Welfare liberalism, justice as fairness, just society, accident of birth, original position, principles of justice, difference principle, social contractarianism, principle of reciprocity, just savings principle

1. JURISPRUDENCE
WELFARE LIBERALISM - JOHN RAWLS
27.04.2019
PATRICK A.N. ABOKU

2. Outline
 Introduction
 Justice as fairness
 Social Concentration
 Methodology –
 The Original Position
 The Veil of ignorance
 The rationality of the persons
 General Knowledge
 The good – primary good
 Principles of Social Justice
 The difference principle
 The Principle of Reciprocity
 The Just Savings Principle
 Priority Rule
 Criticisms

3. Introduction
 Liberalism is a distributive theory
 Distributive justice relates to the art of developing principles for
redistributing the goods of society in a just and fair both in the
interest of society and members

4. Justiceas
fairness
 Justice prevails in a just society
 A just society is a society that individuals would subscribe to given the
opportunity to make a choice
 Accident of birth
 Due to the accident of birth the individuals ability to make voluntary choice
not possible
 However, a society which subscribes to justice as fairness would draw
closer to a society which individuals would want to sign onto if given
the opportunity
 Membership is by social contract thus individual is an important
member of the society in his/her own right
 Thus, individuals join because of the benefit they will get and
 Accept the burdens of society as well
 Every individual has an interest in ensuring he gets fair share of the
benefits
 Thus, it is important the basic institutions of society share the benefits
and burdens fairly
 If this is done, justice as fairness is achieved

5. Social
Contractarianis
m
 Membership to the society is by social contract
 The purpose of the social contract is to ensure the principles of
justice for the basic structure of society are achieved in the original
agreement
 He distinguished his social contract from those of Rousseau, Kant
and Locke
 For the purpose of gaining entry to society
 Explanation for the existence of society
 To establish a government/state

6. Methodology
:Theoriginal
Position
 Hypothetical original position when rational people of the society
determine the principles that would be favourable for the organization
of the society and its people
 Requirements
 People must see themselves in the original position as free and equal
 The people in the original position must be rational in order to select the
best possible principles for the society
 The choices must be made behind a veil of ignorance –
 Persons are deprived of their individual circumstances – Gender, class, status etc
 Especially their own concept of the good
 They must have general information
 Biology, sociology, philosophy etc
 The structure of society – Men,Women, lawyers etc
 The idea of the good including primary goods e.g. the thin theory of the good
 Understand factors which influence rational choice and regulate human affairs –
e.g. it is better to have more good than less
 The ration d’etre or purpose of the original position is the develop
principles that will serve as building blocks for the basic institution of
society

7. Principlesof
SocialJustice
 According to Rawls, because the people in the original position are
rational people, they will come up with two key principles:
 The principle to protect fundamental civil and political liberties
 This the most important principle
 Refer to Chapter 5 for Ghana’s position on this
 Socio-Economic Equality for all persons
 Equal opportunities to access and occupy positions in society
 If socio – economic inequalities must be allowed, it must be to the benefits
of the least advantaged in society – this is the difference principle

8. Difference
Principle
Explained
 Rawls theory is about equality
 But people can and should be treated differently if it lead to the
benefit or advantage of the least in society
 Thus, unequal distribution distribution of wealth is only permitted
to the extent that it benefits the entire or least members of the
society

9. Twoother
principles
 Rawls latter added two other principles of just that the rational
people in the original position would not fail to put forward
 Principle of reciprocity
 Every member of the society is entitle to equal benefits and burdens
 As no one would subscribe to persistently having to suffer at the expense
of others in society
 The just savings principle
 Principle of conservation of societies resources in society for future
generations
 But must be with the consent of worst off members of the society

10. PriorityRule
 States that, the two key principles identified by the rational persons
in the original position are in order of priority
 Rawls prioritized them as follows
 Principle for the protection of liberty is FIRST
 Principle of socio-economic equality is SECOND
 Difference Principle is THIRD
 Thus
 The liberty and freedoms of the members of society must be ensured
before
 Ensuring socio economic equality and if there is the need for unequal
distribution wealth then
 It should be arranged in a manner as to benefit the least advantaged in
society

11. Criticisms
 Rawls principles for redistributing the wealth of society is not
aggressive enough
 For a welfare liberal his emphasis on individual liberty leaves
much to be desired
 Because his theory favours the position of the least advantaged in
society at the expense of the advantaged, his theory is of
redistribution of wealth as been unequal even though he claims it
is for equality
 Critics suggest, the principles reached in the original position
should rather benefit hard working members instead of the lazy
ones – that is the only reason they would be motivated to work even
harder
 Rawls is just replacing the exploitation of the least advantaged with
the exploitation of the hard-working members of the society

12. Thank You
Discussion