A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE THEORY OF JOHN RAWLS

2.  John Rawls was born in the year 1921 on Baltimore
and spent his whole life as on academic
philosopher at the elite American University of
Princeton.
 He dealt in his philosophies with the fundamental
idea of political philosophy i.e. Justice.
 John Rawls gave theories, which were unique in
themselves.
 He was a supporter of the contemporary socio-
political synthesis, which combines liberal
democracy, the market and the redistribution
welfare state.

3.  His academic career started with Justice as
fairness in 1958.
 Then came his major work on ‘A theory of
Justice’ which was published in the year
1971
 Its was followed by Political Liberalism in
1933
 He was against utilitarian principle.

4.  “A Theory of Justice” (1971) has pointed out
that “a good society is characterized by a
number of virtues and justice is the primary and
indispensable virtue of a good society.”
 According to Rawls, the problem of justice
consists in ensuring a just distribution of
‘Primary Goods’ which include rights and
liberties, powers and opportunities, income and
wealth, means of self-respect and so on.

5.  Rawls has described his theory as the theory
of pure ‘procedural justice’.
 He has attacked utilitarianism because in
calculating the greatest happiness of the
‘greatest number’ it does not care if it leads
to extreme hardship to any particular
individual.
 Rawls has evolved a unique methodology for
arriving at a unanimous procedure of justice
following the tradition of ‘Social Contract’.

6.  Rawls has envisaged an ‘original position’ by abstracting
the individual from their particular social and economic
circumstances.
 These individuals are symbolically placed behind a ‘veil of
ignorance’ where they are totally unaware of their wants,
interests, skills and abilities.
 But they have an elementary knowledge of economics
and psychology and also have a ‘sense of justice’.
 Each individual will place himself in the least
recommending the criteria of allocation of the primary
goods.
 Hence each of these will demand greatest benefit for the
least advantaged

8.  Rawls says that the freedom of thought and
liberty of conscience and freedom of the
person and the civic liberties should not be
sacrificed to political liberty
 Rawls has also stressed on the liberty of
others that if rights are unrestricted then
they will collide each other

9.  By the priority of liberty Rawls means the
precedence of the principles are in lexical
order and therefore the claims of liberty are into
play.
 The basic liberty may either be less extensive
though still equal or they may be unequal.
 If liberty is less extensive, the representative
citizen must find this again for his freedom on
balance: and if liberty is unequal, the freedom of
those with lesser liberty must be better secured.

10.  Rawls justifies inequalities on the ground
that the inequalities would be benefiting the
least advantage
 The principle of justice are to be ranked in
lexical order and therefore liberty can be
restricted only for the sake of liberty.
 There are two cases:
a) A less extensive liberty must strengthen the
total system of liberty shared by all and
b) A less than equal liberty must be acceptable
to those citizens with the lesser liberty.

11.  He refers to “the two principles of Justice as Fairness,” but
the second has two sub-principles.
 These principles address two different aspects of the basic
structure of society:
 The “First Principle” holds that society must assure each
citizen “an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal
basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with
the same scheme for all.” . (Distribution)
 The “Second principle” addresses “the distribution of
opportunities, offices, income, wealth, and in general
social advantages.” The first part of the second
principle holds that the social structures that shape this
distribution must satisfy the requirements of “fair equality
of opportunity.” (Opportunities)

12.  The second part of the second principle is
the famous or infamous “Difference
Principle.”
 It holds that “social and economic
inequalities … are to be to the greatest
benefit of the least advantaged members
of society.”
 “any departure from equal distribution of the
primary goods could be justified only when it
could be proved to bring greatest benefit to
the least advantaged”.

13.  Rawls’s original thought is that equality, or a
fair distribution of advantages, is to be
addressed as a background matter by
constitutional and legal provisions that
structure social institutions.
 Rawls ‘concept of the chain connection’
implies that in order to strength a chain, we
should start with strengthening its repeat the
process by identifying the weakest link on
each occasion or else should be addressed
in a utilitarian way

14.  He argues that securing the First Principle
importantly serves the higher-order
interest in an effective sense of justice and
does so better than the pure utilitarian
alternative.
 It is the Difference Principle that would most
clearly demand deep reforms in existing
societies.
 Difference Principle allows and requires:
departures from full equality that make
some better off and no one worse off