most advantaged situation and the least advantaged situation which considered by Rawls in original position,are not reverse reciprocity situation.So,there are inevitable difficulties in deducing universalizable moral principles from putting the most advantaged situation and the least advantaged situation into universalizable moral method.Second,although the original position attempts to guarantee the universality of moral principles by using empathetic method,but the original position also brings about the problem of personal identity of choice subjects.Since the background information of choice subjects are shielded,so the only thing the choice subjects can do is to put themselves in every possible subject's background information.Through the relevance analysis of Rational Choice Theory in economics we can find that this method of empathy is certain kind of complete empathy,i.e.the empathy subject not only puts himself into the situation of the object,but also transforms the subject's characteristics such as person and personality.The transformation of the relevance situation,person and personality caused by the complete empathy leads to the impersonality of the choice subject in original position,i.e.there have no identity between the choice subject and the objective circumstances and subject characteristics which the choice subject relies on to make decision.So,we could not illustrate the validity of the choice made in original position.The goal of the original position is to deduce the moral principle which embodying unconditional care about others,i.e.difference principle,and this moral principle should be agree with every members of society without exception.However,since there are two theoretical difficulties in original position,so it is impossible to reasonably deduce the difference principle which embodying the care about the least advantaged members from original position.In other words,we could not reasonably explain the general social members should without exception care about the least advantaged members' welfare.To solve this two difficulties in original position,a feasible and convenient solution is to use the sympathy hypothesis.Here,the sympathy hypothesis is refers to use the actual sympathy moral action as the premise of the moral deduction of care about other's welfare.First,by using sympathy hypothesis we can reasonably explain why the most advantaged members or general social members have the inclination to care about the welfare of the least advantaged members,though there is no reverse reciprocity between the most advantaged members and the least advantaged members.Second,there is no problem of personal identity by using sympathy hypothesis to explain why people should care about other's welfare.Finally,using sympathy hypothesis will contribute to understand the limitation of the fact about human being care about other's welfare.That is,we can only deduce that the inclination of the fact about human being care about other's welfare is limited,we could not deduce the universalizable moral principles of caring about other's welfare.The most important reason for replacing original position with sympathy hypothesis lies in the complete sympathy or original position method only means put oneself in other's shoes,it could not effectively explain why human being ought to care about other's welfare,by contrast,the sympathy hypothesis not only means put oneself in other's shoes but also means care about other's welfare.Sympathy has close relationship with empathy in actual moral actions,sympathy is developing on the basis of empathy or put oneself in other's shoes.The deep reason for empathy developing into sympathy,or the deep reason for put oneself in other's shoes developing into care about other's welfare is the fellow feeling between the members of human being.Just because human being have the fellow feeling for other social members,they should have the inclination of care about other social members' welfare including stranger.The sympathy hypothesis not only can overcome the defects of Rawls's original position,but also have indispensible significance for human moral theories and even other social sciences.The sympathy hypothesis can explain the inclination of caring about other's welfare outside himself in a broad sense,and can make up the deficiencies of mainstream social sciences which using the"Hypothesis of Economic Man" as the basic premise.Through analysis we also can find that sympathy is not incompatible with self-interested.So,sympathy can be used as the basic premise of deducing as the self-interested hypothesis in moral theories and other social sciences.