An Ideal Society in John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice

535 Words2 Pages

John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice presents an ideal society based on several simple principles. While the system Rawls suggests is well constructed, it is not without its flaws. I will now attempt to explain Rawls’ idea of Justice as Fairness and explain where the system fails.
John Rawls presents a theoretical state of human nature which he refers to as the original position. In this original position, everyone must come to together to form a good society, one in which everyone is treated fairly. In order to form this fair society, Rawls creates the idea of the veil of ignorance. The veil of ignorance removes the prejudice from our decision making by allowing us to act as if we did not know our special talents, our race, our sex, or another else that makes us unique individuals. Now because we do not know where we would fall in this fair society from behind the veil of ignorance, our natural instinct would be to raise the lowest class of people to a place that we would be comfortable in if we were to be there. This would also lower the stance of the highest class of people, but they...

Open Document