Rawl Social Justice

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In this short essay I will be discussing John Rawl’s Theory of Social Justice. I will first discuss all pertinent information to his theory. After this I will discuss how Rawl's theory can be seen through its strengths and weaknesses or better described as controversial topics of his theory. Ending this essay I will discuss how I see Rawl's theory and if it is a reasonable argument for social justice. Rawl's theory aims to be a superior form of utilitarianism. Where he defines it as the lexical priority rankings, taking each problem on a case by case approach, this would be having a way of weighting different values into principles. Justice is what equal and free people call basic social terms, Rawls calls this “justice as fairness” and are …show more content…

All these principles of justice are decided from behind the veil of ignorance, which I will discuss later. Rawls also discuss how utilitarianism is a measure of a persons choices, if a person was asked to choose a path you would sum each path and choose the path that leads to the best utility for every person, but Rawls states that each person has a life to live where it would not be morally acceptable as an example to push someone against a wall for the sake of better utility for others. This leads to the idea that we may disagree about the ultimate good, but can still agree on certain general purposes. There are primary social goods defined as broad categories: rights, liberties, opportunities, wealth and income as well as a sense of one's worth. Going back to the veil of ignorance there is much to discuss, but in summation if one does not know his place in society, class, social status nor his fortune of assess and abilities (strength, intelligence). This ignorance of oneself will end in fairness to …show more content…

There are some exclusions to the principle like rights to own property and freedom of contract. The second is social and economical inequalities are to be arranged so the lease advantaged members of society get the greatest benefits this could be defined as the difference principle, offices and positions are open to all no matter social standing, this is fair equality of opportunity. The difference principle would only allow inequalities in distribution of goods if those benefit the worst off members. This leads me to discuss the areas of controversy in Rawls theory. The issues are as follows: first it is nearly impossible for people to be covered by the veil of ignorance in the original position to formulate the conduct required of them, second the theory was developed to handle societal problems not individual decision making, thirdly the difference principle may require redistributive taxation to the poor and libertarians argue it is immoral taking of just holding, fourthly the two principles could permit or demand inequalities and suffering in order to benefit the least

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