Very Brief Rawls
April 21st 2008 23:17
Rawls argues that to decide what is just we must imagine what rules people designing a society would agree to live under, he calls the position the people designing these rules are in the original position. In the original position people must be behind a veil of ignorance, they must not now what position in society they hold otherwise their decision about what rules to accept will be based on this knowledge. The people Rawls is imagining in this scenario are self interested so if they are aware of their position in society they will simply to seek to maximize this position. Added to this argument is the idea that being behind a veil of ignorance helps to remove morally arbitrary characteristics from considerations about justice. Whether you are born male or female or black or white is morally arbitrary and should have no effect on our considerations of what is just.
John Rawls claims that in this position people would be ultra cautious and would follow a principle he calls maximin, by this he means that people would want to maximize the lowest positions in society, pick the option which has the best worst outcome. John Rawls claims the principles people would pick are an expansive set of liberties as compatible with the liberty of others. Equality of opportunity, and perhaps most controversially a principle which states that inequality is only just if it improves the position of the worst of people in society.
The principles of justice Rawls suggests will by no means be universally accepted, however the original position is an interesting and powerful thought experiment when it comes to discussing the nature of justice.
John Rawls claims that in this position people would be ultra cautious and would follow a principle he calls maximin, by this he means that people would want to maximize the lowest positions in society, pick the option which has the best worst outcome. John Rawls claims the principles people would pick are an expansive set of liberties as compatible with the liberty of others. Equality of opportunity, and perhaps most controversially a principle which states that inequality is only just if it improves the position of the worst of people in society.
The principles of justice Rawls suggests will by no means be universally accepted, however the original position is an interesting and powerful thought experiment when it comes to discussing the nature of justice.
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