Rawls's Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice

In A Theory of Justice Rawls argues that the primary task of social and political institutions is the preservation and enhancement of social justice, which he understands to include both principles of individual liberty and principles of well-being or welfare. Rawls tries to develop a procedure called the original position that would yield principles of justice. These principles of justice would then serve as guides in the construction and evaluation of social and political institutions.

Rawls does not view people as naive moralists searching for a utopian ideal. Rather, they are sufficiently self-interested to wish to pursue their own individual interests or those of their families and loved ones. Given inevitably competing interests and conflicts, Rawls attempts to provide a procedure that will enable the members of the society to adopt principles for resolving conflicts and for adopting just practices and institutions.

Rawls appeals to a procedural process in the social contract tradition. Rawls's contract is not an actual contract made in history but rather a thought experiment or hypothetical state called the original position. [Page 1769]Persons in the original position are governed by certain constraints both moral and psychological.

One of the key constraints is the adoption of the veil of ignorance, or the ignorance principle. The ignorance principle states that the contract makers are to act as if they did not know their place in society. Such ignorance guarantees impartiality and prevents us from arguing on selfish rather than general grounds. The veil of ignorance would exclude knowledge of one's class position or social status (including the probability of occupying any position or having any specific degree of status), one's fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, one's intelligence, one's physical strength, the nature of one's society, and one's individual conception of good and other values. Operating in this way, none of the contract makers would have any special interests to defend, nor would they have any reasons to form alliances to adopt principles that work to the disadvantage of a minority of other contract makers.

For example, suppose the issue were the distribution of income. Since the veil of ignorance prevents you from knowing how wealthy you are or will be, and it prevents you from knowing your occupation and talents, what strategy would be rational for you to adopt? Surely, Rawls argues, you would want to protect the position of the least well-off. Since the contract makers are rational egoists operating from behind a veil of ignorance, they would adopt the general principle of seeking to minimize their losses. Since they are ignorant of the probability of any specific outcome, they would guard against the worst possible outcomes by making the people in the worstoff position as well-off as possible.

We can now see how unanimous agreement on the principles of justice is possible. Since everyone agrees that it is rational to reduce one's losses and since no one knows what position he or she holds in society, the following two principles would be adopted unanimously: (1) Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all; and (2) social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions that are open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

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