Rawls, John (1921–2002)

The American philosopher John Rawls's major works include A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism (1993), and The Law of Peoples (1999). Rawls's theory revived normative political philosophy, drew up an alternative conception to the prevalent utilitarian paradigm in ethics, and is the essential starting point for the communitarianism-liberalism debate. By developing an influential theory of just distribution between generations, Rawls points out the importance of the relation between justice and time.

Rawls sets out a theory of justice in order to determine an institutional order that should guarantee an equitable distribution of social primary goods (basic rights, freedom, opportunities, income). Following the classical political philosophers Immanuel Kant and John Locke, he develops a social contract theory that has as its starting point the thought experiment of an original position. This is intended to create fair starting conditions for agreeing on basic principles of social justice. The design of the original position is to stand in a reflective equilibrium with considered judgments of justice.

A predetermined condition for the process of negotiation in the original position is the information deficit of those involved. They have knowledge of general facts about society, politics, economics, and psychology, but the veil of ignorance prevents their knowing what social position or natural talents they have. Their temporal circumstances are also unknown to them, such as the stage of development of their civilization. The otherwise self-interested, that is, rational-acting, agents thus arrive at a reasonable solution to the question of distribution, because they have to abstract from their personal interests. Because no probabilities regarding one's own position within society are available, the decision is based on the risk-avoiding maximin principle. According to this, we choose as principles of justice those whose worst possible results are still better than the results of any other set of principles.

The first principle of justice is then that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. An unequal distribution is allowed only in respect of the subordinated principles of social and economic justice. Inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged (difference principle), consistent with the just savings principle, and attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

[Page 1087]The limitation of the difference principle by the just savings principle points to the connection between justice and time. Those in the original position don't know which generation they belong to. But because they know that they are contemporaries, they would have no reason to save for future generations. Rawls presupposes that the participants represent family lines. They have ties of sentiments to their descendants (original edition), or should conclude principles in the way that they would have wished earlier generations to have done (revised edition). The parties in the original position will then decide on a just savings principle for the preservation of basic freedoms, equitable institutions, and an appropriate accumulation of capital, in order to guarantee provision for the worst-off members of future generations. They ask what they could have expected from their forebears under the respective historical circumstances, and what they are prepared to pass on to their descendants. Because no knowledge of their own temporal position is available from behind the veil of ignorance, the parties must take the standpoint of every time period. They have no pure time preferences, because they have no reason to favor or discriminate against any particular position in time.

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