This presentation is based on the Theory of Justice of John Rawls particularly for law students.

1. A Theory of Justice
Presentator: Shiva Prasad Acharya

2. Introduction
• John Rawls (American philosopher) works on
Political philosophy and Ethics(1971)
• Author addresses the problem of distributive
justice
• It utilises and updated form of the Kantian
philosophy {deontogical moral(revolving around
duty)}
• Fully a political theory of justice (thus differs
from other forms of justice)

3. • As this theory was under continously challenged, he refined
it several times.
• He made a significant new evaluation and published his
essay “Justice as Fairness”(JAF)
• TOJ and JAF together dictate that society must be structured
in such a way that the greatest possible amount of liberty is
given to its member.
• The limitation will only be that the liberty of one member
must not be infringed by any other member.
• Secondly the social and economic inequalities are only
accepted if they are advantageous to those who are
worst off and would do better than they might be
Under equal distribution.

4. • In TOJ, Rawls argues for the reconciliation of
liberty and equality.
• JR offers a model through which mutually
acceptable principles of justice would be
choosen( the original position with its veil of
ignorance)

5. • Original PositionI (left) is an artificial device of representation
by which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a
veil of ignorance.
• OP is a thin theory of the good. A full theory of the good
follows after we derive principles from the original position.
• JR claims that Participants in OP would adopt maximin
stategy which would maximize the prospects of the least well
off.
• This veil (पर्दा) is one that essentially blinds people to all
facts about themselves so that they cannot create principles
to their own advantage.
(thought experiment)
• The Citizen will make choices without knowing
their gender, race, abilities, tastes, wealth, or
position in society.(right)

6. • The veil of ignorance is a method of determining
the morality of issues.
• Decision maker have enough information to
know the consequences of their possible
decisions for everyone but would not know
which person they are.
• The VOI is analogous to social contract theory. It
helps to develop a new social contract for
today’s society.

7. • For example
The decision maker are making choices based on
moral considerations for the proposed soceity in
which 50 % population are kept in slavery. Then, it
follows that half of the participants have tendency
of being slave. As no one knows his place in
society, his class or social status; nor he knows his
fortune. The rules they made in such condition is
fair. So justice is fairness.
• Moreover this shows that social status and
personal considerations are morally
irrelevnat to the justice.

8. Two Principles of Justice
1. The Greatesf Equal Libety priciple :
 concern with distribution of rights and liberties.
• 2(b). Equal opportunity principle.:
Offices and position are distributed on the basis of
merit .
All have reasonable opportunities to acquire the
skills on the basis of which merit is assessed .
2(a). The difference principle:
inequalities can only be just, as long as they are to
benefit the least well off.
The first principle must be satisfied before 2(b ) and
2(b) must be satisfied before 2(a).

9. Criticism of TOJ
• JR belongs to social contract tradition although
his view is different from the previous
thinkers. his approach belongs to social contract
tradition although he has put it in different way.
• The method is hypothetical and
ahistorical.(never happened in the past nor will
ever happen in future.)

10. • Use of analytical philosophy( use of formal logic,
conceptual analysis and lesser degree of
mathematics and the natural sciences.)
• JR failed to account for the injustices and
hierachies embedded in familial relations- Susan
Moller Okin
• JR was very loose in his understanding of some
fundamental political concepts-Marshall Cohen
• JR encourages people to think about justice while
divorced from the values and aspiration that
define who they are as persons and that allow
people what justice is- Michael Sandel.

11. • JR has emphasized on distribution of primary
goods. But fails to take in account about how
effectively people are able to use those goods to
pursue their ends- Amatya Sen
• JR overemphasises on institutions as guarantors
of justice not considering the effects of human
behavior on the institutions’ ability to maintain a
just society- Amatya Sen
• JR understates the difficulty in getting everyone
in society to adhere to the norms of a just
society. Moreover, having only one possible
outcome of the reflective equilibrium behind the
veil of ignorance is misguided.

12. Why Theory of Justice?
• Many of us feel that our societies are
somehow unfair.
• So we need JR who provide failproof
‘model(that couldn’t go wrong) for identifying
what truly might be unfair- and how we
might gather support for fixing things.
• He wanted to use the power of ideas to
change the unjust world he is living in.
(horror and lawlessness of the Second World
War.) so he came up with TOJ(1971)

13. Radical unfairness of the society

14. Worst case senario.

15. Justice as Fairness
• To be contd. In part II
Thank You