individual to hand over some (most, all) of the ‘rights’ he enjoys in the ‘state of
nature’ to a coercive authority. Rawls differs from the classical theorists by taking
it for granted that social cooperation under a state is normally a good thing, and
so the focus of his theory is not the justification of the state but the distribution of
the ‘benefits’ and ‘burdens’ of cooperation under a state. The benefitsare material
goods, personal freedom and political power. The burdensinclude not only any
inequality which may arise, but the fact that principles will be coercively enforced
- we are required to obey the state. Rawls developed his theory of justice in
opposition to the then dominant utilitarian one, and we will have more to say about
utilitarianism in our discussion of Rawls.
Before we set out Rawls’s method for choosing ‘principles of justice’ and discuss
what principles would be chosen, two very important points must be made:
- A theory of justice applies to what Rawls calls the ‘basic structure’ of society.
There is some ambiguity about this concept, but for the purposes of the present
discussion we can say the basic structure consists of those institutions that
fundamentally affect a person’s life chances. Included would be the structure of
the economy – the rules of ownership and exchange – and the provision of services
such as health and education, as well as constitutional rights that define how
much freedom a person enjoys. - While Rawls has been influential on the left of politics, he is a philosopher rather
than a politician. What is at issue is the basic structure of society, and not the
detailed policy decisions that may be made within that basic structure.
Furthermore, Rawls is not aiming to persuade merely a majority of people to
endorse his theory – he is not fighting an election – but rather offering arguments
that no reasonable person could reject: he is aiming for unanimity.
The original position
Rawls’s theory has two parts: an explanation of how we decide what is just, and
a discussion of what he believes we would decide is just. We start with the first
part. Rawls employs what he terms the original position. The original position is
a thought experiment – you are asking a ‘what if?’ question: what if such-and-such
were the case? It is not a ‘place’ – you only ‘go into’ the original position in a
figurative sense. The most important feature of the original position is the veil of
ignorance: you do not know your class and social position, natural assets and
abilities, strength and intelligence, particular psychological characteristics, gender,
to which generation you belong, who your family and friends are and, perhaps most
controversially of all, your conception of the good – that is, your ideas about what
makes life valuable or worth living, such as your religious and philosophical beliefs,
but which are not necessarily shared by other people (Rawls, 1972: 12). You do
know certain general things about your circumstances. You know you live in a
society characterised by moderate scarcity: there are enough resources to satisfy
basic needs and leave a significant surplus to be distributed, but that surplus is not
sufficient to overcome conflict between people over its distribution. Rawls assumes
that people want more rather than less of the benefits generated by cooperation.
As well as knowing your society is marked by moderate scarcity you also have a
general knowledge of psychology and economics.
Chapter 4 Justice 79