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John, I like your ideal. I really do. And I think that you can offer some reasons for accepting it that would appeal to all of us. So I think you have an answer for Fred. But I want to make it clear that your ideal is culturally bound. In other words, it is highly plausible only within our culture.

Our culture is permeated with a basic individualism. I'm not saying that that is good or bad. It's not a criticism. It's just a fact. Look at our movies and television programs. The idea that the individual should be free from constraints is everywhere. And the plausibility of your ideal depends on that context.

If we were to propose your ideal to people in some other cultures -- maybe China or Japan -- it wouldn't seem so attractive. If a culture stresses social harmony rather than individual freedom, then your ideal makes no sense.

My bottom line is that we can and should try to construct social ideals, but we shouldn't think that they are universal. They are probably culturally limited.

And, by the way, I think that Rawls moved toward a position like mine over time. He felt that his Original Position embodied certain ideas about justice that are widely accepted within our culture. He wasn't trying to formulate a universal theory of justice.