A Theory of Justice

Summary

A Theory of Justice is the major work of the American philosopher John Rawls, published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press in 1971 after nearly two decades of articles on the same themes. Rawls sets out to offer an alternative to utilitarianism, the view that the right policy is whatever produces the greatest total happiness, which he thought had dominated modern moral and political philosophy. He calls his alternative 'justice as fairness' and presents it as a generalization of the social contract theory of Locke, Rousseau and Kant. The book opens with the claim that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, and that each person has an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. Its subject is the basic structure of society: the way the major institutions distribute rights, duties and the advantages of social cooperation. To find principles for that structure, Rawls imagines an 'original position', a hypothetical agreement among free and equal persons who choose principles from behind a 'veil of ignorance'. They do not know their place in society, their class, their natural talents, or their own idea of the good life, so they cannot tailor principles to their own advantage. Rawls argues that they would choose two principles. The first gives each person an equal right to the most extensive scheme of basic liberties, such as political liberty, freedom of speech and conscience, and the rule of law, compatible with the same liberties for all. The second permits social and economic inequalities only if they are attached to positions open to all under fair equality of opportunity and if they work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged; this last condition is the 'difference principle'. The first principle has priority over the second, so that basic liberties may not be traded for economic gains. Rawls defends these choices partly by arguing that rational parties facing such uncertainty would secure the best worst outcome, and partly by the method of 'reflective equilibrium', in which principles and our considered judgments about particular cases are adjusted to one another. Part Two, Institutions, applies the principles to a constitutional democracy: equal liberty of conscience, toleration, the rule of law, the distributive role of markets and government, the just savings owed to future generations, and the duty to comply with law, including a well-known account of civil disobedience and conscientious refusal. Part Three, Ends, asks whether a society governed by these principles would be stable, discussing moral development, the good of self-respect, the 'Aristotelian principle' that people enjoy exercising their developed capacities, and the congruence of justice with each person's good. A revised edition appeared in 1999. The book revived political philosophy in the English-speaking world and drew vigorous responses from critics of many schools.

Top Lessons

• The veil of ignorance

  Rawls asks what principles we would choose for society if we did not know what position we would occupy in it. The thought experiment is meant to model impartiality: no one can favour his own class, talents or beliefs. Students can use it as a tool for testing rules of any group, while also asking whether it leaves out things that matter to justice.

• Liberty first

  Rawls's first principle, equal basic liberties for all, has priority over the second: freedom of conscience, speech and political participation may not be sacrificed for greater economic welfare. This 'priority of liberty' distinguishes his theory from views that would balance liberty against other goods.

• The difference principle and its critics

  Rawls holds that inequalities in wealth and income are just only if they work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and offices are open to all under fair equality of opportunity. Robert Nozick replied that justice concerns how holdings were acquired and transferred, not their overall pattern; others questioned whether rational parties would really choose so cautiously. The debate remains one of the central ones in political philosophy.

• Civil disobedience in a nearly just society

  Rawls defines civil disobedience as a public, nonviolent, conscientious act contrary to law, done to bring about a change in law or policy, addressed to the majority's sense of justice and accepting the legal penalty. He limits its justification to serious violations of basic liberty or fair opportunity, when normal appeals have failed.

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Medical Lens

A work of political philosophy. Rawls lists health and vigour among the natural primary goods, which are influenced by the basic structure but not directly under its control; later writers extended his theory to the just distribution of health care, but the book itself does not treat medicine.