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Rawls' Theory of Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

A. M. Macleod
A. M. Macleod
Affiliation:
Queen's University
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Extract

Rawls' main aim in A Theory of Justice is to provide a viable alternative to the utilitarianism which has dominated so much modern moral philosophy. Although philosophers have long recognised the difficulties in the way of acceptance of a utilitarian account of judgments of justice, they have often responded by seeking merely to reformulate the principle of utility. Other philosophers, with a juster appreciation of the seriousness of these difficulties, have been prepared to reject utilitarianism in all its guises, but they have failed (in Rawl's opinion) “to construct a workable and systematic moral conception to oppose it”. What is needed, beyond a powerful reaffirmation of the familiar objections to utilitarian accounts of justice, is the careful elaboration of a radically non-utilitarian theory of justice. It is this need which Rawls sets out to meet in his book.

Type
Critical Notices—Études Critiques
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 139 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1974

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References

1 A Theory of Justice. By Rawls, John. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. xv, 607. $15.00 (cloth); $3.95 (paper).Google Scholar

2 p. viii.

3 It is consistent, of course, with this kind of obliteration of the difference between the justice and the utility of institutional arrangements for the utilitarian to claim that not all judgments of utility are judgments of justice: after all, not all moral judgments have to do with the adequacy of institutional arrangements and at least some of these (certain kinds of judgment about individual conduct, e.g.) are not judgments of justice at all.

4 This is Rawls' version of the Sidgwickian formulation.

5 The kind of utilitarianism Rawls is attacking clearly presupposes that the individual's good consists in the satisfaction of (as many as possible of) his de facto wants. While Rawls is critical of this as a theory of the good (cf. ch. 7), his objection to the account of justice associated with it springs from his conviction that it is undesirable for a theory of justice to presuppose any fully developed answer to the question of the nature of the good for the individual.

6 “All social values — liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect — are to be equally distributed unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone's advantage”, p. 62.

7 “The first statement of the two principles reads as follows. First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.” p. 60. Although Rawls here (and elsewhere) speaks of two principles, the two parts of the second principle are frequently referred to as principles in their own right ((b) corresponding to the Principle of Equality of Opportunity and (a) to the Difference Principle). Moreover, the formulation of the so-called ‘second’ principle notwithstanding, much of the discussion in the book suggests that the Equal Opportunity Principle is no more closely tied to the Difference Principle than it is to the ‘first’ (or Equal Liberty) principle.

8 “For it's clear that the contractarian idea can be extended to the choice of more or less an entire ethical system, that is, to a system including principles for all the virtues and not only for justice.” p. 17.

9 The contract terminology is in fact altogether misleading. It suggests (falsely) that it is the consent of the parties as rational agents which is critical to the ‘agreement’ reached in the contract situation. It would be nearer the mark to say that it is their assent as rational agents which is important: this would at least serve to underline the importance Rawls attaches to bringing out the reasonableness of the demands imposed by principles of justice.

10 Cf. pp. 333–336.

11 In “Rawls versus Utilitarianism”, p. 536, The Journal of Philosophy, Volume LXIX (October, 1972).Google Scholar

12 The maximin rule tells us to rank alternatives by their worst possible outcomes: we are to adopt the alternative the worst outcome of which is superior to the worst outcomes of the others.” (pp. 152–153.)

13 For the distinction between ‘general facts’ and ‘particular facts’, see p. 200. According to Rawls facts of both kinds are to be withheld from the contracting parties in the original position: only knowledge of ‘the principles of social theory’ is to be permitted.

14 p. 142. My italics.

15 This way of drawing the contrast is Brian Barry's — cf. his Political Argument — but it is one endorsed by Rawls.

16 Chapter 7 of A Theory of Justice.

17 Cf. his discussion of the question of a ‘social minimum’, esp. in Chapter 5.

18 According to this analysis, statements about freedom (or liberty) are fully intelligible only when it is clear from the context (a) whose freedom is under discussion, (b) what that person is, or is not, free to do, and (c) what constraints must be supposed to be absent for freedom to be possessed, (cf. G. C. MacCallum, “Negative and Positive Freedom”, Philosophical Review (1967), 312.)

19 p. 244, my italics.

20 Cf. the contention that “the competitive determination of total income” is not just because it ignores “the claims of need and an appropriate standard of life.” p. 277.