PHIL 177 Notes 9/10

Rawls Theory of Justice

“it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper”

Inequality can only be justified if the benefit those who prosper get also positively affects others.

- Why is this true? What if the benefit you get will have no effect on others? Is that bad? Or is it
just not realistic?

If you think about the initial situation well, you will undoubtedly be led to reject utilitarianism as
something the people would actually choose.

Rational person = someone who wants to find the fastest, most efficient way to benefit him/herself.

As a rational being, you would want a theory of justice to be in place in a society cause that might
benefit you. Which is probably almost always true, because living in a society is better than on your own

Contract = everyone in the society has to agree to it

A conception of justice is good if the people participating in it are rational and agree with it.

Circumstances of the original position: everyone has the same power over the choices being made
(equality), no one knows what social/economic status they will be in, everyone has the ability to
understand any rule that is proposed.

But do these conditions result in the creation of the best principles of justice? Supposedly, there are
things that societies without a doubt know their “justness”, like religious discrimination. So we’re sure
that is a correct principle. It’s on the topics we don’t agree on that this initial situation concept is useful
to crystallize our true moral beliefs.

You can then compare your society’s principles with the hypothetical principles in this scenario and
revise, until you reach “reflective equilibrium”.

The two derived principles of justice:

1. Everyone has the same right to freedoms

2. Any unequal advantage is equally accessible to all and benefits everyone in society. Otherwise,
all values are distributed equally.

So injustice = an inequality that does not benefit everyone/

“In general, the expectations of representative persons depend upon the distribution of rights and
duties throughout the basic structure. When this changes, expectations change. I assume, then, that
expectations are connected: by raising the prospects of the representative man in one position we
presumably increase or decrease the prospects of representative men in other positions.”
So people inheriting a bunch of money does not benefit society, so is it unjust to inherit?

This reminds me of the charter school convo in class, where a charter school might benefit some, but
make the public schools around it worse off. According to Rawls, this would be unjust.

“if the parties assume that their basic liberties can be effectively exercised, they will not exchange a
lesser liberty for an improvement in economic well being”

- Basically says that, people will only give up their rights when their rights are already not valued
in society. Proof?

Maximin rule: in the initial position, we would try to make the worst possible scenario as good as
possible, because we might be placed in that.

But wait, why would people agree that an inequality should benefit everyone? Because technically, all
they really need is equal opportunity. If they’re born at the bottom of the barrel, they can still rise up
and fuck over other people with equal opportunity. Or does the inequality affect everyone’s
opportunity? It probably does.

^^ you can only gamble like that if you’re pretty sure that you will be able to rise up AND the worst case
scenario is not that bad AND the potential gain is huge for you. For the opposite scenario, you would
likely follow the maximin rule.