Each person has an equal claim to basic rights and liberties

Rawls Made Easy As Easy As I Can Make Him by hilzoy As both a background to Sebastian's post on Rawls and a justification of my own views, here's a short version of Rawls' arguments on justice. In what follows, I'll indicate, at some points, which texts I'm drawing on; I'll refer to A Theory of Justice as TJ, and Political Liberalism as PL.

The Basics: The basic question Rawls sets out to answer is (not coincidentally) one I raised in a previous post, namely: given several different ways of structuring the basic institutions of society (or, as I said in my posts, the rules of the game), how do we decide which is just? Note a few points: (1) He is talking about the rules of the game, not ad hoc interventions. (2) He limits his inquiry to justice within a society, and assumes that the society in question exists in conditions of "moderate scarcity", meaning that "natural and other resources are not so abundant that schemes of cooperation become superfluous, nor are conditions so harsh that fruitful ventures must inevitably break down" (TJ 127.)

His answer is, basically: a just system is one that would be chosen by people in what he calls the 'Original Position'. (Trust me: all the off-color jokes involving this phrase have already been made.) In the Original Position, people know all sorts of general facts about the world, including not just science but also economics. However, they do not know any particular facts about themselves: their race, their gender, their specific views about what kind of life they want to lead, their religion and values, and so forth. They do know, however, that they have some view about what sort of life they want to lead; they just don't know which it is.

They are also assumed to be fully rational, and mutually disinterested. 'Mutual disinterest' means that while, for all they know, they may care about all sorts of other people in real life, in the Original Position they are concerned to maximize their own good. Note that the better off I am in real life, the more I can do to help others, so making this assumption in the Original Position enhances my ability to be generous in the real world, if I want.

So the basic idea is: we decide what principles we should use to assess the rules of our society as if we didn't know who we would be, or even which kind of person we would be -- born rich or born poor; black, white, Asian, Native American, or whatever; Catholic, Muslim, atheist, Jain, or an adherent of some other religion; smart or not so smart; male or female; and so on. What we would choose under those conditions determines what rules are just.

According to Rawls, under these conditions people would choose the following principles as criteria by which to assess social institutions:
I. Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme for all.
II. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.

(These are generally referred to as 'the two principles'.) So: why does Rawls say these things? I'll consider first his argument for the Original Position, and then his argument for the two principles. Posted by hilzoy at 12:48 AM Permalink June 28, 2006