John Rawls (from his book A Theory of Justice)

       A) Introduction

              1) Summary:  In a nutshell, Rawls' theory claims that:  There are two principles which make a society just, the difference principle and the principle of equal liberty.  The principle of equal liberty states that members of a society should have the maximum amount of liberty that is compatible with an equal amount of liberty for everyone.  The difference principle has two conditions:  first, that all social positions be available to all members of that society, and second, that differences in social welfare be to everyone's advantage.

              2) Not a complete moral theory:  The first thing to note about Rawls' theory is that it is not a complete moral theory, and Rawls'  himself never claimed that it is.  That is to say, it is intended to deal with only a small number of moral issues.  Specifically, Rawls' theory only attempts to answer the question of how we ought to structure society (e.g., capitalist, socialist, libertarian, etc. - or some mix of these) in order that it be a just society.  The type of justice that Rawls is concerned with is distributive justice, which concerns how things (e.g., money, rights, power, property) ought to be distributed among the members of a society.  Rawls is not talking about procedural justice, criminal justice, or any sort of courtroom related justice;  that is simply not his concern.  His only concern is to give a theory of what the best (i.e., most just) social structure would be.  If the issue you are considering does not have to do with the distribution of goods in society, then Rawls' theory was not intended to apply (though some similar approach might be appropriate).

       B) Further details about the theory

              1) Elucidation of the principle of equal liberty:  The principle of equal liberty is not difficult to understand.  A liberty is like a negative right, it is something that one is allowed to do (e.g., vote, make public speeches, etc.) or something which one can expect to be protected from (e.g., arrest without warrant, theft, etc.).  Rawls puts the principle like this:

...each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.60)

The principle basically says that members should be given fairly extensive basic rights (like those that we are familiar with in the United States), and that everyone should have the same amount of rights (i.e., no person should be denied basic liberties or given special liberties).

                       a) Note:  This principle seems like it can be taken in two ways.  Taken by itself, this principle seems to requires that everyone have the same rights.  However, when considered in connection with the difference principle, it can be argued that inequalities in rights are justified when they improve the well-being of the worst off individual in society.  Either one of these interpretations could be reasonably taken to be Rawls' position.  However, I suspect that the correct interpretation is a bit more complex.  Allow me to explain.  Rawls may be distinguishing liberties from other rights.  Liberties are like negative rights, and these must be equally distributed.  However, positive rights can be given unequally if doing so will improve the well-being of the worst off in society.

              2) Elucidation of the difference principle:  The difference principle concerns how economic differences are to be dealt with.  Rawls states the principle like this:

...social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all. (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.60)

The second part of the difference principle is simple.  All economic positions should, in principle, be available to every member of society.  By "in principle" I mean that it does not have to be that every person has a good chance of being the richest person in the society, just that no person be barred by social rules or conventions from achieving such a position.  The first part of the difference principle is more complex.  What Rawls means by this is that if society is structured so that some people are better off (e.g., financially) than others, this must result in everyone being better off than if the society were structured so that everyone was equally well off.  For example, imagine that there are 20 people in a society and they all work in an ice cream factory.  They are trying to decide how to structure their society.  They could all do the same kind of job and all get the same pay, say $1000/month.  They could also diversify their jobs, which would involve some people doing harder jobs than others, but would make the factory more profitable, so they could afford to pay the hard workers more money, say $1500/month.  The difference principle says that diversifying (and having different pay) is only just if it is to everyone's advantage (i.e., if it results in everyone earning more money than they would under the other system - more than $1000/month).  If even one person is earning less than $1000/month because of diversifying, then Rawls would claim that the just system is the one that is not diversified.

       C) Rawls' argument for the theory:  Rawls has a very interesting argument for this theory.  He claims that these two principles of justice are completely rational, that is to say, a perfectly rational group of people would agree to these two principles.

              1) The veil of ignorance:  He asks us to imagine what he calls a veil of ignorance, which is a device such that when you are behind it you forget who you are and what characteristics you have (such as your sex, race, intelligence, wealth, sexual preference, religion, strength, health, etc.) but you retain general knowledge of social structures and other things.  He then argues that if we imagine a group of people under this veil of ignorance trying to decide on a social structure, then we will see that these people would choose his two principles of justice as the basis for deciding which social structure to live in.  Rawls does not tell us which social structure (e.g., capitalism, socialism, etc.) does in fact satisfy his principles, he merely tells us what to look for in a social structure.

              2) The connection to justice:  Rawls claims that whatever principles of justice that would be chosen by a group of people under a veil of ignorance, would be the correct principles of justice.  This is because people under the veil of ignorance could not be influenced by personal bias, since they knew nothing about themselves on which they could base such a bias.  No one under the veil of ignorance would choose to disadvantage any particular group (such as blacks) because they could not be sure that they themselves were not a member of that group.  So, Rawls argues, the principles of justice chosen under the veil of ignorance must be completely fair.

       D) Attacking Rawls' theory:  This is not too difficult using counter-examples.  The best place to attack is the difference principle.  Rawls claims that given a choice between a society with no inequalities where everyone is doing pretty poorly, and a society where one person is doing very poorly and everyone else is doing extremely well, that one should choose the society where everyone is doing poorly.  This is based on an even more questionable claim that if you were to forget who you were under the veil of ignorance, that you would choose to live in the society where everyone is doing poorly, supposedly because you were so scared that if you chose the other society that you would be the one person doing very poorly.  Let me tell you, I certainly wouldn't make that choice, and I doubt that any reasonable person would;  In a society of 250 million, it's a pretty good bet that you aren't going to be the one person who ends up doing very poorly - and even if you do, very poorly isn't that much worse than poorly.

       E) Defending Rawls' theory:  I'm not convinced that there is a very good response to the objection just presented, but there are ways of making the theory sound substantially more appealing.  The place that needs defense is the difference principle, and this can be made to sound fairly reasonable.  The difference principle winds up claiming that the just social system is the one where social positions are open to all, and where the worst off individual is better off that the worst off individual in any other alternative society.  This translates into the claim that inequalities are justified if they make the worst off people better off.  This might sound like a silly standard, but you can demonstrate that it is a principle that we implicitly use in our own society.  Many social programs are justifiable by this principle.  Social programs give rights to a certain group in society, and often this group is defined by their being in the worst off position.  For example, those who are below the poverty line have the right not to pay taxes, which is justified because it improves the lot of the worst off individuals.  The welfare system gives those of low income a right to a government stipend which those who are better off do not have a right to.  This is justified because it improves the well being of the worst off in society.  These are two cases which you can use to make the difference principle seem plausible.  It will likely be argued against this that in fact everyone in our society has the right to welfare if they fall to a certain level, so this example does not support Rawls' theory because everyone has these rights.  That is a very faulty response.  Rich people do not have the right to a welfare check, because they are rich.  The fact that if they were to become poor, they would gain that right does not mean that they have that right when they are rich, they don't.  Analogously, a six year old does not have the right to vote, they will gain it at some future time, but when they are six they do not have it.  In both cases the objector is mistakenly confusing potential rights with actual rights.