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Intuitionism

Acknowledge a set of first principles to be subscribed to, but do not prescribe a

priority ordering.

Good vs. Right

A person's good is that which is needed for the successful execution of a

rational long-term plan of life given reasonably favorable circumstances.

Liberty

Opportunity

Income

Wealth

Self-respect

"The good is the satisfaction of rational desire." (Section 15)

Each person has his or her own plan of life - what is good may vary. Right is

set down in the social contract, the same for everyone, influenced by the "veil

of ignorance." Rawls specializes the concept of something's being right as it

being fair. (Section 18)

Principles of Justice

(Section 11)

First Principle: Liberty

Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of

equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.

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Second Principle: Wealth

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:

(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just

savings principle, and

(b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair

equality of opportunity.

Representative persons: prototypical members of any identifiable group (e.g.,

women, high school students, citizens of Haiti, etc.).

Efficiency: any re-arrangement in which every representative person gains is

more efficient.

Difference principle: in order for any change to be accepted as animprovement, it must help the least advantaged representative person.

Priority Rules

Rawls explicitly addresses the fact that there will be situations where these two

primary principles will be in conflict with each other. Rather than compromisebetween them in such cases, he takes the position that there is a specific

priority.

The Priority of Liberty

The principles of justice are to be ranked in lexical order and therefore liberty

can be restricted only for the sake of liberty. There are two cases:

(a) a less extensive liberty must strengthen the total system of liberty

shared by all;

(b) a less than equal liberty must be acceptable to those with the lesser

liberty.

The Priority of Justice over Efficiency and Welfare

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The second principle of justice is lexically prior to theprinciple of

efficiencyand to that of maximizing the sum of advantages; and fair

opportunity is prior to thedifference principle.There are two cases:

(a) an inequality of opportunity must enhance the opportunities of those with

the lesser opportunity;

(b) an excessive rate of saving must on balance mitigate the burden of those

bearing this hardship.

Efficiency

Rawls adopts the concept of efficiency that is associated with the name Paretoin the field of economics. It is perhaps most easily described in the negative:

No system can be called efficientif there is an alternative arrangement that

improves the situation of some people with no worsening of the situation of any

of the other people.

In general, there are many arrangements that are efficient in this sense. Not all

of them are equallyjust; other principles of justice must be invoked to select

the most just arrangement.

The Difference Principle

"The difference principle is a strongly egalitarian conception in the sense that

unless there is a distribution that makes both persons better off (limiting

ourselves to the two-person case for simplicity), an equal distributionis to be

preferred [page 76, emphasis added - RDP]."

In other words, there should be no differencesexcept those that can be justified

on grounds of efficiency.

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The Veil of Ignorance

Rawls supposes that a (virtual) committee of rational but not envious persons

will exhibit mutual disinterest in a situation of moderate scarcity as they

consider the concept of right:

1. general in form2. universal in application3.publicly recognized4. final authority5.prioritizes conflicting claims

Rawls claims that rational people will unanimously adopt his principles of

justice if their reasoning is based on general considerations, without knowing

anything about their own personal situation. Such personal knowledge might

tempt them to select principles of justice that gave them unfair advantage -

rigging the rules of the game. This procedure of reasoning without personal

biases Rawls refers to as "The Veil of Ignorance."

Pinker (2002), describes Rawls' Veil of Ignorance this way in the midst of

presenting wide-ranging evidence that a significant fraction of the variability

among human beings, including variations in mental abilities, must be

attributed to genetic, rather than purely environmental, factors:

Can one really reconcile biological differences with a concept of social

justice? Absolutely. In his famous theory of justice, the philosopher John

Rawls asks us to imagine a social contract drawn up by self-interested

agents negotiating under a veil of ignorance, unaware of the talents or

status they will inherit at birth--ghosts ignorant of the machines they will

haunt. He argues that a just society is one that these disembodied souls

would agree to be born into, knowing that they might be dealt a lousy

social or genetic hand. If you agree that this is a reasonable conception

of justice, and that the agents would insist on a broad social safety net

and redistributive taxation (short of eliminating incentives that make

everyone better off), then you can justify compensatory social

policies even if you think differences in social status are 100 percent

genetic. The policies would be, quite literally, a matter of justice, not a

consequence of the indistinguishability of individuals.

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Indeed, the existence of innate differences in ability makes Rawls's

conception of social justice especially acute and eternally relevant. If we

were blank slates, and if a society ever did eliminate discrimination, the

poorest could be said to deserve their station because they must have

chosen to do less with their standard-issue talents. But if people differ in

talents, people might find themselves in poverty in a nonprejudicedsociety even if they applied themselves to the fullest. That is an injustice

that, a Rawlsian would argue, ought to be rectified, and it would be

overlooked if we didn't recognize that people differ in their abilities.

Natural Duties and Obligations

Support just institutions

Mutual respect

Mutual aid

Do no harm

Do your fair share

Be faithful (keep your promises)

Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience is by its nature an act responding to injustices internal to a

given society, appealing to the public's conception of justice. (Section 57)

Civil disobedience can be justified if the following three conditions are allmet:

1. If the injustice is substantial and clear, especially one that obstructs thepath to removing other injustices (e.g., poll taxes and other burdens on

the right to vote). This certainly includes serious infringements of the

principle of liberty and blatant violations of the principle of fair equality

of opportunity.

2. If the normal appeals to the political majority have already been made ingood faith and have failed. Civil disobedience is a lastresort.

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3. If there are not too many other minority groups with similarly validclaims. The just constitution would be eroded if too many groups

exercised the choice of civil disobedience. The resolution of this

situation is a political alliance of these multiple minorities to form a

working majority coalition.

Possible Problems

Stability

Envy

Priority of liberty depends on "progress."

Self-respect vs. material goods

Is justice a zero-sum game?

ohn Rawls is perhaps the most significant intellectual in philosophical ethics to havewritten in the past hundred years. It is nearly impossible to address ethics incontemporary philosophy without saying something about John Rawls. Central to histheory of justice are the concepts of fairness and equality from behind what he terms a"veil of ignorance".

Rawls's veil of ignorance is a component of the way people can construct society. He

refers to an "original position" in which a person is attempting to determine a fair

arrangement for society without any preconceived notions or prejudices.

In this original position, people are behind what Rawls calls a "Veil of Ignorance" and donot know where they will fall in the social hierarchy in terms of race, class, sex,

disability, and other relevant factors. Rawls is a Kantian liberal in that he believes that

principles of justice should be universalizable, and so the only way to ensure that people

will select fair principles of justice is to be certain that they do not know how the

principles they select might affect them as individuals. A person behind the "veil of

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ignorance" does not know which side of a social contract he or she will be on, does not

know his or her race, class, sex, or status in society. A person who does not know what

privileges he or she will be born with (or without ) is, in Rawls' view, more likely to

construct a society that does not arbitrarily assign privilege based on characteristics that

should have no bearing on what people get. Rawls believes that a society cannot be just

without fairness and equality and believes this veil of ignorance both reveals the biases

of current society and can help to prevent biases in establishing future social

arrangements.

Rawls is often thought of as a liberal philosopher given his position emphasizing

fairness regardless of social status. His philosophy can be used to justify programs

likeaffirmative actionbut has also been used by the more politically conservative to

argue that the American political system allows each person a fair chance and that most

people would choose the American political system from behind a veil of ignorance.

This article is about the American philosopher. For the New Zealand actor, see John Rawls

(actor).

John Bordley Rawls(February 21, 1921

November 24, 2002) was anAmericanphilosopherand a leading figure inmoralandpolitical philosophy.He held theJames Bryant

ConantUniversity ProfessorshipatHarvard Universityand theFulbright FellowshipatChrist

Church, Oxford.

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