John Rawls theory of Justice

John Rawls was a top political scientist and an academician of the United States.
He was born in 1921 and passed away in 2002. His famous work is – A theory of
Justice which was first published in 1971 and its revised edition was published in
1990.

1. Definition of Justice:-

Rawls says that the conception of justice is an inherent nature of our social
as well as practical life. Barker has expressed a similar idea. However, in the
opinion of Rawls “Justice in the first virtue of social intuitions as truth is of
system of thought”. Justice is related to the social institutions which guide and
mould the actions and ideas of social beings.

We cannot imagine of a well ordered society whose core concept is not justice.
Justice binds all men and institutions of society. The joining capacity and feature
of justice has been forcefully advocated by Barker and Rawls shares the views of
Barker.

John Rawls has viewed justice in the background of society and for this reason he
says that the main concern of the subject matter of justice is social structure which
is the core of the society. That is justice deals with the basic social structure. The
social institutions are very important in the sense that they take the responsibility
of distributing the fundamental rights and duties efficiently.

It is also the important task of the social institutions to allocate judiciously the
privileges and advantages for the people of society. Constitution, social, political
and economic arrangements are included into these social institutions. Thus justice
may conveniently be regarded as a social principle which determines the ways and
procedure of distributing the rights and duties for the members of society. He
further calls justice a social scheme on the basis of which rights, duties,
opportunities and condition are allotted. Thus justice is both a principle and a
scheme.

Rawls’ theory of justice consists of “certain distributive principles for the basic
structure of society”. In the light of this analysis John Rawls defines justice in the
following words. “The concept of justice I take to be defined by the role of its
principles in assuming rights and duties in defining the appropriate division of
social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role”.
Justice is, thus, an interpretation of principles that are suggested for the distribution
of rights and duties and at the same time division of social advantages among all
the members of body politic.

2. Justice as Fairness:-

The main theme of Rawls’ theory of justice is it is interpreted as fairness. The

dictionary meaning of fairness is appropriateness or just: In Rawls’ conception
that arrangement can be called just or appropriate which does not create any
scope of partiality or inappropriate. The principles for the distribution of rights,
duties and advantages will be applied in such manner as will give no
controversy.

Rawls explains the term fairness in the following way:

“I shall try to use this principle to account for all requirements that are
obligations as distinct from natural duties. This principle holds that a person is
required to do his part as defined by the rules of an institution when two
conditions are met, first the institution is just (or fair) that is it satisfies the two
principles of justice and second, one has voluntarily accepted the benefits of the
arrangement”.

From the above definition of fairness we can form certain features some of
which are the following:

(1) According to John Rawls fairness denotes obligations. Obligation means an act
which a person morally or legally is bound to do. Obligations are different from
natural duties.

(2) When a person is legally or morally bound to do an act or perform a duty his
liberty will be restricted.

(3) Fairness also implies that the members of the society are engaged in
advantageous cooperative venture. Here two things are important. Individuals
cooperate with each other. This cooperation places all the individuals participating
in the act creates an atmosphere of mutual advantages for them all. This means that
cooperation will create no disadvantage to anybody.
(4) Rawls further says that the institutions must be fair or just. They must keep
themselves above parochial interests. In many societies there are such institutions
which have been created to serve group’s interests and such institutions cannot
serve the interests of justice.

(5) General public will accept the arrangements of the institutions ungrudgingly.
They will have no reservations or objections.

(6) While discussing the nature of obligation one point is required to be mentioned
here. Obligations give rise to the performance of duties which are not moral duties.
The institutional or constitutional obligations impose duties upon individuals.

The constitutional or institutional obligations induce a man to perform some duties

which ensure the realisation of justice. The performance of institutional duties
enables an individual to manage a democratic society and furtherance of general
welfare. We, therefore, conclude that the obligations with a strong emphasis on its
nature, institutional arrangement and to actively cooperate with the duties made by
the institution or any other official declaration are included into the fairness
principle.

When the condition of fairness is fully satisfied the concept of justice will not
remain far behind. We thus see that fairness, defined by Rawls, in his own way,
practically constitutes the core of the theory of justice. But in close analysis it will
be found that it is nearer to the traditional idea of justice which states that justice
means to give everyone his due share.

3. Principles and Procedural steps for achieving Fairness:-

In A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls introduced a universal system of fairness and

a set of procedures for achieving it. He advocated a practical, empirically verifiable
system of governance that would be political, social, and economic in its effects.

Rawls’s justice theory contains three principles and five procedural steps for
achieving fairness.

Principles:-
The principles are (i) an “original position,” (ii) a “veil of ignorance,” and (iii)
unanimity of acceptance of the original position.

(i) By original position, Rawls meant something similar to Hobbes’

understanding of the state of nature, a hypothetical situation in which
 rational people can arrive at a contractual agreement about how resources
are to be distributed in accordance with the principles of justice as
fairness. This agreement was intended to reflect not present reality but a
desired state of affairs among people in the community.

(ii) The veil of ignorance is a condition in which people arrive at the

original position imagining they have no identity regarding age, sex,
ethnicity, education, income, physical attractiveness, or other
characteristics. In this way, they reduce their bias and self-interest.

(iii) Unanimity of acceptance is the requirement that all agree to the

contract before it goes into effect. Rawls hoped this justice theory would
provide a minimum guarantee of rights and liberties for everyone,
because no one would know, until the veil was lifted, whether they were
male, female, rich, poor, tall, short, intelligent, a minority, Roman
Catholic, disabled, a veteran, and so on.

Procedural Steps:-

The five procedural steps, or “conjectures,” are:-

(i) entering into the contract,

(ii) agreeing unanimously to the contract,
(iii) including basic conditions in the contract such as freedom of speech,
(iv) maximizing the welfare of the most disadvantaged persons, and
(v) ensuring the stability of the contract.

These steps create a system of justice that Rawls believed gave fairness its proper
place above utility and the bottom line. The steps also supported his belief in
people’s instinctual drive for fairness and equitable treatment. Perhaps this is best
seen in an educational setting, for example, the university. By matriculating,
students enter into a contract that includes basic freedoms such as assembly and
speech. Students at a disadvantage (e.g., those burdened with loans, jobs, or other
financial constraints) are accommodated as well as possible. The contract between
the university and students has proven to be stable over time, from generation to
generation. This same procedure applies on a micro level to the experience in the
classroom between an individual teacher and students. Over the past several
decades—for better or worse—the course syllabus has assumed the role of a
written contract expressing this relationship.
 Rawls gave an example of what he called “pure procedural justice” in which a cake
is shared among several people.

By what agreement shall the cake be divided? Rawls determined that the best way
to divide the cake is to have the person slicing the cake take the last piece. This
will ensure that everyone gets an equal amount. What is important is an
independent standard to determine what is just and a procedure for implementing
it.

4. The Two Principles of Justice

(a) First Principle (Equal Basic Liberty): Each person has the same
indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which
scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all;

(b) Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two
conditions:
a. They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity; (the equal opportunity principle).
b. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society
(the difference principle).

These principles were previously different in his book “A Theory of Justice” but
later on, he molded his principles of Justice as mentioned above in his work
“Justice as Fairness”.
The first principle of equal basic liberties is to be used for designing the political
constitution, while the second principle applies primarily to social and economic
institutions.
According to him, the First principle is more important than the Second Principle
and within the second principle, the first condition is more important.

Importance of Difference Principle

The Difference Principle says that inequalities are permissible only when the
distribution of goods benefits the poorest members of the society. He believes that
this is a rational choice because:

“Each member of society has an equal claim on their society’s goods. Natural
attributes should not affect this claim, so the basic right of any individual, before
further considerations are taken into account, must be to an equal share in
material wealth. What, then, could justify unequal distribution?”

Difference Principles is something which is concerned about the absolute position

of the least advantaged group. Rawls is not opposed to the idea of Strict Equality
but if the least advantaged group can be brought forward by adopting some
inequalities in income and wealth, then the Difference Principle will promote such
inequality to the point that the absolute position of the least advantaged can no
longer be raised.