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Essays on the theory of justice by john rawls
Essays on the theory of justice by john rawls
Social inequalities and injustice
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John Rawls begins Justice as fairness, by identifying the fundamental purpose of society as to provide justice through a social contract; to achieve justice is to attenuate any social and economic inequalities throughout the course of citizens’ lives and achieve equal opportunities for all member of a society despite predispositions such as gender and race. To bring this normative idea into perspective, Rawls asks individuals forming a society to adopt a “veil of ignorance,” an attitude in which no one knows what place he or she would occupy in the society to be created, when it comes to choosing policies for a society so as to make sure that the rules would hold highest considerations for those in the most unfortunate positions of society. In the course of articulation, Rawls identifies two principles: “Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the scheme of liberties for all; and [and the second principle being] social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions; first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle)” (Rawls pg. 42). One of Rawls' critics argues that Rawls' approach assumes that the resources to be (re-) distributed to implement his principles of justice are treated as if they are not already owned by the current holders and, consequently, disregards the effect redistribution would have on those persons' lives. Hitherto, this claim has no basis to stand or even damage Rawls’ overall arguments. The two aforementioned principles essent... ... middle of paper ... ...e main goal for a society should be to develop a fair system over time in which social cooperation is maximized overall from one generation to the next. Stemming from that goal, the most important claim in the work posits that the equal distribution of resources leads to the most desirable state and that inequality can only be justified by benefits for the least advantaged. In making that claim, Rawls retroactively pointed out to the fact that people have inherent rights to the things that they produce as this is only natural (from the first principle). Thus the critique made about Rawls’ points fails to do harm for the reason that attempts to improve the condition of the least advantaged through redistribution is unjust because they make people work involuntarily for others and deprive people of the goods and opportunities they have created through time and effort.
Imagine that rational actor X has been charged with the responsibility of developing the guiding principles for a totaly new type of social contract for today’s society. Is there a way for actor X to perform this task in a truly equitable manner? Consider that “with respect to any complex mater of deep human importance there is n o ‘innocent eye’ —no way of seeing the world that is entirely neutral and free of cultural shaping.” 1 As an entrenched member of a particular culture the complete removal of personal biases and prejudices from within the human psyche is not possible; nonetheless, it would of course be necessary to take steps to at least minimize their effects. In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice , John Rawls suggests that exactly this type of reduction is possible by figuratively stepping behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ int o what he labels the ‘original position’ —this paper is an introduction to the contractarian thinking of John Rawls and its relation to the original position as expressed in his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice.
Here one might think Rawls has missed the point. For what is problematic about his liberalism, it might be argued, is that it will prove non-neutral in its effects on doctrines and ways of life permissible on its own account of political justice. But Rawls has not missed the point. Rawls’s liberalism does not rest on a commitment to the value of, nor does it require, a social world maximally diverse with respect to comprehensive doctrines or ways of life willing more or less to accept liberal principles of political justice. Of course, Rawls’s liberalism would be in serious trouble were it to lead to a social world only weakly diverse. But so long as Rawls’s liberalism permits a healthy degree of diversity, to claim that its non-neutral effect on some comprehensive doctrine or way of life is unfair is to presuppose rather than establish the correctness of some competing conception of justice.
John Rawls divided up his theory into four distinct parts; the first part consisted of his belief of primary goods, next is the formation of principles of justice, third is the institutionalization of society, and finally the last part of his theory is the actual workings within society . The general concept of Rawls’s theory is, “all primary goods must be distributed equally unless the unequal distribution of any of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored” . In order to analyze this correctly Rawls’ terms must be defined; according to Rawls a primary good are “things that every rational man is presumed to want. Goods normally have use regardless of a person’s rational plan to life is” . Some examples of a primary good are: basic rights, opportunity, and income to name a few. With the unders...
Why does it matter? Why do humans harp on the topics of justice and equality consistently? The answers to above mentioned questions aren’t easy to formulate, and they open up a door to greater questions about morality, humanity and so forth. Humans live in a cooperative society. The aim of this body of organization is to advance as a whole and individually simultaneously. John Rawls’ states this goal of human society in Distributive Justice published in 1979: “We may think of the human society as a more or less self-sufficient association regulated by a common conception of justice and aimed at advancing the good of its members.” Hence, our society is shaped by an idea of justice – one that is applicable to all members of this society, and this set conception of justice promotes the advancement of the society and the individuals living in
...gations that the individuals in the society have towards each other. Rawls indicates that there are public institutions that are present in a just and fair society. He considers the following types of systems that include Laissez-faire capitalism, welfare-state capitalism, property-owning democracy and liberal democratic socialism. Although he indicates that only property owning, democracy and liberal socialism are the ideal systems that satisfy the principles of justice. With reference to the twentieth century, Rawls says that institutions within the United States society play a major role in causing injustices. For example, the extremely expensive campaign systems alienate every individual who is not very rich from running for public office. In addition, the expensive health care policy issue restricts the best care to those who can only afford it. (Rawls, 2001).
There are three types of Justice discussed in Book 1 of Plato’s Republic which are Retributive, Procedural, and Social Justice. Retributive justice is the type of justice that requires someone to pay back their debts if they took something. According to Cephalus, justice requires ‘repayment’ from those who have taken something. For example, The death penalty can be considered retributive justice because someone may have took a life and now their life will be taken from them in return. Procedural justice is doing good for someone that you are close with but doing harm to someone you do not get along with. Polemarchus believes that justice is doing good to good people and doing bad to bad people. For example, Giving your friend a ride to
I will begin this paper by making clear that this is a critique of Rawls and his difference principle and not an attempt at a neutral analysis. I have read the Theory of Justice and I have found it wanting in both scope and realism. The difference principle proposed by Rawls, his second principle is the focus of my critique. While this paper will not focus solely on the second principle, all analysis done within this essay are all targeted towards the scope of influence that Rawls treats the second principle with.
Does justice exist in America? Yes, justice does exist in America, but for whom is the question real question. In America all citizens should feel equal to one another but that is not the case. Rather than feeling equal to one another, the blacks and whites of the country feel hatred to one another. In American justice is served but it is mainly for whites and not blacks. The word justice is defined as the quality of being fair and reasonable. Unfortunately in America, justice is not always equally served due to racism in the modern society.
John Rawls’ Theory of Justice attempts to establish a fair and reasonable social account of social justice. To do this, he discusses two fundamental principles of justice, which if implemented into society, would guarantee a just and fair way of life. Rawls is mostly concerned with the social good (what is good and just), and his aim with the Theory of Justice is to provide a way that society could be one that is fair and just, while taking into consideration, a person’s primary goods (rights and liberties, opportunities, income and wealth, and the social bases of self-respect). The usage of these principles will lead to an acceptable basis of self-respect. That saying, if the two principles are fair and just, then the final primary good,
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 gender, or anything 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 would still be a higher class.
Rawls’ primary goal in designing the original position is to describe a situation that he believes would achieve the most extensive liberty and fairness possible to all the parties involved in his hypothetical social contract (Rawls, 1971). Rawls believes that in order to achieve this level of fairness, it must be assumed that the parties involved are situated behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ (Rawls, 1971). This veil of ignorance deprives all of the parties of all knowledge of arbitrary facts about themselves, about other citizens, from influencing the agreement among the representatives (Rawls, 1971). For example, “no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like.” (Rawls, 1971, 137) Rawls argues that if rational people found themselves in this position, they would al...
John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice holds that a rational, mutually disinterested individual in the Original Position and given the task of establishing societal rules to maximise their own happiness throughout life, is liable to choose as their principles of justice a) guaranteed fundamental liberties and b) the nullification of social and economic disparities by universal equality of opportunities, which are to be of greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society , . Rawls’ system of societal creation has both strengths and weaknesses, but is ultimately sound.
...e achieved when the Liberty and Difference Principle are enacted with the veil of ignorance. On the contrary, Nozick argues that Rawls’s theory is exactly the sort of patterned principle that infringes upon individual liberty. As an alternative, Nozick provides his unpatterned principle as the ideal distribution of goods in a society. To me, Rawls’s argues his theory in a manner where his principles of justice are not only difficult to achieve, but ultimately are exceedingly deficient in providing general utility. The veil of ignorance has proved to be almost impossible as well as unethical. The Difference Principle in itself is unable to justly distribute property since it clearly violates an individual’s liberty. Since Rawls’s method of distributive justice is rendered unreasonable and inefficient, it leaves us with a clear answer derived from two disjunctions.
& nbsp; Take Home Exam # 1: Essay-2 John Rawls never claimed to know the only way to start a society, but he did suggest a very sound and fair way to do so. He based his scenario on two principles of justice. His first principle of justice was that everyone should have the same rights as others.
Liberal philosopher, John Rawls, has been credited as being one of the largest contributors to the field of social justice of the twentieth century. In his book `Justice as Fairness', Rawls describes his views on the issue of justice in a social sense and outlines the major features of his theory of justice. From his discussions on this topic, one could derive a legitimate assumption of how Rawls' would apply his views on justice to the question of how we should respond to poverty, this I have done in the final segment of my essay.