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An Analysis of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice
How successful is Rawls in justifying his principles of Justice?
Extended Essay
Philosophy HL
Guglielmo Cecero
Candidate Number: 0003
Center Number: 049037
Word Count: 3963
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Abstract:
It is often claimed that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and that
such inequalities are unjust. I have long been fascinated with the concept of justice,
especially distributive justice and whether such inequalities are incompatible with a
just society. In my Philosophy class I was introduced to John Rawls’s hugely
influential ‘A Theory of Justice’ in which he argues that inequalities are not
incompatible with justice. This seemed to be a radical claim and it motivated me to
focus my research on the question “How successful is Rawls in justifying his
principles of Justice?”
To respond to my question I firstly outlined the original position with its conditions
and why they are necessary, the veil of ignorance and the principles, which would be
the only rational choice according to Rawls, and these principles are the liberty
principle and the fair equality of opportunity principle and the difference principle.
And I have then shown how Rawls justifies these principles making them the only
rational choice.
I then moved into challenging the principles of John Rawls using Utilitarianism with
the maximization of expected utility theory to challenge the theory of the maximin.
Afterwards I used Nozick to challenge the inconsistency of Rawls’s principle of
liberty with the difference principle since, a well-founded theory of justice must
withstand such criticisms and be able to respond to them successfully.
Even if both the criticisms were very strong I concluded that Rawls manages to
respond to these criticisms proving that the theory is not inconsistent, that his
principles are indeed those which would be the rational choice in the original position
and that Rawls is therefore successful in justifying his principles of Justice.
Word Count: 284
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Introduction
In the early part of the 20th century, Philosophy went through what is known as ‘the
linguistic turn’, tending to focus on language and how it functions, rather than on
issues in the world or in society. This was due to the influence of philosophers like
Wittgenstein, Russell and A. J. Ayer. John Rawls, with his book ‘A theory of Justice’
(1971), tried to push the momentum back again to real world issues and applied
ethics. Rawls’s theory attempted to use reason in order to establish the definitive
principles of social justice, to objectively describe the ‘just society’ in the modern
world. If he was successful in this project then this would have enormous implications
for how societies are structured and operate with implications for political philosophy.
Furthermore, if he is right, then distributive justice is not merely a matter of
magnanimity, i.e. generosity, where those who choose to give do so, but rather a
matter of civic duty and obligation via a system of redistribution based on taxation,
not out of compassion or sympathy but since this is what we would all choose in the
‘Original Position’ and thus it is the epitome of justice. In Rawls’s theory the people
of a society will be placed in the ‘Original Position’, which was a thought experiment,
a hypothetical situation in which all the facts about yourself, and your particular
desires, are hidden from you behind a veil of ignorance. To argue that Rawls is
successful in justifying his principles I will use two other theories that oppose Rawls
the ones brought up by Utilitarianism and the criticisms put forward by Robert
Nozick. In this way I will show how Rawls can respond to his critics and show that
his principles are the ones to be chosen in the original position. These two theories
give alternative ways that people in the original position could’ve chosen since the
utilitarians and Robert Nozick, find his arguments questionable.
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The Original Position
Imagine that two people are playing poker. At a certain point, when a new hand is
about to be played, the players notice that there is a card lying face up on the floor.
One of the players wants to re-deal the cards whilst the other doesn’t. What should be
done? We could appeal to a hypothetical agreement; we could consider what
agreement we would have made if the issue was brought up before the game. This
would lead to a just situation since we would be both ‘blinded’ because our agreement
would’ve happened before seeing our cards, so they are forced into an impartiality act.
This is an analogy brought up by Wolff (Wolff, 2006) to explain how Rawls argues
for his principles. This idea (distributive justice) is based on the idea that society is a
system of cooperation for mutual advantage between individuals. The original
position is a central point in Rawls’s hypothetical contract; it is designed to be a fair
and just point of view used when reasoning about fundamental principles of justice.
Rawls never claims that someone ever used this method as a basis to a real society
before his publications, but he thought that his theories had the power to reveal true
principles of justice. In this original position, the citizens of the country need to
establish civil society, making a society in which the government had limited power
and the need to protect the citizens and their properties. To do this, Rawls says that
we need to secure a fair, impartial procedure; eliminating any possible bias towards
any group of people. The position of the least advantaged would be made as good as
possible. No one wants to be part of the lower castes of society, and because of this in
the original position the poor people will be advantaged. In fact, in the original
position, thanks to the veil of ignorance, the parties will not know how alternatives
are going to affect their own particular case because of this they are obliged to create
principles only on the basis of general consideration. Rawls assumes that we want to
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benefit the least advantaged since we could be part of them. And we agree on these
principles without knowing what our position in society, our religion or what our skin
color will be. We won’t be able to know if we are heterosexual or not, or what will be
our idea of good and bad and what our values are since this would affect our choices.
The action of being ‘blinded’ from what will happen is named by Rawls as the ‘Veil
of Ignorance’.
“If a man knew that he was wealthy, he might find it rational to advance the principle
that various taxes for welfare measures be counted unjust; if he knew that he were
poor, he would most likely propose the contrary principle. To represent the desired
restrictions, one imagines a situation in which everyone is deprived of this sort of
information” (Shield, 2013).
This extract makes it clear why the veil of ignorance is so important to his thought
experiment. Without this concept, the original position would not be made to work,
because if someone knew he was rich, he would want to restrict taxes, and if someone
instead is poor, he would probably want the opposite.
Furthermore, he argues, that the veil of ignorance is used to prevent people from
judging natural features of each person. People usually judge other people by their
natural features, but for Rawls, only by eliminating this judgments we will have a just
and fair society.
Even if we are placed behind a veil of ignorance in the original position, Rawls
assumes that we all have knowledge of the general facts about society. That we all
understand political affairs and principles of economic theory. That we know the basis
of social organization and the laws of psychology since we would need to make a
rational choice in the original position. He also says that there are no limitations on
general information since the conception of justice must be adjusted to the
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characteristics of each social system.
Kant had an important role in making Rawls think of the veil of ignorance. This was
also made clear from Rawls himself when he stated that he “believes in Kant’s
doctrine of the categorical imperative” (Rawls, 1999). He believes in what Kant does
with his doctrine and the way the procedural criterion is defined. Rawls supposes that
Kant assumes that we must not know our place in the system of nature in order to test
our maxim by considering it as a universal law of nature.
Rational Choice
Rawls argues that his principles of Justice would emerge from the original position
since they are the only rational choice. These principles would be the liberty principle
and the fair equality of opportunity principle and the difference principle. Rawls
places these two principles in this order because he believes that the first one has a
‘lexical priority’ over the second, as does the first part of the second principle over the
second part of it.
The liberty principle states, “Each person is to have the equal right to the most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of
liberty for all” (Warburton, 2014, p.278). Everyone in society has the same right to
basic liberties. If not a person might end up the victim of any kind of discrimination
since, thanks to the veil of ignorance; nobody will be able to know his or her gender,
skin color, religious thoughts and sexual orientation.
Because of this, Rawls tries to demonstrate that the outcomes of his theory are to be
chosen by assuming that no one is arguing that his first principle isn’t to be chosen.
No one wants to gamble their liberty because no one wants to have even the slightest
chance of becoming a slave in their hypothetical just society. If they end up slaves or
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very poor, unemployed and unhealthy, people would need to explain to their
descendants why they chose to gamble when they had the chance to play it safe.
Rawls’s second principle is divided up into two principles, the fair equality of
opportunity and the difference principle. The first of these two principle states, “Any
social or economic inequalities associated with particular offices or jobs can only
exist if these offices or jobs are open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of
opportunity” (Warburton, 2014, p.279). For Rawls, no one should be excluded from
the possibility of getting the highest-paid job because of non-relevant grounds such as
race and sexual orientation. It would be unfair for anyone to gain advantage on the
basis of anything, which is ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’ (Rawls, 1999) i.e.
people may argue for a merit-based system based on effort, but Rawls would
challenge it since people could be brought up in a family which emphasizes effort,
and this would mean that they are more willing to put more effort in everything
compared to others who grew up in families which prioritize other factors.
The difference principle instead says, “Any social or economic inequalities should
only be tolerated on condition that they bring the greatest benefits to the most
disadvantaged members of society” (Warburton, 2014, p.280). Rawls accepts the
conditional statement that if an inequality would make everyone better off, then this
inequality would need to be permitted. Inequalities should be permitted since if we
use strict egalitarianism this would make the people in the society less productive. It
would destroy incentives; some people will work much harder knowing that they will
have some sort of reward for that which benefits everyone. So we can derive from this
that if necessary, the distribution of wealth and income in a society can be unequal if
this would lead to everyone’s advantage.
The rational choice, which would lead to the difference principle, is the principle of
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maximin. The ‘maximin’ (maximize the minimum), means that we need to choose the
optimum, which gives the best deal for the worst case. For example, if in a Society A
most people earn a high wage but the bottom 10 percent can hardly survive, and in
Society B is that the general standard of living is lower but all have a reasonable
standard of living, Rawls would argue that the best choice for a society to live in
would be B because it would use the maximin principle. The aim of life is to lead a
good life. A good life cannot be led without access to primary goods such as liberties,
opportunities and wealth. Therefore, it will always be rational to guarantee one’s
primary goods and always irrational to gamble them away.
But what are the reasons to choose the maximin over something that would benefit
parts of the society? We could decide to choose a society in which everyone lives in
castles, so we would not face the problem of not having a house or being poor. But
Rawls would argue that the society which we would live in is in the ‘circumstances of
justice’ (neither scarcity nor abundance) and we can’t predict that our society would
be able to sustain the living of everyone if we were all in castles. Rawls says that we
also have three constraints when we choose. Physical, logical and formal. The
physical one was made because we need to imagine a society that would sustain the
living of everyone, but we also need to be realistic and understand that there is no
society in which everyone could live in castles. The logical constraint is the one in
which people should choose things that are logically possible. So we can’t choose
principles like ‘everyone should have slaves’ (Wolff, 2006) or ‘everyone should be
richer that everyone else’ (Wolff, 2006), because these two are simply not logical
choices. The most important constraint for Rawls is the formal one, the idea of a
hypothetical contract. Certain formal conditions need to be met if people enter the
contract. One of these is that the terms of the contract must be known and accepted by
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all parties. If this is not the case then there is no contract. A second formal constraint
is about finality. If a contract is made in good faith and agreed by both parties, then if
things turn out badly, the parties will not have the chance to revoke the contract.
When we are in the original position, we are looking to choose a principle of rational
choice from which a society can be physically and logically constructed. But for
Rawls this is not enough to explain why we would choose the maximin or, for
example, the maximization of expectations, a theory brought up by utilitarianism.
Utilitarians may challenge Rawls’s principles because they don’t necessarily
maximize happiness. For utilitarians, morally right actions are the ones that maximize
happiness for the greatest number. In saying this they want to maximize expected
utility. Utilitarians think that in the original position, people can use alternative
principles to those given by Rawls as they think people could decide to gamble their
position to hope for a better life. Utilitarians agree on the fact that the safest way in
the original position is to choose the difference principle, but they argue that people
might not want to have the safest choice if they know that they might have a chance
of living in a much better condition. Given that we all have equal liberty and
opportunity in the original position, people may wish to take their chances and
maximize the average rather than the minimum since this would mean that they would
have a greater chance of living a better life.
Rawls claims that people should always choose the maximin over the maximization
of expected utility because, even if this would maximize the average, if things go
badly, we don’t have another chance. Rawls is very clear that this is only a one-off
rather than a series of choices. So the maximization of expected utility is not the
rational choice because of the risk involved. Rawls in fact, argues that the rational
choice to make is the selection of the Difference Principle. He says we should choose
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it because the different alternatives to his principle all involve risk taking, and you
would be foolish to decide to risk everything when you can play it safe. If you decide
to gamble and lose, you are stuck with your choices, people in the original position
get no second chance since the original position can’t be replayed.
Rawls also thinks that the outcomes of his theory must be chosen because, once again,
this is simply the most rational choice because it does not involve taking chances that
are too risky.
Overall Rawls has tried to show that the outcomes of his theory are to be chosen quite
well by making us understand how he thinks that the original position should work by
giving us as much detail as possible for every part of his theory of justice, and has
also explained why we should chose his outcomes if we were to choose the principles
of justice of our society whilst inside the original position. Using the Libertarian
philosopher Robert Nozick, I will now see how according to Nozick, the principles
exposed by Rawls are not justified but I will also show how Rawls counter argues the
critiques brought up by Nozick.
Challenging Rawls
How could Rawls’s theory be challenged? If Rawls’s theory can be shown to be
incompatible with liberty i.e. the principles are incompatible with each other then it
will be inconsistent and wrecked. Libertarian philosophers have argued that beyond
preserving some basic rights, the state should not get involved in controlling social
institutions. The philosopher Robert Nozick, argues that, “Only a minimal state is
justified, one which protects individuals against theft and enforces contracts, but that
any more extensive activity than this will violate some people’s rights not to be
coerced. Rawls’ just society, in contrast, would, for example, tax property in a way
that corrects the distribution of wealth” (Warburton, 2014, p.282). Here Nozick
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assumes that the right not to be coerced is more important than the right to equality of
various kinds. This is not what Rawls says; he only thinks that his principles are the
“bedrock” (Warburton, 2014, p.282) to a right society. Nozick divides all the theories
of justice in two different types. In his historical theory he distinguishes patterned and
unpatterned theories of distribution. Most theories for Nozick are patterned, and in
this book ‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’ (1974), he defines a patterned theory as “one
that says goods should be distributed among the members of a society according to a
certain pattern or formula. If goods are not yet distributed according to his formula,
then goods must be taken from some citizens and given to others until the required
distribution is achieved. Rawls’s theory requires that goods be distributed according
to his two principles” (Velasquez, 2009, p.552). Unpatterned theories don’t do this
they are procedural theories. In an unpatterned theory people acquire their goods
though legitimate procedures. Nozick claims his theory is unpatterned and that every
other patterned theory can be defeated. Nozick argues that patterns can only be
enforced at grave cost to liberty. If we were to choose to maintain a pattern, then this
will soon be disrupted. Nozick says that at this point we only have two options. We
can maintain the pattern by eliminating certain transactions or we constantly intervene
in the market to redistribute property. Either way we would interfere with people’s
liberty. These conclusions would still be used also in societies with ‘non-monetary
communism’, because people will still try to make trades and the most skilled traders
will benefit from it, so inequalities of possession will occur. For Nozick, the
difference principle represents a patterned conception of justice. Once property is
distributed, people have two choices, spend or save. This will lead to inequalities in
the society so eventually the difference principle will not be satisfied anymore and
property will need to be redistributed in some way though this implies the government
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would need to intervene in people’s lives limiting their liberty. An example given to
us by Nozick is the Wilt Chamberlain example. Nozick wants us to imagine that
money in a certain society is distributed in according to a pattern e.g. proportion to
their needs. In this same society, there is a basketball player (Wilt Chamberlain) who
has agreed with his team that for every home game, each person who goes to the
game will pay him an extra 25 cents. If at the end of the season a million people went
to see him play, he would end up with an extra $250,000. Nozick assumes that now,
the pattern theory of distribution is disrupted since this money wasn’t given to him
according to the pattern. Using this example Nozick makes a claim saying that every
pattern in a society is vulnerable. Because of the difference principle, since Wilt
Chamberlain didn’t need that money we would need to restrict the liberty of people to
give Chamberlain those 25 cents. But restricting the liberty of people would be going
against the liberty principle. Since it has lexical priority over the difference principle,
Nozick says that Rawls should give up the difference principle in order to maintain
the liberty principle. So, for Nozick, liberty is incompatible with any pattern of
distribution of property. Nozick also argues that if the first pattern is just and the
pattern is changed as a result of people’s free choice, then the second pattern must
also be just. Any interference would be an infringement of liberty.
This could show how Rawls is inconsistent and his theory of justice seems to have
some problems because of its inconsistency. Now I will give two reasons, which also
counter argue Nozick and show why I think that Rawls’s theory of justice still is
justified. The first point is that the Liberty principle is about the ‘basic liberties’
someone should have, such as freedom of speech. Rawls never says that people
should be free from interference, and because of this there is no formal inconsistency
between the two principles. Also, I believe that Nozick has given a strange view of
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how a pattern theory should be maintained. It is true that because of the difference
principle there needs to be some restrictions, but this could be done in a civilized way,
through tax.
Nozick also critiques Rawls when he tries to give a solution to the redistribution of
property through tax. Nozick says that taxation is on the same level as forced labour.
Since we all oppose forced labour, we should also oppose taxation. This is a very
harsh claim from Nozick, and without an example everyone would believe that he is
exaggerating. If someone works for thirty hours a week and 25 percent of his/hers
wages are taken away from taxes, for a thirty-hour work week, people are working
seven and a half hours ‘free’ for other people. Because of this Nozick claims that
taxation is ‘a theft of your time’ meaning that for seven and a half hours a week you
are a little more than a slave. Nozick assumes that anyone who values liberty would
agree with him that taxation is no different to slavery.
Once again, I think that this is an exaggeration by Nozick. It is true that paying taxes
would force a person to work for someone else, but comparing it to force of labour is
too much. Rawls gives the opposite view of Nozick argument by saying that taxation
increases liberty by increasing the wealth of the poor, giving them living options that
without taxes they wouldn’t have.
A further criticism of Rawls’s theory is that by allowing inequalities in property,
Rawls’s theory allows inequalities in liberty since the rich have greater liberty. I can
respond to this argument by saying, that, once again, Rawls gives a different view of
liberty saying that the liberties are part of the ‘basic liberties’ such as freedom of
speech or the ability to apply to any kind of work with no discrimination. These
liberties are not derived form the amount of property someone has, so, the ‘basic
liberties’ are equal for everyone.
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Conclusion
I think that a hypothetical contract in which impartiality is guaranteed is an effective
method of generating objective principles of justice. This is because if everyone is
behind the veil of ignorance, there will be impartiality throughout the people in the
original position.
One of the major reasons to why Rawls is successful in justifying his principles of
justice is because his principles can resist various kinds of criticisms. For example the
utilitarian criticism which sustained that the maximin is not what people would chose
in the original position. Rawls responds by saying that whilst maximizing expected
utility might be rational in a series of choices, since the original position is a one-off
choice, it would be too risky, and so the maximin becomes the rational choice.
But Nozick who argued about the incompatibility of the difference principle and the
liberty principle brought up the biggest challenges; people need to live free from
interference. In response to this Rawls claims that his concept of liberty is about the
‘basic’ liberties and that people should not live absolutely free from interference. The
second challenge brought up by Nozick was about the interference tax made with
people saying that it would restrict liberty. But Rawls, once again, makes it clear that
taxes are non-invasive and that they help liberty instead of restricting it.
So, in conclusion I think that Rawls is very successful in justifying his principles of
Justice since he manages to respond to the various critics I have analyzed in this essay
showing why his principles the best when compared to criticisms given by
utilitarianism and Nozick.
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Bibliography:
Shield, H. (2013), ‘John Rawls and the Veil of Ignorance’, [online]. Available at
https://hammeringshield.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/903/ (accessed 12th August 2014)
Warburton, N. (2014), Philosophy: The Classics, 4th edition, Oxon, Routledge.
Velasquez, M. (2009), Philosophy A Text with Readings, 11th edition, Boston,
Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Rawls, J. (1999), A Theory of Justice: revised edition, Cambridge, Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press
Rawls, J (1971), A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press
Wolff, J. (2006), An introduction to political philosophy: revised edition, New York,
Oxford University Press
Nozick, R (1974), Anarchy, State and Utopia, New York, Basic Books
