9John Rawl theory of justice PDF

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John theory of Justice 1 Introduction The basis of a society is a set of tacit agreement (Social Contract) theory is because it begins with a rational estimate of what everyone would think, believing that what everyone would think behind the veil of ignorance is the fair and just thing to do. In a m...

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John Rawl’s theory of Justice 1.0  

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Introduction The basis of a society is a set of tacit agreement (Social Contract) Rawls’s theory is Neo-Kantian because it begins with a rational estimate of what everyone would think, believing that what everyone would think behind the veil of ignorance is the fair and just thing to do. In a modern society, all goods will be distributed through society by some means. However, this is not a concept that is universal throughout history. Back in kingdoms and empires, the monarch would own all goods. The monarch will allow his or her people to enjoy them in the monarch’s name

1.1 Distributive Justice        

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Also known as economic justice It is about fairness in what people receive, from goods to attention. Equal work should provide individuals with an equal outcome in terms of goods acquired or the ability to acquire goods. Distributive justice is absent when equal work does not produce equal outcomes or when an individual or a group acquires a disproportionate amount of goods. Example:  X work 10 hours = 10 hours of pay it is proportionate  Y work 1 hour = 10 hours of pay  it is disproportionate Distributive Justice is based on society being a ‘system of cooperation for mutual advantage between individuals’ Principles of distributive justice are therefore best thought of as providing moral guidance for the political processes and structures that affect the distribution of economic benefits and burdens in societies. Relatively simple principle of distributive justice is Strict Egalitarianism, which calls for the allocation of equal material goods to all members of society. John Rawls provides an alternative distributive principle  Strict Egalitarianism every person should have the same level of material goods and services

Theory of justice Theory of Justice is a work of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice The guiding principle for determining social justice is “Justice as fairness” Justice as fairness aims to describe a just arrangement of the major political and social institutions of a liberal society: the political constitution, the legal system, the economy, the family, and so on. Rawls calls the arrangement of these institutions a society's basic structure. The basic structure is the location of justice because these institutions distribute the main benefits and burdens of social life: who will receive social recognition,

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who will have which basic rights, who will have opportunities to get what kind of work, what the distribution of income and wealth will be, and so on. The form of a society's basic structure will have profound effects on the lives of citizens. The basic structure will influence not only their life prospects, but more deeply their goals, their attitudes, their relationships, and their characters.

Principle of justice as fairness

First principle  

Everyone should have the same basic liberties The basic liberties for all citizens:  Political liberty (right to vote and be eligible for public office).  Freedom of speech and assembly.  Liberty of conscience and freedom of thought.  Freedom regarding your own person.  Right to hold personal property.  Freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as these are understood under the rule of law.

Second principle 

Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: 1. Everyone has the same fair opportunity 2. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society. (different principle)  any inequalities must always benefit everyone in society  Imagine that the people behind the veil agreed to let doctors make a lot more than everyone else. They might justify this decision as follows: If doctors are paid higher wages, EVERYONE is likely to be better off (including those who earn very little), because everyone is more likely to receive better medical care in that case. So, EVENTHOUGH this would result in an inequality of wealth (since doctors would have more money than everyone else), allowing doctors to be paid more is to EVERYONE’S advantage.

4.0 Original actors/ position  Original position is a ‘hypothetical device’ for developing and examining the justice of societal principles and law.  original position aims to move from these abstract conceptions to determinate principles of social justice  Original position is a thought experiment: an imaginary situation in which each real citizen has a representative, and

all of these representatives come to an agreement on which principles of justice should order the political institutions of the real citizens.  This thought experiment is better than trying to get all real citizens actually to assemble in person to try to agree to principles of justice for their society.  Behind the veil of ignorance, we assume hypothetically that we do not know anything about our possible position within the society for which we are developing law.  No one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances in the choice principles. 5.0  

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Veil of ignorance Veil of ignorance prevents arbitrary facts about citizens from influencing the agreement among their representatives. Each representative in the original position is therefore deprived of knowledge of the race, class, and gender of the real citizen that they represent. In fact, the veil of ignorance deprives the parties of all facts about citizens that are irrelevant to the choice of principles of justice: not only facts about their race, class, and gender but also facts about their age, natural endowments, and more. The veil of ignorance also screens out specific information about what society is like right now, so as to get a clearer view of the permanent features of a just social system What parties knows What the parties don’t know  That citizens in the society have  The race, ethnicity, gender, age, different comprehensive income, wealth, natural doctrines and plans of life; that endowments, comprehensive all citizens have interests in more doctrine, etc. of any of the primary goods. citizens in society, or to which  That the society is under generation in the history of the conditions of moderate scarcity: society these citizens belong.  The political system of the there is enough to go around, but not enough for everyone to get society, its class structure, what they want; economic system, or level of  General facts and common sense economic development. about human social life; general conclusions of science (including economics and psychology) that are uncontroversial. The veil of ignorance is the representatives of free and equal citizens fairly with respect to one another.

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No party can press for agreement on principles that will arbitrarily favor the particular citizen they represent, because no party knows the specific attributes of the citizen they represent. The situation of the parties thus embodies reasonable conditions, within which the parties can make a rational agreement. Each party tries to agree to principles that will be best for the citizen they represent.

Rational self-interest

 Veil of Ignorance is to say we do not know the following sorts of things. But selfinterested rational persons are not ignorant of:

(1) the general types of possible situations in which humans can find themselves; (2) General facts about human psychology and "human nature".  Self-interested rational persons behind the Veil of Ignorance are given the task of choosing the principles that shall govern actual world. Rawls believes that he has set up an inherently fair procedure.  A self-interested rational person behind the Veil of Ignorance would not want to belong to a race or gender or sexual orientation that turns out to be discriminatedagainst. Such a person would not wish to be a handicapped person in a society where handicapped are treated without respect. So principles would be adopted that oppose discrimination.  Likewise, a self-interested rational person would not want to belong to a generation which has been allocated a lower than average quantity of resources. So (s)he would endorse the principle: "Each generation should have roughly equal resources" or "Each generation should leave to the next at least as many resources as they possessed at the start." How representative negotiates the law.

 In the article of Application of a Justice as Fairness Perspective to Laws Banning Same-Sex Marriage by Dobbs, in order to apply the two principles of justice in assessing the justness of legislation and social policies, Rawls had sets up a four-stage sequence.

original position

Understanding the distribution of any social good from this perspective is toConstitutional assess what distribution convention of that good would be by people in the  chosen the extent to which theoriginal state is position. responsible for assuring that contracts are honored.  During this stage, the veil of ignorance is lifted somewhat so that those involved know slightly more about society in this stage than they do in the original position, however, they still know nothing about their own position and interests.

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Legislative State

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 At this stage, the veil of ignorance is lifted slightly more than in the previous two stages so that more is known about society as a whole, including the “hierarchies of political, economic, and social forms” necessary for social cooperation, yet individuals still do not know their own position and interests in society

Criticism 

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Advocates of strict equality argue that inequalities permitted by the Difference Principle are unacceptable even if they do benefit the least advantaged. -

The problem for these advocates is to explain in a satisfactory way why the relative position of the least advantaged is more important than their absolute position, and hence why society should be prevented from materially benefiting the least advantaged when this is possible.

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The most common explanation appeals to solidarity: that being materially equal is an important expression of the equality of persons.

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Another common explanation appeals to the power some may have over others, if they are better off materially.

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Rawls’ response to this latter criticism  The inequalities consistent with the Difference Principle, are only permitted so long as they do not result in unequal liberty. So, for instance, power differentials resulting from unequal income are not permitted if they violate the first principle of equal liberty, even if they increase the material position of the least advantaged group.

Difference Principle is also criticized as a primary distributive principle on the grounds that it mostly ignores claims that people deserve certain economic benefits in light of their actions. -

Advocates of Desert-Based Principles argue that some may deserve a higher level of material goods because of their hard work or contributions even if their unequal rewards do

not also function to improve the position of the least advantaged. -

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They also argue that the Difference Principle ignores the explanations of how people come to be in the more or less advantaged groups, when such explanations are relevant to the fairness of these positions.

The Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance may exclude some morally relevant information. the theory excludes in order to promote rationality and is biased in favor of rationality...