Scott creates a philosophical fiction where multiple characters named John Rawls explore the veil of ignorance through a drug that simulates living other people's lives, spiraling through nested realities until ending with a disturbing twist about karma and moral desert. Longer summary

This is a complex philosophical fiction exploring John Rawls' veil of ignorance concept through multiple characters all named John Rawls. The story follows John Rawls the Alcoholic through multiple layers of reality, starting with his rejection by a charity called the John Rawls Foundation that uses a drug to test whether poor people would help the rich if positions were reversed. The narrative spirals through nested drug-induced dreams, featuring encounters with a banker, a visionary, and eventually Brahma himself, who explains karma and reincarnation as mechanisms enforcing the golden rule. The story ends with a dark twist as the alcoholic character finds himself reborn as a factory-farmed chicken, suffering terribly while knowing he deserves it for his lack of compassion in previous lives. The piece uses nested narratives and recursive structure to explore questions of morality, reciprocity, and whether ethics require self-interest as motivation. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander reevaluates Kant's philosophy of universalizability, applying it to modern ethical dilemmas and exploring its relationship with utilitarianism. Longer summary

Scott Alexander revisits Immanuel Kant's philosophy, particularly his concept of universalizability, and finds it more insightful than he previously thought. He reframes Kant's controversial axe murderer example to show how it relates to maintaining the possibility of positive-sum bargains. Scott then applies Kantian principles to modern ethical dilemmas, discussing the challenges in defining and universalizing maxims. He explores the relationship between universalizability and utilitarianism, suggesting that consequentialism might be prior to universalizability, which in turn could be prior to specific versions of utilitarianism. The post ends with an acknowledgment that while these ideas are complex and confusing, they represent a higher level of understanding about important ethical issues. Shorter summary