John Rawls and the Social Contract Essay

John Rawls wrote several highly influential articles in the 19950`s and 1960`s, his first book, A Theory of Justice (1971), revitalized the social-contract tradition, using it to articulate and defend a detailed vision of egalitarian liberalism. In Political Liberalism [PL] (1993), he recast the role of political philosophy, accommodating it to the effectively permanent “reasonable pluralism” of religious, philosophical, and other comprehensive doctrines or worldviews that characterize modern societies. He explains how philosophers can characterize public justification and the legitimate, democratic use of collective coercive power while accepting that pluralism. (Richardson)

John Rawls in his work, “A Theory of Justice,” aims to make up a theory that will rivals intuitionalists and utilitarianism, which seeks truth in morality that cause results in maximizing utility for the maximum number of people. Rawls’ theory of justice is a distribution theory that maximizes primary goods for the worst outcome an individual could be in. By primary goods, Rawls informs us that all rational and reasonable individuals will want to have certain fundamental goods that should not be denied anyone. These goods include liberty, autonomy, self-respect, and wealth, as I will later discuss in Rawls’ principle of equal liberty. To provide an argument that will combat utilitarianism, the philosopher uses a revised social contract theory that is to a tune of “higher abstraction” (Rawls, pg.10) than its predecessors John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.

The general concept of Rawls “original position” is that all social “Primary Good” should be distributed equally to individuals in a society, unless an unequal distribution favors those less fortunate. Rawls call “the situation of ignorance about your own place in society the “original position (242).” Rawls’ theory is in direct response to John Lock’s principles on social contract which states that people in a free society need to set rules on how to live with one another in peace. Rawls’ principles were designed to guards against injustices, which was inflicted upon society, with the help of John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism principle that individuals should act so as to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number. Mills

The entitlement theory of justice tells us that whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just. Norzick’s two beliefs are absolute property ownership rights. His other belief is redistribution rights.

The notion of obedience is imperative to the notion of law, and the subject of legal obedience is accepted by virtue of its necessity in the definition of law. The discussion of moral obligation to obey the law, however, raises difficult questions met by various arguments. As a leader of this discussion, Rawls proposes that moral obligation to obey the law is upheld if the system of law is grounded in the principle of fair play.

John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice holds that rational, mutually disinterested individuals, in the Original Position and given the task of establishing societal rules to maximise their own happiness throughout life, are liable to choose as principles of societal justice a) guaranteed fundamental liberties and b) the nullification of social and economic disparities by universal equality of opportunities, which are to be of greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society , . Rawls’ system of societal cbfgdbre for the maintenance of fundamental liberties, equality of opportunity and support for the disadvantaged is exercised. However, when the individual runs the risk of incafdfbsfgrnating into an elitist society, they may be

John Rawls is an egalitarian philosopher and his framework of justice as fairness requires adherence to two principles: the original position and the veil of ignorance. Rawls states that governments should not simply provide basic liberties to its citizens but should ensure that the liberties are distributed fairly in society. In the distribution of these basic liberties or primary goods to all people, the two principles and the original position should be adhered to in order to ensure equity . The original position requires people to imagine themselves to be free and equal people who are committed to the principles of social and political justice . By committing to the original position, the two principles of justice can then be followed.

The Social contract arguments generally deem that individuals have accepted, to succumbing some of their freedoms and surrender to the authority of the person in charge , in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls presents his argument for justice and inequality. Rawls theorizes that in the original position, a hypothetical state where people reason without bias, they would agree to live in a society based on two principles of justice (Rawls 1971, 4). These two principles of justice are named the first and second principles. The first is the equal rights and liberties principle. The second is a combination of the difference principle and the fair equality of opportunity principle, or FEOP (Rawls 1971, 53). Rawls argues that inequality will always be inevitable in any society (Rawls 1971, 7). For example, there will always be a varied distribution of social and economic advantages. Some people will be wealthier than

Edward Soja (2010:76) argues that Rawls’ theory of distributive justice is intended to be universally applicable, spatially and historically “as if the theory reflected natural law”. Furthermore, Soja suggests that in creating such normative criterion to define justice he subordinates what

John Rawls was the second most important political thinker of his time. His main contribution to the idea of a civil society is his theory of justice. Rawls believed in “social primary goods” which included rights,

In what follows, I will attempt to portray the philosophy of John Rawls with regard to the theory of societal justice. My aim is convey Rawls’ conception of justice.

With a limited availability of wealth and resources, all societies are posed with a common dilemma: how ought these goods be distributed among members of the community in a way that is just? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls, an influential political philosopher of the 20th century, attempts to provide a solution to this dilemma by presenting a hypothetical situation, known as the Original Position, in which multiple parties determine the principles that will constitute the basic structure of the society they will live in. In order to ensure that the party members make their choices impartially

The shape and content of both political and social philosophy has been significantly revolutionized since the emergence of John Rawls’ ideas. His’ A Theory of Justice’, most significantly, has been a rich source of ideas which continue to impact contemporary discussions about society and politics. Rawls's Theory of Justice is extensively considered

John Rawls developed a conception of justice as fairness in his classic work A Theory of Justice. Using elements of both Kantian and utilitarian philosophy, he has described a method for the moral evaluation of social and political institutions.