Rawls’ theory of justice in a nutshell

Rawls’ theory of justice in a nutshell

The previous section indicated the central importance of Rawls’ theory in contemporary debates on theories of social justice. This section describes the essence of Rawls’ theory, and its implications for the capability approach. 3 Rawls’ theory of justice, which he called ‘Justice as Fairness’, was gradually developed in a series of articles, and especially in his book A Theory of Justice (originally published in 1971 and in a revised edition in 1999), which is considered by many political philosophers to be one of the most important texts on moral and political philosophy in the 20th century. Although one does not need to know Rawls’ work to discuss issues of justice in public debates, it is impossible to understand the contemporary academic literature on theories of justice without having a minimal knowledge of Rawls’ theory.

What were the central issues Rawls hoped to address? Social institutions and societal practices, such as the constitution, legislation, the labour market or the institutions of the welfare state can be exploitative and unfair, and often provoke resentment among the people who have to live under these practices and institutions. Rawls was trying to provide an answer to the question: how can we organize society in such a way that the principles of societal cooperation are fair and therefore acceptable to everyone? It is in this sense that Rawls regards his work as being in the social contract tradition, since he wants to investigate the basic structure of a just society which is organized to each person’s mutual advantage. Rawls used the term ‘the basic structure of society’ to refer to the totality of the social institutions and practices. He defines the basic structure of society as ‘the way in which the main political and social institutions of society fit together into one system of social cooperation, and the way they assign basic rights and duties and regulate the division of advantages that arise from social cooperation over time’ (Rawls, 2001, p10). Rawls argues that the basic structure is the proper object of our concern since, by focusing on the basic structure of justice, we could accommodate issues of both equality and freedom. If we could manage to find

a way to make the basic structure of society fair, then people could freely live according to their own ideas of the good life within this just structure, which would begin with the notion of citizens as moral equals.

How can we find out what such a fair society would look like? Rawls asks us to participate in a thought-experiment, what he calls the ‘original position’. We are asked to step out of our current place in society, and plant ourselves in the original position, which is situated behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. This veil takes away our knowledge of our actual place in society, and any information

EQUALITY AND JUSTICE

about our sex, the colour of our skin, our social positioning, our profession, our natural abilities such as intelligence or strength, and so on and so forth. We also do not know our conception of the good life. The reason for this is that Rawls does not want to develop a theory that is skewed in favour of one particular notion of the good life. People in the original position do, however, know all the general facts about their society, such as basic economic and political principles, human psychology, and the relations between people and their respective social backgrounds.

Once we are in this position, we can decide upon the principles of justice that should govern our society. The aim of introducing the original position and its veil of ignorance is that we will not try to favour a set of socio-political rules and institutions that tend to favour the kind of person that we are in the actual society. In other words, the original position is set up in such a way that the moral conditions for a just society are in fact met: we will not choose principles that are biased in favour of people with the talents, skills and personal characteristics that we have, nor will we prefer social institutions that are in favour of people who share our notion of the good life. As the parties in the original position have no information about their place in society, circumstances or life plans, the agreement that they will reach in the original position regarding the principles of justice will be fair to everyone. Rawls believes that the principles of justice so reached would be stable, since they are (hypothetically) chosen under conditions of freedom and equality, and thus command enduring support by all.

Once in the original position, we are offered a menu of possible principles of justice from which we must choose. Rawls argues that we will choose from this menu those principles that it is most rational for us to choose, given the information that we have. Once in the original position, he singles out the following two principles that it will be rational for us to choose:

1 Each person has the same indefensible claim to a fully-adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all.

2 Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: (2a) first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; (2b) and second, they are to

be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (2b is called ‘the difference principle’) (Rawls, 1999, pp42–43).

The basic liberties are: ‘freedom of thought and liberty of conscience; political liberties (for example, the right to vote and to participate in politics) and freedom of association, as well as the rights and liberties specified by the liberty and integrity (physical and psychological) of the person; and finally, the rights and liberties covered by the rule of law’ (Rawls, 1999, p44). Rawls repeatedly stressed that the two principles had to be seen as working in tandem. The first principle, the principle of equal basic liberties, has priority

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over the second principle; in addition, (2a), the principle of fair equality of opportunity, has priority over the difference principle (2b).

Applying the difference principle requires interpersonal comparisons of relative advantage. Rawls holds that a person’s advantage should be specified by social primary goods, which are all-purpose means that every person is presumed to want, as they are useful for a sufficiently wide range of ends. The social primary goods can be classified into five groups (Rawls, 1999, p386):

1 the basic rights and liberties;

2 freedom of movement and choice of occupation;

3 powers and prerogatives of offices and positions of authority and responsibility;

4 income and wealth; and

5 the social bases of self-respect. The parties in the original position do not know which notion of the good life

they will endorse; they do not know whether they will want to change their views on the good life over a lifetime; and they do not know their own natural abilities. They will therefore choose general all-purpose means that will be suitable for all comprehensive doctrines of the good life, and that will also allow them to revise their conception of the good, if they should wish to do so. In response to some of the critiques of the first edition of A Theory of Justice, Rawls stressed that it is not real persons who are assumed to want those primary goods, but rather persons in their capacity as citizens with a political conception of a theory of justice. These persons should reason as citizens debating in the public arena, and not defend their own private interests, debating institutional rules that affect everyone as members of the same polity. Rawls thus makes a rather strict distinction between the public and the private spheres of life – something that has led to criticism by feminists, communi- tarians and several others.

Due to the priority of the first principle over the second – the principle of fair equality of opportunity (2a) over the difference principle (2b) – the first three groups of primary goods are effectively equalized among all persons before the difference principle plays any substantive role. This leaves us with only income and wealth, and the social basis of self-respect (categories 4 and 5) to identify the persons or groups in society who are worst-off. Rawls arguably considers the social basis of self-respect to be the most important primary good. He proposes that the best way to provide the social basis of self-respect is by treating every citizen as an equal, that is, by giving every citizen the same rights and liberties. Thus, Rawls seems to suggest that, if both the principle of justice and the principle of equality of opportunity are met, then everyone is provided with the same social basis of self-respect. As a consequence, the difference principle will make interpersonal comparisons based on estimating lifetime expectations in terms of income and wealth.

EQUALITY AND JUSTICE

Since Rawls was deeply concerned with the possibility that people with very different moral views on the good life can come to a reasonable agreement on the principles of political justice, he stressed that the conception of justice must be readily available to all, and that the information necessary to make a claim of injustice must be verifiable by all and preferably easy to collect (Rawls, 1999, pp370–371).