Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 135

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Las Vegas, Las Vegas

pragmatist saw it, is risk: “to carve out facts in some particular way, to detect
patterns in the world, to see the world in a certain way, was a matter of belief, a
venture involving risk....Metaphysics meant one choice or another, one belief or
another, and therefore risk no matter which way one moved.”21 Can’t we imagine
James leaning over a craps table instead of his professor’s lectern, announcing: “I
am willing that there should be real losses and real losers.... When the cup is poured
off, the dregs are left behind forever, but the possibility of what is poured off is
sweet enough to accept”?22 And with a smile he grabs the dice the stickman
has corralled his way, and brother Henry shouts “New shooter coming out!”
All knowledge, all inquiry, is risk. We take up philosophy knowing we
may not succeed. We stand in the front of classrooms hoping that our words fall on
ears that take them to heart and are forever changed, but we know that we are
lucky if in the years of class upon class, one or two students are affected deeply
and meaningfully. How is this different from playing Keno?
Rawls explains his position with little tables of numbers and graphs. And,
as A Theory>o f Justice goes on and on, one welcomes these three or four interrup
tions in the same way one looks forward to the sudden appearance of the cocktail
waitress during a particularly bad run of cards. Here’s but one example:

Decisions
d
1
d
d2
3

Circumstances
c
i
-7
-8
5

c

->

8
7
6

1
1

I look at the table as if it were a basic strategy blackjack chart (perhaps Rawlsians
should laminate these things in credit card size). It doesn’t help that Rawls has us
imagine that the numbers represent hundreds of dollars. “The maximin rule,” he
writes, “requires that we make the third decision. For in this case the worst that
can happen is that one gains five hundred dollars, which is better than the worst for
the other actions.” It makes some sense, I always think, but doesn’t he see
the possibility of gaining twelve hundred?! The first option looks so good— I would
choose it over the second just to hedge my bet — and assuming that I can still pay
the rent and the food and the student loans that haven’t gone away after all of these
years (and which, by the way, were a greater gamble that I’m still not sure paid
off), why would I be irrational to do so? The only thing that convinces me other
wise — the real reason I would opt for decision three — is not a reason Rawls
would accept. I would not be willing to hope for twelve hundred because in this
deterministic setting I know others would be condemned to lose seven hundred.