CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RAWLSIAN

THEORY OF JUSTICE

THE ROLE OF JUSTICE ACCORDING TO RAWLS

According to Rawls, laws and institutions no matter how efficient and

well arranged, must be reformed if they are unjust. Each person possesses an
inviolability founded on justice that even welfare of society as a whole cannot
override. For this reason justice denies that loss of freedom for some
is made right by a greater good shared by others.

Therefore in a just society the liberty of equal citizenship are taken as

settled; the right sequred by justice are not subject to political bargaining or
to the calculus of social interest. An injustice is tolerable only when it is
necessary to avoid an even greater injustice. Being first virtues of
human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising.

DEMOCRATIC CONCEPTION-THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE AS PUT

FORWARD BY RAWLS

1. Equal liberty : Each person is guaranteed a basic set of liberties.

2. a) Equal Opportunity : There must be equal access to jobs and services

under fair equality of opportunity.

b) Difference Principle : Inequalities arev only justified if they benefit the

least advantaged members of society.

The first principle states that each person has an equal right to free speech,
association, conscience, thought, property, a fair trial to vote, hold political
office if qualified and so on.

The 2. a) principle states that as far as possible people have equal

opportunity to jobs and equal access to services.

Rawls maintains that there is lexical priority of 1 over 2a and 2a

over 2b.That means that we cannot sacrifice liberty for economic
justice-the equal liberty principle must be fully satisfied before the
difference principle.For example,the greater source of unequal opportunity
is the family-parents favouring their children.But Rawls argues that even
though people in the original position are "mutually disinterested" they do
value personal freedom,which includes the freedom to form personal
relationships,marry,have a family and enjoy a private sphere of life.

THE ORIGINAL POSITION

Rawls employs what he terms the original position.The original position

is a thought experiment -you are asking a 'what if' question: what if such and
such were the case?It is not a 'place'-you only 'go into' the original position
in a figurative sense.The most important feature of it is the "veil of
ignorance" :you do not know your class and social position,natural assets
and abilities,strength and intelligence,to which generation you belong,and
perhaps most controversial of all,your conception of the good-that is your
ideas about what makes life valuable or worth living.You do know certain
general things about your circumstances.You know you live in a society
characterised by moderate scarcity:there are enough resources to satisfy
basic needs and leave a significant surplus to be distributed,but that surplus
is not sufficient to overcome conflict between people over its distribution.

Rawls assumes that people want more rather than less of the benefits
generated for cooperation .As well as knowing your societiy is marked by
moderate scarcity you also have a general knowledge of psychology and
economics.

CLASSICAL UTILITARIANISM

Nozic divides theories of justice into two groups-end state and

historical with a subdivision of the second into patterned and unpatterned
theories.End state theories are not concerned with what peopl do,but only
with the end results.Utilitarian theory falls into this category.Its main aim is to
maximise total or alternatively average utility.Who gets what under this
arrangement is irrelevant.The principle of utilitarian societyis to
advance as far as possible the welfare of the group,to realise to the
greatest extent with comprehensive system of desire arrived at from
the desire of its members.

AMARTYA SEN'S EXTENSION OF RAWLS' THEORY OF JUSTICE

According to Sen,the Rawlsian framework concentrates only on the

means to freedom rather than on the extent of freedom that a person
actually has.His approach is capability based,wherein each person
according to his extent of capability has to convert primary goods
into lives that they value living and that would determine freedom
and ultimately uphold justice.

CRITICISM OF RAWLS THEORY

There are three main Marxist objection regarding Rawls theory of

justice.

1) Rawls has an incoherent model of human psychology.

2) Rawls restricts the principles of justice to the basic structure of

society and tha conceals exploitation.

3) Rawls rejects self-ownership as morally irrelevant ot the ditribution

of resources

The first two objections are closely related to one another.If you
recall,people in the original position are motivated to maximise their share of
primary goods,but from behind a "veil of ignorance",meaning that although
they are self intrested,they are force by the way the original setup.

The difficulty is that the theory itself pulls into two different
directions:on the one hand Rawls assumes that we-in the real world,and not
in the original position-can develop a commitment to giving priority to the
worst off in society,and the differencs principle is the structural device by
which this is achieved.But how much the worst off actually receives will
depend on everyday human beahviour.

Refrences :

* A Theory of Justice by JOhn Rawls

* Contemporary Political Philosophy- An Anthology edited by Goodin and

Pettit