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I defend a deontological social contract justification of punishment for philosophers who deny free will and moral responsibility (FW/MR). Even if nobody has FW/MR, a criminal justice system is fair to the people it targets if we would consent to it in a version of original position deli- beration where we assumed that we would be targeted by the justice system when the veil is raised. Even if we assumed we would be convicted of a crime, we would consent to the imprisonment of violent criminals if prison conditions were better than the state of nature but deterring enough to prevent the state of nature.

Suppose we assume that the parties in the original position took Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory as constituting their general knowledge of human psychology that survives through the veil of ignorance. How would this change the choice situation of the original position? In this paper, I present what I call ‘prospect utilitarianism’. Prospect utilitarianism combines the utilitarian social welfare function with individual utility functions characterized by Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory. I will argue that, once prospect utilitarianism is on the table, Rawls's original arguments in support of justice as fairness as well as his arguments against utilitarianism are, at best, inconclusive. This shows that how implausible a choice for utilitarianism in the original position is heavily depends on what one assumes to be general knowledge of human psychology that the original contracting parties know.

The original position together with the veil of ignorance have served as one of the main methodological devices to justify principles of distributive justice. Most approaches to this topic have primarily focused on the single person decision-theoretic aspect of the original position. This paper, in contrast, will directly model the basic structure and the economic agents therein to project the economic consequences and social outcomes generated either by utilitarianism or Rawls’s two principles of justice. It will be shown that when the differences in people’s productive abilities are sufficiently great, utilitarianism dominates Rawls’s two principles of justice by providing a higher level of overall well-being to every member of society. Whenever this is the case, the parties can rely on the Principle of Dominance (which is a direct implication of instrumental rationality) to choose utilitarianism over Rawls’s two principles of justice. Furthermore, when this is so, utilitarianism is free from one of its most fundamental criticisms that it ‘does not take seriously the distinction between persons’ (Rawls 1971 [1999]: 24).

In recent years, there has been concern about the occurrence of extreme ground motions that greatly exceed the amplitude levels and durations expected at the conventional design level. Therefore, seismically isolated buildings are required to ensure seismic isolation performance for small earthquakes and suppress the excessive displacement of the seismic isolation layer for extreme ground motions. In this paper, we analyze the seismic response of seismically isolated buildings with the dead zone mechanism connected to oil dampers to understand the response characteristics. The dead zone mechanism is an auxiliary device connected to an oil damper. This mechanism does not generate damping force when the displacement of the seismic isolation layer is smaller than the dead zone width, thus ensuring higher seismic isolation performance during L1 or L2 seismic motions. When the displacement of the seismic isolation layer is larger than the dead zone gap, a damping force is generated to ensure seismic isolation performance and suppress excessive displacement due to L3 seismic motion. Furthermore, one of the features of this mechanism is that it is equipped with a spring that automatically returns the rod to the initial position at the end of the seismic motion (when no load is applied), which is very useful in terms of maintenance.

Critics of Rawls's A Theory of Justice frequently envision his original position as containing a human consciousness. Thus, the re- strictions Rawls introduces for this ‘individual’—the lack of particular circumstantial and personal information—is considered a potential problem. The very ways in which Rawls circumscribes the knowledge available in this position is thought to compromise the personhood of the individual there, and hence as well the conclusions reached (that is, Rawls’s two principles). This paper will argue that, on the contrary, the lack of full personhood is a critical part of Rawls’s modeling strategy, and that Rawls borrowed this particular sense of modeling from eco- nomics. It is well known that Rawls worked to verse himself in economic theory, and it is difficult to overlook its use in Theory. It will be argued that it is through parallels with economic reasoning that Rawls’s original position model can be most fruitfully understood.

John Rawls famously argued that the Difference Principle would be chosen by any rational agent in the original position. Derek Parfit and Philippe Van Parijs have claimed, contra Rawls, that it is not the Difference Principle which is implied by Rawls’ original position argument, but rather the more refined Lexical Difference Principle. In this paper, we study both principles in the context of social choice under ignorance. First, we present a general format for evaluating original position arguments in this context. We argue that in this format, the Difference Principle can be specified in three conceptually distinct ways. We show that these three specifications give the same choice recommendations, and can be grounded in an original position argument in combination with the well-known maximin rule. Analogously, we argue that one can give at least four plausible specifications of the Lexical Difference Principle, which however turn out to give different recommendations in concrete choice scenarios. We prove that only one of these four specifications can be grounded in an original position argument. Moreover, this one specification seems the least appealing from the viewpoint of distributive justice. This insight points towards a general weakness of original position arguments.

Modern society makes extensive use of automated algorithmic decisions, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence. However, since these systems are not perfect, questions about fairness are increasingly investigated in the literature. In particular, many authors take a Rawlsian approach to algorithmic fairness. This article aims to identify some complications with this approach: Under which circumstances can Rawls’s original position reasonably be applied to algorithmic fairness decisions? First, it is argued that there are important differences between Rawls’s original position and a parallel algorithmic fairness original position with respect to risk attitudes. Second, it is argued that the application of Rawls’s original position to algorithmic fairness faces a boundary problem in defining relevant stakeholders. Third, it is observed that the definition of the least advantaged, necessary for applying the difference principle, requires some attention in the context of algorithmic fairness. Finally, it is argued that appropriate deliberation in algorithmic fairness contexts often require more knowledge about probabilities than the Rawlsian original position allows. Provided that these complications are duly considered, the thought-experiment of the Rawlsian original position can be useful in algorithmic fairness decisions.

In this paper, I explain the arguments my critics target and I respond to their criticisms. Some of my replies further expand upon the ideas covered in my book— A Conceptual Investigation of Justice— and some cover matters that weren’t discussed there. This paper thus substantially contributes to the arguments made in my book . Cet article détaille et défend les arguments avancés dans l’ouvrage A Conceptual Investigation of Justice en réponse aux critiques. Cette mise au point développe certaines des idées contenues dans le livre, mais elle présente également des perspectives inédites, étayant l’argumentaire de sa thèse principale .

Heat-resistant P91 martensitic steel is used to produce high-temperature steam pipelines in (ultra) critical power plants. However, non-metallic inclusions are inevitably produced in the metallurgical process. The type, composition, morphology, quantities, size and distribution of these inclusions have significant influences on the properties of materials. The present work developed an original position statistical distribution analysis method to characterize non-metallic inclusions in P91 steel based on scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Two samples from P91 steel pipes fabricated by different processes were examined. The non-metallic inclusions in these samples could be divided into spherical oxides, strand-shaped oxides, spherical sulfides, spherical oxygen–sulfur compounds, strip sulfides and other inclusions. The amount, proportional area, particle sizes, original positions and statistical distribution results of non-metallic inclusions in different processed samples were assessed, and the causes and effects of these inclusions were analyzed. This novel method could provide diversified information on inclusions, which is helpful for the improvement of metallurgical processes and service performance evaluations.

Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But inPhilosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do. Far from being applied ethics, politics is a skill that allows people to survive and pursue their goals. To understand politics is to understand the powers, motives, and concepts that people have and that shape how they deal with the problems they face in their particular historical situations. Philosophy and Real Politicsboth outlines a historically oriented, realistic political philosophy and criticizes liberal political philosophies based on abstract conceptions of rights and justice. The book is a trenchant critique of established ways of thought and a provocative call for change.