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On Prosperity

On Rawls

3 min read

Rawls tried to answer the question "What is a just society?". In his view, we have a moral duty to organize society so as to rectify undeserved inequality. How can we achieve this?

Before stating the principles, he developed a method to come up with the principles. The core feature of the method to generate the principles of justice is the Veil of Ignorance: If you had no clue about your economic or social status (or even the society you live in), which principles would you choose to organize society? Using this tool, Rawls stipulates that agents would design two (well, maybe three) principles:

  1. Each person has an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a similar liberty of others. Rawls follows Gerald McCallum's definition of liberty, which says that liberty is a) freedom of something; b) freedom from something; and c) freedom to do, not do, become/not become something.

  2. Any social inequalities need to satisfy two conditions: A) they're attached to offices and positions open to all in conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and B) they are to the greatest advantage to the least advantaged (a.k.a. the difference principle)

  3. Just savings principle: each generation is required to set aside resources to future generations — both positive measures like investment in technology and negative measures, like not depleting natural resources. This principle was created as a solution to a limitation of the Veil of Ignorance, as it stipulates that you can't ignore that you exist, so you can ignore the people that don't exist, like future generations.

Freedom vs. Equality

These two values, many times associated with the right (freedom) and the left (equality) are balanced in Rawls' principles. He is, as a consequence, commonly criticized by both sides.

Solving the original position goals

One of the criticisms of the Theory of Justice is that, if you are under the "veil of ignorance", you also do not know what to value, or what is moral. If that is the case, then you can't pick any principles. Rawls solves this apparent paradox with the "Aristotelian Principle", which says that "human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capabilities (innate or trained)", and this enjoyment increases the more capacity is realized, or the greater the complexity.

John Rawls' central assertion was that freedom and equality can, in fact, be reconciled in a consensual vision, to which all members of society sign up, whatever their station in life. This new social contract became and remains the aspiration for all liberal democracies.