Justice as Fairness
Justice as fairness is John Rawls's theory that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are those that free and equal persons would agree to in a fair initial situation.
Definition
Justice as fairness is a contractualist conception holding that just principles are those that would be chosen by rational parties in an 'original position' of equality, deprived by a 'veil of ignorance' of knowledge of their own particular circumstances.
Scope
Covers Rawls's two principles of justice, the devices of the original position and the veil of ignorance, the priority of liberty, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle, together with the contractualist method that supports them.
Core questions
- Which principles would free and equal persons choose to govern their society's basic structure?
- Why model the choice behind a veil of ignorance?
- How are the basic liberties, fair opportunity, and the difference principle ordered?
- Why prioritize the worst-off rather than maximize average welfare?
Key concepts
- the original position
- the veil of ignorance
- basic liberties
- fair equality of opportunity
- the difference principle
- lexical priority
- the basic structure
Key theories
- The two principles of justice
- Rawls argues for equal basic liberties for all, plus the requirements that inequalities attach to positions open under fair equality of opportunity and benefit the least-advantaged (the difference principle), with liberty given lexical priority.
- The original position
- Rawls models the choice of principles as a decision by rational parties behind a veil of ignorance that hides their class, talents, and conception of the good, so that the principles chosen are fair to all.
History
Justice as fairness was first sketched in Rawls's 1958 paper of that name and developed fully in A Theory of Justice (1971), which revived social-contract argument in the Kantian tradition. Rawls refined the view in response to critics in Political Liberalism (1993) and the Restatement (2001).
Debates
- Does the original position guarantee the difference principle?
- Whether rational parties behind the veil would adopt Rawls's maximin reasoning and the difference principle, or instead choose to maximize expected utility, as utilitarian critics contend.
- Stability and pluralism
- Whether a society ordered by justice as fairness can be stable amid reasonable disagreement about the good, a problem Rawls addresses through the idea of an overlapping consensus in his later restatement.
Key figures
- John Rawls
- Samuel Freeman
- Immanuel Kant
Related topics
Seminal works
- rawls1971
- rawls2001
Frequently asked questions
- What is the veil of ignorance?
- It is a thought experiment in which parties choosing principles of justice are deprived of knowledge of their own social position, natural talents, and conception of the good, so that the principles they choose cannot be tailored to their advantage.
- What is the difference principle?
- It is Rawls's requirement that social and economic inequalities be arranged so as to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.