A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic rights, equality of opportunity, and promoting the interests of the least advantaged members of society. Rawls's argument for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people select what kind of society they would choose to live under if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy.

Rawls accepts that there is sheer inequality in the society owing to liberal capitalist system. In stark contrast to communists he isn’t in favour of demolishing the existing system to remove inequalities. Rather, He believes in distributive justice and is eager to equally distribute Liberty, Opportunity income and wealth. He concedes that it’s almost impossible to distribute all social values justly therefore he is willing to accept inequality to extent if it’s rigged in favour of weakest segment of the society. However, there is a question that who will ensure distributive justice and on what Principle? Rawls believes that people together shall ensure justice at their Original Position behind veil of ignorance.

Original Position is a hypothetical situation prior to the starting of society at which people are going to decide the principles that will govern the society they will live in. At original position, people will be behind veil of ignorance meaning thereby they would be unaware of their actual position, geographical location, religion, profession or their talent in the world.

Resultantly people would give credence to two principles of justice

First Principle: Equal Liberty

Second Principle: (a) Difference Principle: Inequality is justified if it favours the weakest segment of the society: Taxing the rich to spend on poor

Second Principle: (b) equality of opportunity

Criticism: The agreement that stems from the original position is both hypothetical and ahistorical. What if someone wants to gamble at original Position? What if the priorities with respect to justice are different at original position? Can we really bring equality in capitalistic system?

John Bordley Rawls (February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral and political philosopher in the liberal tradition.He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University and the Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Oxford. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls's work "helped a whole generation of learned Americans revive their faith in democracy itself”