John Rawls’ Theory of Justice

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This video lecture discusses Rawls's theory of justice.

John Rawls’ theory of justice attempts to explain why clear social inequalities are unjust and what a just society really is. As we can see, Rawls’ theory of justice as he developed in his seminal work A Theory of Justice is both a work of ethics and politics. Hence, we can glean from Rawls’ theory of justice some kind of an ethical theory. For one, in his A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempted to address the problem of distributive justice. In what follows, these notes will briefly sketch the key concepts of Rawls’ theory of justice.

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Academic Philo Quick Notes Thread:

John Rawls: Theory of Justice

-Attempts to explain why clear social inequalities are unjust and what a just society really is
-both a work of ethics and politics
-Rawls attempted to address the problem
of distributive justice
-Appears to be a moral contractarian
-Theory of justice is in
itself a kind of "social contract"

A just society is:
-with characteristics that conform to
normative rules
-Everyone would agree on them

fundamental principle - "every individual is inviolable"

Implications:
1. Life should not be sacrificed for
the sake of the majority

i.e suppressing the people's right to speech
and expression for the sake of economic
growth

directly attacks consequentialist ethics (utilitarianism)

2. An erroneous theory is
tolerable in the absence of a good one
-an unjust law is better than no law at all;
an act of injustice is tolerable ⟷ necessary
to avoid a greater act of injustice

i.e it might be morally right to
incapacitate if not to kill a notorious
a serial killer to stop him from killing more
people

3. individual liberties should be restricted
to maintain equality of opportunity
-restrictions through law preserves
freedom in democracy

i.e it is probably morally right to restrict people from owning more than five
hectares of an agricultural lot so that other people will have the chance to own
a lot

shadisawesome

I’ve often wondered if the Rawlsian view of the good is a kind of individualism. Each person decides for themselves given the starting perimeters. But what if their initial view of the good is mistaken?

DrOwenAnderson