John Rawls' Theory of Justice
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1971.tb01922.x |
| Author | Michael Lessnoff |
| Published date | 01 March 1971 |
| Date | 01 March 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JOHN
RAWLS’
THEORY
OF
JUSTICE’
MICHAEL LESSNOFF
University of Glasgow
THERE
are a number of reasons
why
the writings of John Rawls deserve our
attention. In a series of articles written over the last decade2 he has sketched
out
a theory of justice which already constitutes one of the few major original contri-
butions of the present generation to prescriptive political philosophy, and is
perhaps the most convincing evidence that the discipline is after
all
not dead.
Rawls’ theory is original, and yet not the least part of its interest derives from its
explicit continuity with one of the major strands of the history of political
philosophy, namely the theory of social contract. At the same time, Rawls’
theory of justice is a philosophical justification
of
the norms
of
liberal democratic
society. Thus it integrates past and present in a continuing philosophical tradition
for which
it
attempts to provide a rational basis.
The aim of this paper is to sketch the essential outlines
of
the theory, and to
assess how successful it is
in
its aims. Already it has attracted a number
of
critical
appraisals,J on which the present paper
will
draw, though
I
hope it
will
also go
beyond them.
Let
us
begin, as Rawls does, by considering what an investigation of justice
means. Rawls makes clear that by ‘justice’ he means a particular virtue of social
institutions or, as he usually puts it, of practices. Practices are defined as ‘forms
of
activity specified by
a
system of rules which define offices, roles, moves, penalties,
etc.’ (for example, rituals, parliaments, and systems of property).
To
the offices
and roles of a practice there may be attached particular benefits and burdens, and
in general the rules of practices determine which individuals are to receive
benefits and suffer burdens, and
in
what circumstances. (Among the burdens
are included the obligations and restrictions that the rules impose on individual
action, as well as any penalties that may be prescribed for infringement of such
rules.) Thus, the distribution
of
benefits and burdens among the participants
in practices depends
on
the particular rules that define them.
1
This article is a much amended version
of
a paper read to the Scottish Political Studies
Association in December 1968.
I
owe thanks for helpful criticism in its preparation to several
colleagues at the University of Glasgow, and in particular to Professor David Raphael and
Mr.
John Fowler of the Department of Politics, and Miss Diane Dawson of the Department
of
Poli-
tical Economy.
*
‘Justiceas Fairness’, in
P.
Laslett and
W.
G.
Runciman
(eds.),Phi/osopby,Politics,
andSociety,
2nd Series (Blackwell, 1962); ‘The Sense of Justice’,
Philosophical Review
(1 963); ‘Constitutional
Liberty and the Concept
of
Justice’, in C. J. Friedrich and
J.
W.
Chapman (eds.),
Nomos
VI
(1963); ‘Distributive Justice, in
P.
Laslett and
W.
G.
Runciman
(eds.),
Philosophy,
Polirics
and
Society,
3rd
Series
@lackwell, 1967); ‘Distributive Justice: Some Addenda’,
Natural
Law
Forum,
Vol.
13 (1968).
3
C.
Fried, ‘Justice and Liberty’,
Nomos
VI
(1963);
J.
W.
Chapman, ‘Justice and Fairness’,
ibid. W.
G.
Runciman,
Relative Deprivation and Social Justice
(Routledge, 1966). pp. 252
ff.
R.
P. Wolff,
‘A
Refutation of Rawls’ Theorem on Justice’,
JournalofPhilosopby
(1966). B. Barry,
‘On Social Justice’,
Oxford Review
(1967). J. O’Connor, ‘Wolff, Rawls, and the Principles of
Justice’,
Philosophical Studies
(December 1968). D. Emmett, ‘Justice’,
Aristofelian Society
Supplementary Volume
XLIII
(1969).
Political
Studicl.
Vol.
XM,
No.
1,
(63-80).
64
JOHN
RAWLS’
THEORY
OF
JUSTICE
Justice is one of the virtues that
a
practice may or may not exhibit, though not
the only one-efficiency, for example, is another. Justice refers to ‘the elimination
of arbitrary distinctions and the establishment.
.
.
of a proper balance between
competing claims’ in relation to the distribution of benefits and burdens that form
part of, or result from, social practices.
In
other words, justice is the virtue that
social practices embody when they provide for
a
proper
distribution
of benefits
and burdens among individuals (whereas efficiency, presumably, refers to the
overall
maximization
of net benefit).
So
far, the analysis
of
justice remains formal-the discussion has shown what
sort of concept ‘justice’ is, but nothing has been said to indicate what features of
practices render them just or unjust. But Rawls goes further than this. If
a
practice
is just, the rules defining the practice will be in accord with certain principles,
which Rawls calls the principles of justice. Rawls theory of justice can be con-
sidered to be in two parts: the enunciation of two principles of justice, which,
according to Rawls, serve as a basis for deducing
a
wide range of rules which we
think essential to
a
just society; second,
a
method of deriving the principles
themselves.
I
want to begin with Rawls’ method of deriving the principles of justice, which
he calls an ‘analytical construction’, and which is set out in his celebrated article
‘Justice as Fairness’. Rawls’ suggestion here is essentially that the principles of
justice are those general principles
on
which all individuals engaged in a practice
would agree as the correct principles by which to judge any complaints that any
individual may make against the way the practice operates, and by which to
resolve any disagreement between participants in a practice about how the prac-
tice should operate. The assumption is that each person participating in the prac-
tice will agree to these principles in the full knowledge that they will be applied
impartially to every case, including those that he himself is involved in.
In
effect
these principles are the principles by which members of a society would agree
to regulate their institutions. However, the principles
on
which they would
agree will be principles of justice if and only if certain assumptions about the
nature of the persons involved, and their relations to each other, hold true.
In
‘Justice as Fairness’ Rawls sets out four such crucial assumptions, as follows:
(1)
First, it must be assumed that the persons who reach agreement are
self-interested. The reasons for this assumption are clear enough.
If
any of the
persons involved were not self-interested, they would not be concerned to protect
their rights,l and
so
might agree to principles which left their rights unprotected.
Clearly, principles that leave the rights
of
some individuals unprotected cannot
be considered to be valid principles of justice.
(2)
Second, it is assumed that the persons involved are rational-they are not
only egoists, but rational egoists. The purpose of this assumption is the same
as that of the egoism assumption.
If
some of the participants in the practice were
irrational they would be incapable of judging their own interest, and
so
would
be
liable to agree to principles that left their rights unprotected, principles which
therefore would not be valid principles of justice.
(3)
A
very important further assumption is that none
of
the participants in
the practice is in a position to coerce any of the others into agreeing
to
principles
1
Professor
Raphael has suggested to me that egoists would not have the concept
of
a right,
which is
a
moral
notion.
But
what is at issue here is what
we
would
call
their rights-it does not
matter what the people involved in the construction
would
call them,
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