John Rawls (1921-2002) was the son of a prominent attorney (father) and women’s rights (mother). John Rawls was an atheist, a non-public intellectual and was once drafted into the army. Rawls during the Vietnam war while at Harvard as a professor advocated for a fair student army drafting system called the lottery system, which was adopted by the United States of America in due course. During Rawls times utilitarianism was the ideal conception of justice where actions were fair (just) if there give the greatest benefit to all people affected by it, then any other alternative would do. Rawls despised this as it was undermining individual rights, thus he pursued an ideal alternative (Hinman, 2008: Richardson, 2005).
What was John Rawls’s ideal society?
John Rawls’ ideal society was that of a social contract (a covenant) just like other social contract advocates (see John Locke and Thomas Hobbes). However, unlike other social contract advocates, Rawls further advocated for the principles of a just society. Because for Rawls only through justice did society exist, “justice as fairness” (Hinman, 2008)
How were the principles of social justice
set up?
Rawls noted that society had a lot of interpretation
of the good life and was filled with a lot of inequalities. So, Rawls argued that to
set up fair principles of social justice, one would have to enter in a
hypothetical situation called the ‘original position’ where individuals
would be in a ‘veil of ignorance’ that they would not know their social,
economic and political status, sex, age, religion, abilities, race or anything
personal thus they would impartially agree upon what principles of social
justice there should adopt for their society forever (Hinman, 2008). And Rawls
believes these people under the ‘veil of ignorance’ would come up with two
principles of social justice.
What are the two principles of social
justice suggested by Rawls?
According to Rawls,
The First Principle is
that basic rights and liberties should be as extensive as possible for each
individual without infringing on the rights and liberties of other individuals.
The Second Principle is
that any social and economic inequalities should be equally available to any
position and should provide the greatest benefit for the least advantaged. Hinman
(2008, para. 5).
Criticism of Rawls
- Rawls original position and the veil of ignorance was an assumption that cannot be proved or reached.
- Rawls principle dictates that the utmost benefits should go to the least advantaged individuals at the expense of the hardworking, high privileged individuals (it is unfair they worked hard for it)
- Rawls principle does not permit the necessary tolerance for the strongly held societal beliefs.
Adapted from:
Richardson,
H.S. (2005). John Rawls. The Internet
Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/rawls.htm
Hinman, L.M. (2008). John Rawls. Microsoft®
Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
Reference
Richardson, H.S. (2005). John Rawls. The Internet Encyclopaedia of
Philosophy. Retrieved from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/rawls.htm
Hinman, L.M. (2008). John
Rawls. Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
Corporation, 2008.