John Rawls

Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical

In this discussion I shall make some general remarks about how I now understand the conception of justice that I have called ‘justice as fairness’ (presented in my book A Theory of Justice).1 I do this because it may seem that this conception depends on philosophical claims I should like to avoid, for example, claims to universal truth, or claims about the essential nature and identity of persons. My aim is to explain why it does not. I shall first discuss what I regard as the task of political philosophy at the present time and then briefly survey how the basic intuitive ideas drawn upon in justice as fairness are combined into a political conception of justice for a constitutional democracy. Doing this will bring out how and why this conception of justice avoids certain philosophical and metaphysical claims. Briefly, the idea is that in a constitutional democracy the public conception of justice should be, so far as possible, independent of controversial philosophical and religious doctrines. Thus, to formulate such a conception, we apply the principle of toleration to philosophy itself: the public conception of justice is to be political, not metaphysical. Hence the title.

Reply to Alexander and Musgrave

I. The notion of a well-ordered society, 633. — II. The role of the original position, 637. — III. The first pair-wise comparison: two principles of justice vs. the principle of utility, 639. — IV. Alexander on the conflation problem: choice of parameter presupposes underlying conception, 643. — V. Second pair-wise comparison: interpretation of maximin, and risk aversion as a consequence, not as an assumption, 646. — VI. The contract condition and the strains of commitment, 650. — VII. Musgrave on leisure trade-off: maximin not merely second best, 653.

The Basic Structure as Subject

An essential feature of the contractarian conception of justice is that the basic structure of society is the first subject of justice. The contract view begins by trying to work out a theory of justice for this special but plainly very important case; and the conception of justice that results has a certain regulative primacy with respect to the principles and standards appropriate for other cases. The basic structure is understood as the way in which the major social institutions fit together into one system, and how they assign fundamental rights and duties and shape the division of advantages that arises through social cooperation. Thus the political constitution, the legally recognized forms of property, and the organization of the economy, and the nature of the family, all belong to the basic structure. The initial objective of the theory is to find a conception, the first principles of which provide reasonable guidelines for the classical and familiar questions of social justice in connection with this complex of institutions. These questions define the data, so to speak, for which the theory seeks an account. There is no attempt to formulate first principles that apply equally to all subjects. Rather, on this view, a theory must develop principles for the relevant subjects step by step in some appropriate sequence.

I. Justice as Fairness

My aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. In order to do this we are not to think of the original contract as one to enter a particular society or to set up a particular form of government. Rather, the guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association. These principles are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established. This way of regarding the principles of justice I shall call justice as fairness.

Roderick Firth: His Life and Work

We are most fortunate in having as speakers Rod Chisholm and Dick Brandt, two very close friends and contemporaries of Rod from the beginning of their academic careers. The two Rods,2 if I may so refer to them, were graduate students at Harvard together in the years 1938-42.3 Dick Brandt was on the Swarthmore faculty when Rod came there in 1945 and from then on they kept in close touch. As members of the first generation that became prominent after the war, Rod debated with Rod and Dick over a period of forty years the merits of their respective views. Mark Pastin and Bob Shope knew Rod as graduate students here. Rod was a reader of Bobs thesis and he was an advisor of Marks. They know his views intimately and Rod took a continuing interest in them and their work after they left Harvard.

The case for legalised euthanasia

We cannot be sure, until the Supreme Court decides the assisted suicide cases and its decision is published, how far the justices might have accepted or rejected the arguments of the brief published below. In this introduction I shall describe the oral argument before them last January, and offer some suggestions about how, if they decide against the briefs position, as many commentators now think they will, they might do the least damage to constitutional law.