John Rawls' Theory of Justice

Résumé du document

In the Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls offered an alternative to utilitarianism that led to different conclusions about justice. He asserted that if people had to choose principles of justice from behind a "veil of ignorance" that restricted their understanding of their own position in the society as a result of which they would protect their liberty and safeguard themselves against the worst possible outcome.

Extraits

[...] According to Marx though, there would be an optimum where it is impossible to make someone's situation better, even if you could make someone else's situation worse. However, even if we suppose that we reach an ideal situation where everyone can consume all the desired goods, there would still be scarcity. Because it may happen that the members of a given society not only want material goods but also power. So, the question of scarcity can still be posed inside this society, for not everyone can govern. That's a way to start posing the question of justice. [...]

[...] Egoism, pluralism and justice It takes more than scarcity to pose the question of justice inside a society. If we imagine a perfectly homogeneous and altruist society, where everyone defends his own interests as the interest of any other citizen and that these interests are the same, the very moment altruism and homogeneity are altered, the question of justice is posed (some give a supreme importance to the opera while others to body building ) So, we pose the question of justice in terms of egoism and pluralism. [...]

[...] One must then also assume that the hierarchy of the principles of justice is integrated to all three phases: constitutional, legislative and judicial. In sum: 1. Elaboration of Constitution 2. Legislation aiming to define social, political and economical forms to put the principles of justice into practice 3. Application of legislation and regulation. Conclusion Rawls is an unquestioned defender of the liberal democratic welfare-state, which he intends to justify as the most rational and just political form, and his Theory of Justice is rich and full of interesting details that have not been mentioned in this short exposition. [...]

[...] He insists that has to keep in mind that my theory implies a certain level of abstraction”. Rawls' concern is to construct the principles of justice, and he revises the general conception of his theory of justice in the following way: social primary goods: liberty and opportunity, income and wealth and the bases of self-respect are to be distributed equally, unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored.” He considers that his theory of justice brings at least the reply to the question of knowing which are the principles of justice that should organize the terms of social cooperation between free and equal persons, and another important idea is the view of equality as “equality of opportunities”, and that is what can be understood by his “difference principle” (Thinking about the question démocratie est-elle compatible avec l'inégalité?” , equality of opportunities is an important notion that might help develop an interesting answer). [...]

[...] So, for Rawls, the original position is the appropriate initial status quo and thus the fundamental agreements reached inside of it are fair. And he explains his concept of justice as fairness, coveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation that is fair. So, it does not mean that justice and fairness are synonyms, any more than “poetry as a metaphor” means that the concepts of poetry and metaphor are the same”. Summing up, one could say that Rawls' justice as fairness is a heuristic situation of freedom and equality that allows the participants to select, in the procedure of deliberation, the principles of justice to organize social cooperation between free and equal persons. [...]