A Theory of Justice

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A Theory of Justice is a book of political and moral philosophy by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 (for the translated editions) and 1999. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar device of the social contract. The resultant theory is known as "Justice as Fairness", from which Rawls derives his two famous principles of justice: the liberty principle and the difference principle.

Contents

1 Objective
2 The \"Original Position\"
3 The First Principle of Justice
4 The Second Principle of Justice
5 Relationship to Rawls's later work
6 Critics of ''A Theory of Justice''

Objective

Rawls' primary objective in A Theory of Justice is to provide a solution to the problem of political obligation or, to put it another way, to explain how it is and under what circumstances citizens are obliged to obey the laws which the state creates. He does this through the device of a hypothetical agreement, made under conditions of equality so that there are no disparities in bargaining power. This hypothetical agreement justifies the coercive use of state power because, guided by it, a state would take a form which all would, under conditions of freedom, consent to. Rawls called this theory Justice as Fairness.

The \"Original Position\"

Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different form from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position, in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what notion of justice is developed.

"no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."

According to Rawls, ignorance of these details about oneself will lead to principles which are fair to all. If an individual does not know how he will end up in his own conceived society, he is likely not going to privilege any one class of people, but rather develop a scheme of justice that treats all fairly. In particular, Rawls claims that those in the Original Position would all adopt a risk-minimising strategy which would maximise the position of the least well-off.

They are the principles that rational and free persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamentals of the terms of their association [Rawls, p 11]

It is important to keep in mind that the agreement that stems from the original position is both hypothetical and nonhistorical. It is hypothetical in the sense that the principles to be derived are what the parties would, under certain legitimating conditions, agree to, not what they have agreed to. In other words, Rawls seeks to persuade us through argument that the principles of justice that he derives are in fact what we would agree upon if we were in the hypothetical situation of the original position and that those principles have moral weight as a result of that. It is nonhistorical in the sense that it is not supposed that the agreement has ever, or indeed could actually be entered into as a matter of fact.

Rawls claims that the parties in the original position would adopt two such principles, which would then govern the assignment of rights and duties and regulate the distribution of social and economic advantages across society.

The First Principle of Justice

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. [Rawls, p.24 new edition; p.60 old 1971 first edition]

The basic liberties of citizens are, “roughly speaking”, political liberty (i.e., to vote and run for office); freedom of speech and assembly, liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, freedom of the person along with the right to hold (personal) property; and freedom from arbitrary arrest. It is a matter of some debate whether freedom of contract can be inferred as being included among these basic liberties.

The first principle is more or less absolute, and may not be violated, even for the sake of the second principle, above an unspecified but low level of economic development (i.e. the first principle is, under most conditions, lexically prior to the second principle). However, because various basic liberties may conflict, it may be necessary to trade them off against each other for the sake of obtaining the largest possible system of rights. There is thus some uncertainty as to exactly what is mandated by the principle, and it is possible that a plurality of sets of liberties satisfy its requirements.

The Second Principle of Justice

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that:

:a) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity

:b) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).

[Rawls, 1971, pg. 303]

Rawls' claim in b) – often called the difference principle – is that departures from equality of a list of what he calls primary goods – 'things which a rational man wants whatever else he wants' [Rawls, 1971, pg. 92] – are justified only to the extent that they improve the lot of those who are worst-off under that distribution in comparison with the previous, equal, distribution. His position is thus egalitarian, with a proviso that equality is not to be achieved by worsening the position of the worst-off. His argument for this position rests heavily on the claim that, because we do not deserve our talents, we do not deserve any products of them, meaning that at least one of the criteria which could provide an alternative to equality in assessing the justice of distributions is eliminated.

The stipulation in a) is prior to that in b) and requires more than meritocracy. 'Fair equality of opportunity' requires not merely that offices and positions are distributed on the basis of merit, but that all have reasonable opportunity to acquire the skills on the basis of which merit is assessed. It is often thought that this stipulation, and even the first principle of justice, may require greater equality than the difference principle, because large social and economic inequalities, even when they are to the advantage of the worst-off, will tend to seriously undermine the value of the political liberties and any measures towards fair equality of opportunity.

Relationship to Rawls's later work

Although Rawls never retreated from the core argument of A Theory of Justice, he modified his theory substantially in subsequent works. The discussion in this entry is limited to his views as they stood in A Theory of Justice, which stands on its own as an important (if controversial and much criticized) work of political philosophy. His subsequent work is discussed in the entry titled John Rawls.

Critics of A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice made a significant contribution to re-establishing interest in political philosophy, and so it has served as the basis for much of the debate since, meaning that it has been much criticized.

In particular, Rawls's colleague at Harvard Robert Nozick wrote a defence of libertarian justice in the aftermath of A Theory of Justice, called Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which was critical of Rawls's work. Because it is, in part, a reaction to A Theory of Justice, the two books are now often read together.

Other prominent reactions to Theory of Justice include Ronald Dworkin's theory of equality of resources, the capabilities approach associated with Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, the communitarian critique of Michael Sandel and the luck egalitarianism of Gerald Cohen, amongst others.

The assumptions of the original position, and in particular, the use of maximin reasoning, have also been criticized, with the implication either that Rawls designed the original position to derive the two principles, or that an original position more faithful to its initial purpose would not lead to his favored principles.

John Rawls
A Theory of Justice - Political Liberalism - The Law of Peoples -
See also: Liberalism - Political philosophy - Original position - Justice

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