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The question we are going to deal with immediately draw my attention; as Ra

“The quality of knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it.” Discuss this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.

Through knowledge, we acquire power and awareness and gain from our experiences and education. Quality is the degree of excellence of something, and is key to the value of knowledge. Quality knowledge is used as the foundation of everything we know. What constitutes something as quality knowledge? When discussing quality knowledge, how fit it is for the purpose must be heavily considered. This means that the quality can only be defined in terms of the goals of an organization, individual or set of individuals. Knowledge can be either personal or shared. Personal knowledge is knowledge that is driven by opinion and shared knowledge is knowledge that is accepted widely. We commonly gain personal knowledge through personal experiences and impressions made by others, meanwhile shared knowledge does not depend on the contributions of an individual but rather a whole community. These types of knowledge are easy to apply to real life situations and help shape the way we accept knowledge.^[1] To accept something means to believe or come to recognize an opinion, explanation, etc. as valid or correct. With that being said, I agree with the title given. The quality of knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it, and justified evidence typically plays a part with convincing people to accept.

In order to justify this claim, the fields of natural sciences are applicable. To induce quality knowledge in the natural sciences, observation and constructed reasoning are needed. A prediction, theory and experiment are typically necessary in order to prove a claim. For a theory to be accepted in the natural sciences, it has to be validated by more than one person, which then follows by an experiment done in order to classify whether the theory is correct or incorrect. A classic example of this technique being used is vaccinations. Vaccinations first came around in 1796, when Edward Jenner’s use of cowpox material created immunity to smallpox. This practice was quickly widespread once the positive outcomes became better known. Jenner’s method underwent medical and technological changes and eventually resulted in the eradication of smallpox. Developments of more vaccinations rapidly followed, and vaccines against diphtheria, plague, typhoid, tuberculosis, and more were created through the 1930s.^[2] The discovery of vaccinations and the medical and technological advancements made is imperative because vaccinations are a proven way to prevent diseases and illnesses and stops them from spreading across the globe. Vaccinations are an example of quality knowledge because it has been a practice used by many people, and now over 85% of the world gets vaccinated every year to prevent diseases.

Despite the great advantages and improvements made by vaccinations, there is still some people who don’t believe in the practice. Although it’s more commonly practiced than not, vaccinations are protested by some due to sanitary, religious, and political objections. In 1853, following the protests and induced fear from citizens, an act passed that ordered mandatory vaccination for infants up to 3 months old, and by 1867 the act extended the age requirement to 14 years, adding penalties for refusal. These laws were immediately met with resistance from citizens who demanded the right to control their bodies and their children.^[3] Faith and emotion can be tied into people protesting vaccinations because they are relying on their faith and natural remedies to cure illnesses. Those who are against vaccinations further prove that the quality of knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it because not only are vaccinations scientifically proven to be helpful, but more people believe in them then people who don’t.

The natural sciences is a constantly growing field where the consensus of shared knowledge changes overtime. The consensus of shared knowledge can change based on observation, the action or process of observing something or someone in order to gain information. Animal testing is a prime example that can be applied to this. Animal testing in the cosmetic field began as early as 1938, when The United States Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act was signed into law, which required some safety substantiation of cosmetic products and compelled companies to begin testing their products on animals. Following this act, the draize eye and skin irritancy tests were developed. These tests were considered to be the gold standard for cosmetic safety assessments, but they caused extensive animal suffering. After years of this practice being commonly used, cosmetic companies began to realize with scientific evidence that the results shown in these tests using animals are not necessarily transferable to humans. By 1998, The United Kingdom banned animal testing for cosmetic products and now in 2018, more than 400 cosmetic companies around the world are cruelty-free.^[4] Reason can be applied to the ways of knowing, because it’s proven knowledge that is justified with evidence, and intuition because people are now realizing that it’s morally wrong to hurt animals and it’s unnecessary. This further proves that commonly accepted knowledge is quality knowledge because the shared knowledge at one point was that animal testing was necessary to experiment with products before human use, but now we have other alternatives and generally the world regards animal testing as animal abuse and morally wrong. This shows that the amount of people that accept that animal testing is wrong outweighs the number of people that believe it good, making this quality knowledge.

Even though cruelty-free products and non-animal testing is the common practice used now amongst cosmetic companies, there are still the handful of those who believe in the practice. The ways of knowing that are involved with this belief is reason. Most makeup companies don’t want to harm humans so they believe that testing on animals first will lessen the possibility of humans getting harmed. Despite animal-testing beginning as a widespread practice used in the makeup industry, through scientific evidence and experiments the practice was shown to be unnecessary, and now more companies don’t use the practice than those who do.

When discussing history, we must take in consideration the reliability of the sources we use. History is defined as the branch of knowledge that deals with past events; the formal record or study of past events, especially human affairs. The most common ways in which we gain knowledge of the past is through historical evidence. We constantly see a change in opinion when discussing history. For example, when Christopher Columbus encountered indigenous people throughout his voyages, he and his teams treated the indigenous groups as obstacles to their greater mission. Columbus’ use of violence and slavery, forced conversion of Christianity and introduction of new diseases to the native people in the Americas lead for his discovery to be known as a controversial. History from the past is limited to only written documents, meaning that at that time period Columbus had an advantage over the Native Americans by being literate. The only history proved at the time was what Columbus wrote for his European audience.^[5] Through the years, however, the mistreatment of the Native Americans was brought to light. This additionally proves that quality knowledge is best measured by how many people accept it because the mistreatment of Indians is no longer a common practice and is now viewed as outrageous.

Despite historians having learned more about Christopher Columbus and the controversy that has arisen over the validity of honoring him as a hero, this wasn’t always the case. When he first came to the America’s, Columbus’ mistreatment of the Indians was commonly not frowned upon. It was a practice that those who came with Columbus’ agreed with, and even followed. Even though it was commonly accepted by those who came with Columbus’, it was still something that the Indians disagreed with and nowadays more people disagree with the discrimination Indians faced than people who agreed with it in the past.

There is always a constant shift in the way people think. Some of these shifts have more of an impact than others, such as when it comes to the Civil Rights movement. Despite many new findings and realizations, many people still believe that the white race is superior to other races. In a recent poll taken in 2018 by NBCNews, 64 percent of people said racism remains a major problem in our society.^[6] Nowadays, police brutality is a common event we see on the news. African Americans are being murdered without cause due to racial beliefs and stereotypes held against them and often, those who commit the crime face no consequences. This is very similar to how things were when the Civil Rights movement was happening. African Americans would be lynched and instead of those committing the crime being punished, most of the time, if not always, they would be rewarded. Even though people still believe in this way of life, the majority of people don’t. Due to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in public places and employment discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or sex came to an end and human rights became valid.

When discussing quality knowledge within the natural sciences and history, there has been many cases where its best measured with how many people accept it. Practices and beliefs that are commonly accepted more than others are typically the ones that are justified with evidence. Shared knowledge must come into consideration when talking about quality knowledge, seeing as it’s what most people accept and it is usually supported by evidence. We base of our beliefs and way of life off of shared knowledge and it was what is presented to us often.
Works Cited

• “Why Vaccinate? History of Vaccinations.” historyofvaccinations.org. (2018). https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/why-vaccinate
• “Margaret Heffernan: Dare to Disagree.” tedsummaries.com. (2015).  https://tedsummaries.com/2015/01/23/margaret-heffernan-dare-to-disagree/
• “The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Wampan.”  uaine.org. http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm
• “Fact Sheet: Cosmetics Testing.” The Humane Society of the United States, (2018). humanesociety.org www.humanesociety.org/resources/fact-sheet-cosmetic-testing.
• Andrew Arenge, Stephanie Perry and Dartunorro Clark. “Poll: 64 Percent of Americans Say Racism Remains a Major Problem.” NBCNews.com, (NBCUniversal News Group, 2018).     www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-64-percent-americans-say-racism-remains-major-problem-n877536.

^[1] “Theory of Knowledge.” theoryofknowledge.net.
https://www.theoryofknowledge.net/

^[2] “Why Vaccinate? History of Vaccinations.” historyofvaccinations.org. (2018).
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/why-vaccinate

^[3] “Why Vaccinate? History of Vaccinations.” historyofvaccinations.org. (2018).
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/why-vaccinate

^[4] “Fact Sheet: Cosmetics Testing.” The Humane Society of the United States, (2018). humanesociety.org
www.humanesociety.org/resources/fact-sheet-cosmetic-testing.
^[5] “The Suppressed Speech Of Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Wampan.”  uaine.org.
http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm

^[6] Andrew Arenge, Stephanie Perry and Dartunorro Clark. “Poll: 64 Percent of Americans Say Racism Remains a Major Problem.” NBCNews.com, (NBCUniversal News Group, 2018).

www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-64-percent-americans-say-racism-remains-major-problem-n877536.

wls work on justice not only turns out to be theoretically relevant, but even particular considering the time it was published, it results being determinant from a historic point of view.

Indeed “A theory of justice” was written in 1971, in these years as we know cold war reached its climax and contrast between the Soviet Union and the United States was severe. These conflicts implied not only a political (and fortunately not military) conflict, but at its deepest layer a difference in ideology, beliefs, thought.

As well known the soviet model had its roots in Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) communist philosophy while the western countries found their attachment mostly in utilitarianism. These philosophies oppose in its assumptions and appear not to be compatible witch each other. What Rawls proposes us is an innovating solution to conjugate social justice and utilitarianism in an innovating if not revolutionary theory of justice. He is considered to be the father of the “third way” among a centralized economy and laissez-faire.

As previously anticipated the theory of justice also has a fundamental theoretical value as it marks the turning point in some very important and discussed conceptual differences which became part of nowadays political agenda.

Rawls famous theory of justice criticized utilitarianism at its roots. After a brief introduction about the topic of discussion, my attention is going to focus on the basic ideas of utilitarianism as it is the philosophical theory which opposes most to Rawls theory of justice.

We will then analyze Rawls attack to utilitarian philosophy as explained in his book: A theory of justice. Furthermore we will place our attention on the reasons why Rawls’s judges utilitarianism wrong, and on other arguments against it.

John Rawls’s thought

John Rawls is widely considered one of the most innovative and influential thinker of the twentieth century. Put in Amartya Sen’s words:”By far the most influential – and I believe the most important – theory of justice to be presented in this century has been John Rawls’ Justice as fairness” (Sen, 1992:p. 75)

He was born in 1921 in the city of Baltimore, made his studies in Princeton and Oxford, before becoming a professor in one of the most known universities of the United States: Harvard. He is mostly known through his famous book “A theory of justice” (1971).

The philosopher claims that justice is the first requisite of social institutions, just in the same way as the pursuit of truth is the final aim of any philosophy. His basic claim is that as a theory a needs to be discarded or at least changed in its missing parts if it is not true, in the same way institutions or laws have to be abolished or reformed if they are not fair.

He goes on saying that even if society as a whole might profit from certain institution, they cannot be accepted and left in place if even only one person gets an unfair treatment as a consequence of their operation.

“Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many.”( Rawls, John – A Theory of Justice (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), 1971, p 3.)

As he defined his idea about justice, he wanted to give a rational foundation to it. He wanted to ensure that his justice assumptions were rational and shared by all members of society. Given the fact that individuals are different and have different aims in life it is necessary to find some principle which could be agreed on by all members.

The way by which people could find a general agreement is very well known in philosophy and social sciences as public law. What is being referred to is the idea of original position and veil of ignorance. Part of its great success is due to the fascinating representation given by the author.

He imagines a so called original position in which the single individuals decide the rules which will govern society. What is crucial is the fact that they do this choice in absolute ignorance concerning some relevant information of their future lives in society. The agreement is so being made in a condition of a veil of ignorance. This avoids the fact that some which might be born in a very rich family would obviously be against high income taxes to transfer some wealth to the worse off. The poor one on the other hand would definitely welcome such taxes as they could profit from them. The people making the choice are thus presented as rational and not interested in others. No one could get an advantage from the choice of certain principles which would advantage a certain category, as they would not know which role they are going to have in society.

To sum up we can say that the veil of ignorance has to exclude people from the knowledge of facts which would bring them to have conflicts. Al the parties are equal in this position, indeed everyone would have the same rights in proposing rules and accepting them. The outcome of this decision leads to a fair agreement because it is conducted in fair conditions. This is the reason why this theory is known as justice as fairness.

He states that the philosopher which contributed most to the development of his theory has been Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), since Kant’s ethic is based on the personal choice of free, rational and equal individuals. Therefore he arrives to claim that the principles of justice are to be seen as categorical imperatives in the Kantian way. Indeed by categorical imperative Kant means these moral principles which are to be rationally respected and accepted from a free and rational individual. Opposed to these we find hypothetical imperatives which are the ones which aim at certain specific goals.

Concerning the principles which have to be expected from the decision take under the veil of ignorance, we should not consider them as defined principles for actions but as general guide lines for practical political decisions.

It is to be noticed that some critics might emerge at this point, authors like Sen criticized the fact that exactly these principles would emerge from the contracting under the veil of ignorance: The outcome might be a different one.

The first principle states the following:

“Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.” (Rawls, 1971)

What is exactly meant as basic liberties has to be defined more precisely, indeed they are:

a) The active and passive right to vote; the first refers to the possibility to choose a political actor according to our preferences (what is commonly understood as right to vote). The second one (passive right to vote) refers to the fact that we have the possibility to candidate for elections and possibility be elected.

b) Liberty of conscience, which is basically the faculty to choose or decide by your own, your future life, your way of being and your own destiny.

c) Freedom of speech and assembly, so the possibility to express your own ideas and make them public even if they do not fit and are not coherent with the current political situation and its majority’s ideas. The freedom of assembly indeed refers to the possibility to arrange political assemblies to discuss political and practical issues.

d) Freedom to personal propriety, which is to be understood as the possibility to have the personal private propriety on your goods (although he states that the private propriety of means of production is not necessarily to be seen as a primary good).

e) Freedom from arbitrary arrest, which means the fact that the public power has not the freedom to arbitrary (so without a reason), arrest individuals because they might oppose or disagree with the public power itself.

The second principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that

(a) They are to be of the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle (the difference principle).

(b) Offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity

(Rawls, 1971, p.302)

The first part of the second principle (a) holds the idea that the first goal in a choice should be to maximize the least well off rather than to maximize in general. (Maximin) This means that arrangements which imply inequalities might only be accepted if they increase the position of the poorest too. It is well explained by this graphical representation:

C:Documents and SettingsRoberta SimeoneDesktoprawls function.jpg

This graph is to be interpreted as if there were two individuals; giving freedom to our imagination let us call them: 1 and 2.

The social utility of both is to be measured on the 45 degree line in the point of interception with the L curve. A few of them are marked in increasing utility order to give a general idea, I<ii</ii