The
contemporary American philosopher John Rawls has developed an egalitarian
theory of justice that embodies the Kantian conception of equality and offers
an alternative to utilitarianism. Rawls’s theory focuses on social
justice, which he regards as a feature of a well-ordered society. In
such a society, free and equal persons are able to pursue their interests in
harmony because of institutions that assign rights and duties and distribute
the benefits and burdens of mutual cooperation. Rawls’s aim is not to
develop the institutions of a well-ordered society but to determine the
principles that would be used to evaluate the possibilities. His method
is to ask what principles a rationally self-interested person might agree to if
he or she were to choose these principles in an original position behind
a veil of ignorance. The original position is a hypothetical
pre-contract situation similar to the state of nature in Locke’s theory.
The veil of ignorance requires that individuals choose the principles
of justice without knowing any facts about their stations in life, such
as social status, natural ability, intelligence, strength, race, and sex.
The
principles of justice. Rawls
acknowledges three principles of justice—the principle of equal liberty, the
difference principle, and the principle of equal opportunity.
1. The principle of equal liberty holds that each
person has an equal right to the most extensive set of basic liberties that are
compatible with a system of liberty for all.
2. The difference principle allows an exception
to the principle of equal liberty if some unequal arrangement benefits the
least well-off person. That is, an unequal allocation is considered just
if the worst-off person is better-off with the new distribution than the
worst-off person under any other distribution.
3.
The principle of equal
opportunity provides that all public offices and employment positions be
made available to everyone. Society should strive to offer all of its
members an equal opportunity to fill positions through the elimination of
differences caused by accidents of birth or social condition. Natural
differences should be used for the benefit of all.
The
basis for the first principle is that an equal share is the most that any
person could reasonably expect considering the requirement for unanimous
agreement in the original position. The second principle recognizes that
a rational, impartial person would make an exception to the first principle and
accept less than an equal share if everyone would be better off as a result of
the inequality. Rawls’s concern for the least advantaged is due to maximin, which is a rule of rational choice drawn from game
theory in to which it is rational to maximize the minimum outcome when choosing
between different alternatives. However, maximin is not the only rational choice of a person behind the veil
of ignorance. One might use the principle of maximum average utility and
assume some risk to increase his or her chances of becoming better-off.
Whether Rawls’s theory of justice is superior to utilitarianism depends,
therefore, on the acceptability of maximin as a rule
of rational choice.
See also: Rawls - Justice as Fairness
See also: Rawls - Justice as Fairness