Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice

Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice John Rawls was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. His theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights and cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. His theory of political liberalism explores the legitimate use of political power in a democracy, and envisions how civic unity might endure despite the diversity of worldviews that free institutions allow. His writings on the law of peoples set out a liberal foreign policy that aims to create a permanently peaceful and tolerant international order.

Four Roles of Political Philosophy

Rawls sees political philosophy as fulfilling a minimum of four roles during a society’s public culture. the primary role is practical: philosophy can propose grounds for reasoned agreement when sharp political divisions threaten to steer to violent conflict. Rawls cites Hobbes’s Leviathan as an effort to unravel the matter of order during English war , Locke’s Letter on Toleration as responding to the Wars of faith , also because the philosophy that emerged from the debates over the US Constitution, and from debates over the extension of slavery before the American war .

A second role of political philosophy is to assist citizens to orient themselves within their own social world. Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice Philosophy can meditate on what it's to be a member of a particular society—in a democracy, an equal citizen—and offer a unifying framework for answering divisive questions on how people thereupon political status should relate to every other.

A third role is to probe the bounds of political possibility. Political philosophy must describe workable political arrangements which will gain support from real people. Yet within these limits, philosophy are often utopian: it can depict a social order that's the simplest that we will hope for. Given humans as they're , philosophy imagines laws as they could be.

A fourth role of political philosophy is reconciliation: “to calm our frustration and rage against our society and its history by showing us the way during which its institutions… are rational, and developed over time as they did to achieve their present, rational form” (JF, 3). Philosophy can show that human life isn't simply domination and cruelty, prejudice, folly and corruption; but that, a minimum of in some ways, it's better that it's become because it is.

Rawls views his own work as a practical contribution to resolving the long-standing tension in democratic thought between liberty and equality, and to limning the bounds of civic and of international toleration. He offers the members of democratic countries how of understanding themselves as free and equal citizens of a society that's fair to all or any , and he describes a hopeful vision of a stably just constitutional democracy doing its part within a peaceful international community. Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice, To individuals who are frustrated that their fellow citizens and fellow humans don't see the entire truth as they are doing , Rawls offers the reconciling thought that this diversity of worldviews results from, and may support, a social order with greater freedom for all.

John Rawls’ Theory of Justice

Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice Rawls’s solution to the challenge of legitimacy in a liberal society is for political power to be exercised in accordance with a political conception of justice. A political conception of justice is an interpretation of the fundamental ideas implicit in that society’s public political culture.

A political conception is not derived from any particular comprehensive doctrine, nor is it a compromise among the worldviews that happen to exist in society at the moment. Rather, a political conception is freestanding: its content is set out independently of the comprehensive doctrines that citizens affirm. Reasonable citizens, who want to cooperate with one another on mutually acceptable terms, will see that a freestanding political conception generated from ideas in the public political culture is the only basis for cooperation that all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse. Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice The use of coercive political power guided by the principles of a political conception of justice will therefore be legitimate.

The three most fundamental ideas that Rawls finds in the public political culture of a democratic society are that citizens are free and equal, and that society should be a fair system of cooperation. All liberal political conceptions of justice will therefore be centered on interpretations of these three fundamental ideas.

Because there are many reasonable interpretations of “free,” “equal” and “fair,” there will be many liberal political conceptions of justice. Since all the members of this family interpret the same three fundamental ideas, however, all liberal political conceptions of justice will share certain basic features:

1. A liberal political conception of justice will ascribe to all citizens familiar individual rights and liberties, such as rights of free expression, liberty of conscience, and free choice of occupation;

2. A political conception will give special priority to these rights and liberties, especially over demands to further the general good or perfectionist values (e.g., to promote a particular view of human flourishing);

3. A political conception will assure for all citizens sufficient all-purpose means to make effective use of their freedoms.

Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice These abstract features must, Rawls says, be realized in certain kinds of institutions. He mentions several demands that all liberal conceptions of justice will make on institutions: a decent distribution of income and wealth; fair opportunities for all citizens, especially in education and training; government as the employer of last resort; basic health care for all citizens; and public financing of elections.

The use of political power in a liberal society will be legitimate if it is employed in accordance with the principles of any liberal conception of justice. By Rawls’s criteria, a libertarian conception of justice is not a liberal political conception of justice. Libertarianism does not assure all citizens sufficient means to make use of their basic liberties, and it permits excessive inequalities of wealth and power. Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice By contrast, Rawls’s own conception of justice (justice as fairness) does qualify as a member of the family of liberal political conceptions of justice.

Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory

Within each sub-domain of the political Rawls also follows a sequence: ideal theory before non-ideal theory. Ideal theory makes two sorts of idealizing assumptions about its material . First, ideal theory assumes that each one actors (citizens or societies) are generally willing to suits whatever principles are chosen. Ideal theory thus idealizes away the likelihood of law-breaking, either by individuals (crime) or societies (aggressive war). Second, ideal theory assumes reasonably favorable social conditions, wherein citizens and societies are ready to abide by principles of political cooperation. Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice Citizens aren't so driven by hunger, for instance , that their capacity for moral reasoning is overwhelmed; nor are nations struggling to beat famine or the failure of their states.

Configure John Rawls’ theory of justice Completing ideal theory first, Rawls says, yields a scientific understanding of the way to reform our non-ideal world, and fixes a vision (mentioned above) of what's the simplest which will be hoped for. Once ideal theory is completed for a political sub-domain, non-ideal theory are often began by regard to the perfect . as an example , once we discover ideal principles for citizens who are often productive members of society over an entire life, we'll be better ready to frame non-ideal principles for providing health care to citizens with serious illnesses or disabilities. Similarly, once we understand the perfect principles of diplomacy , we'll better see how the international community should act toward failed states, also as toward aggressive states that threaten the peace.