A Theory of Justice

I'm astonished at the tenor and number of negative reviews "A Theory of Justice" has garnered from the right. This is especially surprising because Rawls shares with American conservatives one fundamental principle: the inviolability of the individual. A "Theory of Justice" is a technical work aimed at professional philosophers, political scientists, and constitutional law specialists. Nevertheless, the book is understandable by laymen, provided it is read as what it is, i.e. a technical work of moral philosophy and not as a political agenda. Rawls's simple and plain style also makes this book a relatively easy read. I suspect that the rejection of Rawls by even the more thoughtful conservatives stems from a serious misunderstanding of utilitarianism, which Rawls savagely attacks from the start. Utilitarianism is the moral principle that the TOTAL welfare of a society is the highest value. In practice, the only measure of total welfare the government has is GDP, so that's what we maximize: GDP. This makes utilitarianism attractive to laissez-faire capitalist philosophies, and because Rawls attacks utilitarianism, both the left and the right imagine he is attacking markets, industry, and capitalism. The left have made him their angel, and so the right their demon. Rawls makes no attack on capitalism, only on utilitarianism. He asserts the inviolability of the individual as society's primary moral principle and demonstrates that this is incompatible with utilitarianism. For example, under utilitarianism, it makes sense to take Bob's heart, give it to Stan, and to give his lungs to John. You've saved two lives by sacrificing one, so society is on the whole better off with two members (Stan and John) rather than just one (Bob). This is obviously wrong and that's why we want to jettison this (im)moral philosophy. Another misconception is that Rawls does not accept inequality. This is false: Rawls accepts inequality provided that those at the bottom benefit from the inequality. For instance let's say John wants to become rich and so invents a pill that for ten dollars/person eliminates the risk of cancer in his hometown. John sells the pill and becomes rich and everyone is cured from cancer. John is better off than anyone else, but everyone else is better off than they would have been under an egalitarian society. Yet another misconception is that Rawls wants to establish a Utopian plan for a perfect society. He does not. Rawls is not a revolutionary trying to reinvent society; he is a theoritical moral philosopher, a professional academic researcher, who seeks to isolate the basic principles that define what we mean by "Justice". This is a fair goal and a valid program of study. Everyone wants a just society; after all does anyone campaign for an unjust or unfair society? But we disagree as to what we mean by "Justice". The real object of Rawls's work is to replace utilitarianism with a better concept of the social good, or of Justice. A Theory

Surely, A Theory of Justice is among the most important and influential texts in contemporary philosophy. And it is, of course, the central text in contemporary political philosophy. Want just a few reasons to think this is an important text that you ought to read? Here you go: Rawls develops and defends a new theory of justice, he provides a new way to extend some of the basic ideas in the social contract tradition, his text was crucial in resurrecting Kantian moral theory, his work has helped to bring constructivist meta-ethical positions back into prominence, the book develops some new and influential criticisms of utilitarianism, and it includes an explication of the method of reflective equilibrium and demonstrates how it can be applied in moral theory, etc. This is a long, intricate, and densely argued book, and there's no hope of summarizing even its main claims in this review. Consequently, I'll simply aim to give a very sketchy account of the structure of his main argument here. Rawls's theory is a theory of justice as it applies to the basic institutions of a single society. He calls his theory "justice as fairness." It is not that he thinks justice is simply fairness, or that a just society is a fair one. Rather, people choose principles of justice in a position that is supposed to be fair; their choices in this fair position determine the correct principles of justice. The principles of justice determine the nature of a just society; they apply to the basic structure of society--to its fundamental institutions. They will be understood by people who accept them as principles telling them how their society should be structured with respect to how it provides people with their basic rights and liberties, how it determines people's opportunities in life, and how it structures the institutions in which people acquire wealth and income. The fair position for choosing these principles is what Rawls calls "the original position." His argument has the following structure: he describes the original position, and then he argues that parties in the original position would choose a particular set of principles of justice. The principles chosen constitute the correct theory of justice. The first part of the argument is a detailed account of the original position. Parties in the original position are placed behind a veil of ignorance, where they are stripped of certain types of knowledge. In particular, they lose all the knowledge of the contingent facts concerning their own standing in life and the details of life in their society. Furthermore, they lose knowledge of their particular talents, desires, psychological traits, skills, etc. Why prefer this as a position in which principles of justice are to be chosen? The main idea is that it allows us to see the people as coming to fair terms for social cooperation, for this is supposed to be a fair situation for selecting the principles. Parties behind the veil are unable to

I think everything I would say about this book has been said already by others-- I found it very intriguing. I'm a hard-line utilitarian, and Rawls obviously makes an interesting critique of utilitarian social organization, but I wasn't compelled to reject my views. This is a great book, but I personally prefer his Political Liberalism to this one. A little note on Marx-- Rawls is definitely not a Marxist. Those who criticize him as such clearly don't know anything about Marx's work. Marx never actually says very much about what his communist state is going to look like, other than his belief that markets and politics will be abolished. Rawls doesn't believe in abolishing markets, and his discussion of redistribution of wealth would never be possible in a Marxist state.

This is one of the most important books on social philosophy written in the last century. As the other mis-informed reviews illustrate, Rawls requires careful reading and a conviction to work through his arguments. Basically, Rawls tries to argue for a theory of Justice based on non-utilitarian principles. How can we have a Just Society that preserves individual rights and at the same time functions above the level of anarchy? Tilting too far one way results in a Communistic state that places the group above the individual. Tilting too far the other way results in a state that is a "war of all against all". Rawls proposes that we arrive at a conception of Justice using minimal assumptions. He uses something called the "Veil of Ignorance" to derive his principles of Justice. This "Veil of Ignorance" assumes we would act in our own self-interest, but we don't know where in society we would end up. Given these two principles, people actint in their own self-interest but not knowing what place they might occupy in society, Rawls argues that we would come up with two principles of Justice; 1) each person has the most extensive basic liberties that are compatible for everyone having these liberties, and 2) social inequalities will be arranged so that they benefit everyone and such that we all have equal access to beneficial social positions. (Some reviews here apparently feel that Rawls was trying to describe an historical situation with the Veil of Ignorance. I would suggest that they actually read Rawls.)What Rawls is arguing is that taking a very minimal assumption about human nature (we rationally act in our own self interest) and assuming that no one knows his or her eventual social position, we will come up with these two principles of Justice (Justice as Fairness). A society is Just if it provides the most extensive set of liberties possible to everyone in the society and if it contains ways to balance social inequalities and provide equal access. Most people (even the Ann Rand folk) would agree with the first principle (equal rights), but likely have problems with the second.Most of the people writing reviews, I believe, have not really read what Rawls has written or understood what they have read. If you want to disagree with Rawls then you must meet him with argument and reason, and not vituperative comment. I may not agree with everything in this book, but I must first understand Rawls' powerful arguments and reasoning before I can propose alternative ideas. Love him or hate him, Rawls cannot be ignored and neither can this book.