Akatsuki1Chapter 8: ETHICS

Justice as Fairness

The Theory of John Rawls

(NOTE: You must read only those linked materials that are preceded by the
capitalized word READ.)

The first significant and unique contribution to the study of Ethics by an American
has been that of John Rawls, a Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He
developed a Theory of the GOOD as Justice and Justice conceived as Fairness. His
theory was developed to assist a society in ordering its affairs. His ideas have
influenced many lawmakers and Supreme Court decisions in the United
States. Among many examples are the laws for providing equal access to
opportunities for minorities and the disabled.

Rawls wants to use reasoning which all humans have to arrive at the principle of
the GOOD. He is similar to Kant in this regard. He wants to avoid the problems
with Kant's theory and he wants to avoid providing any justification for morally
outrageous actions which could be justified on utilitarian principles. He wants to
avoid the disadvantages of those approaches. His approach places humans in a
position wherein they view the moral dilemma or problem without knowing who
they are in the situation. What would rational beings decide was best in situations
where not all the humans involved are equal in physical conditions, social or
economic circumstance? Rawls believes that humans would resolve the conflict or
problem in such a way that whoever was worst off would be not as bad off as they
otherwise might be because the person making the decision does not know whether
they are going to be in the position of the worst off.

The Maxi Min Principle is the Principle of the GOOD

MAXIMIZE Liberty (opportunities)
MINIMIZE Inequalities (differences, disadvantages)
The most widely discussed theory of distributive justice in the past three decades
has been that proposed by John Rawls in his seminal work, A Theory of
Justice. (Rawls 1971) Rawls proposes the following two principles of justice:
(1) Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total
system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of
liberty for all.
 (2) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they
are both:
(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged,
consistent with the just savings principle, and
(b) Attached to offices and positions open to all under
conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
(Rawls 1971, p.302)
First priority rule:

Rawls proposes these principles, along with the requirement that (1) must be
satisfied prior to (2), and (2b) must be satisfied prior to (2a). Principle (1) and
Principle (2b) may also be thought of as principles of distributive justice: (1) to
govern the distribution of liberties, and (2b) the distribution of opportunities.
Looking at the principles of justice in this way makes all principles of justice,
principles of distributive justice (even principles of retributive justice will be
included on the basis that they distribute negative goods).

To understand Rawl’s Theory there are three ideas that need to be

understood. Here is a presentation of those three concepts by Professor R.J.
Kilcullen .
READ The Original Position -John Kilcullen
READ Decisions in The Original Position -John Kilcullen
READ The Liberty Principle -John Kilcullen

The main moral motivation for the Difference Principle is similar to that for strict
equality: equal respect for persons. Indeed the Difference Principle materially
collapses to a form of strict equality under empirical conditions where differences
in income have no effect on the work incentive of people. The overwhelming
opinion though is that in the foreseeable future the possibility of earning greater
income will bring forth greater productive effort. This will increase the total wealth
of the economy and, under the Difference Principle, the wealth of the least
advantaged. Opinion divides on the size of the inequalities that would, as a matter
of empirical fact, be allowed by the Difference Principle, and on how much better
off the least advantaged would be under the Difference Principle than under a strict
equality principle. Rawls’ principle however gives fairly clear guidance on what
type of arguments will count as justifications for inequality. Rawls is not opposed
to the principle of strict equality per se, his concern is about the absolute position
of the least advantaged group rather than their relative position. If a system of strict
equality maximizes the absolute position of the least advantaged in society, then
the Difference Principle advocates strict equality. If it is possible to raise the
position of the least advantaged further by inequality of income and wealth, then
the Difference Principle prescribes inequality up to that point where the absolute
position of the least advantaged can no longer be raised.

A great video on John Rawls Theory of Justice.

******************************
There is no one single main point of Rawl's A Theory of Justice, but one of its
main points is to try to move from equality to justice (hence justice as fairness) by
measured steps that rational persons would be able to embrace. In this regard it
may be the most plausible theory of justice that doesn't depend on emotion,
upbringing, self-serving prejudice, class consciousness, and so on.

1) All theories of human action, social organization, morality rest on idealized or

schematic persons and not real individuals. They are not fully scientific in the
contemporary sense but they are as close as you can get in morally relevant
contexts. Hence Rawls deals with representative persons and invests them with
several qualities - rationality, and reasonable self interest being two salient
features. If that shoe can't fit the reader then there would be no reason to read
further as nothing else will be entirely agreeable thereafter.

2) Rawls does not advocate in any form the equal distribution of resources or their
blind redistribution to the disadvantaged. Everyone who has thought the matter
through knows that these are socially wasteful distributions. The idea behind
Rawls' difference principle is to arrange before-hand (behind a veil of ignorance)
for a system of distribution of resources which will differentially reward the
socially useful so long as it will always also be to the advantage of the least well
off. So. e.g. if we determine that a sanitation engineer is necessary to a well
ordered society because his/her activities will be to everyone's advantage we have
reasonable grounds to award him/her a disproportionate portion of the available
pool of social wealth, and then so on down the line of socially useful pursuits (we
want to reward all socially useful activities, discourage the opposite and improve
the lot of those who may contribute little or even nothing). This we do theoretically
beforehand so we can in the blind determine what a 'just' distribution would be
like. Then we are in position to criticize actual distributions that substantially vary
from the distribution we selected as 'unjust'. - - -Stefan Baumrin, CUNY (by
permission)
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EXAMPLE of Possible Application of Rawls:

Person P is attempting to reach a conclusion as to whether or not to do action A or

which action (B,C or D) would be the morally correct thing to do. Well, for Rawls
a person would want to consider whether actions A B C D would support or violate
the principle of the moral GOOD which for Rawls is the maxi-min principle:

Maximize the liberty and freedoms of all involved. Do not restrict or deny the
freedom and choice of anyone involved in the situation.

Minimize the harms or the plight of the least well off in the situation or minimize
the differences in the welfare of the least well off as compared to those who are
most well off. Do not make matters worse for those already most disadvantaged in
the situation.

- - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -
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PROBLEMS:
Because there has been such extensive discussion of the Difference Principle in the
last 30 years, there have been numerous criticisms of it from the perspective of all
five other theories of distributive justice. Briefly, the main criticisms are as
follows.
1. Advocates of strict equality argue that inequalities permitted by the Difference
Principle are unacceptable even if they do benefit the least advantaged. The
problem for these advocates is to explain in a satisfactory way why the relative
position of the least advantaged is more important than their absolute position, and
hence why society should be prevented from materially benefiting the least
advantaged when this is possible. The most common explanation appeals to
solidarity: that being materially equal is an important expression of the equality of
persons. Another common explanation appeals to the power some may have over
others, if they are better off materially. Rawls’ response to this latter criticism
appeals to the priority of his first principle: The inequalities consistent with the
Difference Principle are only permitted so long as they do not result in unequal
liberty. So, for instance, power differentials resulting from unequal income are not
permitted if they violate the first principle of equal liberty, even if they increase the
material position of the least advantaged group.
2. The Utilitarian objection to the Difference Principle is that it does not maximize
utility. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls uses Utilitarianism as the main theory for
comparison with his own, and hence he responds at length to this Utilitarian
objection and argues for his own theory in preference to Utilitarianism (some of
these arguments are outlined in the section on Welfare-Based Principles a
3. Libertarians object that the Difference Principle involves unacceptable
infringements on liberty. For instance, the Difference Principle may require
redistributive taxation to the poor, and Libertarians commonly object that such
taxation involves the immoral taking of just holdings. (see Libertarian Principles
4. The Difference Principle is also criticized as a primary distributive principle on
the grounds that it mostly ignores claims that people deserve certain economic
benefits in light of their actions. Advocates of Desert-Based Principles argue that
some may deserve a higher level of material goods because of their hard work or
contributions even if their unequal rewards do not also function to improve the
position of the least advantaged. They also argue that the Difference Principle
ignores the explanations of how people come to be in the more or less advantaged
groups, when such explanations are relevant to the fairness of these positions.
5. The Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance may exclude some morally
relevant information. the theory excludes in order to promote rationality and is
biased in favor of rationality.
6. Some criticize it for being similar to Utilitarianism in as much as these two
principles could permit or demand inequalities and suffering in order to benefit the
least well off.
7. Like Desert theorists, advocates of Resource-Based Principles criticize the
Difference Principle on the basis that it is not ‘ambition-sensitive’ enough, i.e. it is
not sensitive to the consequences of people’s choices. They also argue that it is not
adequately ‘endowment-sensitive’: it does not compensate people for natural
inequalities (like handicaps or ill-health) over which people have no control.
8. There is also the difficulty in applying the theory to practice. It is difficult if not
impossible for people to place themselves under the Veil of Ignorance in the
Original Position in order to formulate what conduct would be required of them by
the MAXI MIN Principle.
9. Some question whether or not people are rational enough to assume the veil of
ignorance and operate under the two principles.
10. The theory was developed more to handle problems within society and there
are difficulties in applying the principles to individual decision-making involving
specific others.
Detailed Overview of the Theory of Justice -John Kilcullen
The Plight of the Poor in the Midst of Plenty by Jeremy Waldron A Review of
Rawl’s Collected papers at
Proceed to the next section.

Introduction to Philosophy by Philip A. Pecorino is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Return to: Table of Contents for the Online Textbook

Justice as Fairness
August 26, 2017
Justice as fairness refers to the conception of justice that John Rawls presents in A
Theory of Justice. This conception of justice concerns society’s basic structure—
that is, “society’s main political, constitutional, social, and economic institutions
and how they fit together to form a unified scheme of social cooperation over
time.”1

Rawls constructs justice as fairness in a rather narrow framework and explicitly

states, “Justice as fairness is not a complete contact theory.”2 Its purpose is to show
how we ought to allocate a cooperative surplus of resources to individuals in
society. As a result, justice as fairness relies on two implicit assumptions about the
societies in question: first, social cooperation is possible and can work to
everyone’s mutual advantage, and second, there exists a moderate surplus of
available resources to be distributed. Justice as fairness cannot be used to
determine the just distribution of sacrifices to be made by a society’s members
when resources are scarce. More generally, it cannot help us identify just social
policies in societies where background conditions (e.g., scarcity of natural
resources, cultural barriers, war) have eliminated the possibility of mutually
advantageous social cooperation.

The process for determining how the basic structure should be arranged is based on
a thought experiment in which rational, mutually disinterested individuals choose
principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance, a condition that specifies they
do not know specific details about themselves (e.g., personal values, race, gender,
level of income) or the society in which they live (e.g., societal stage of
development, economic circumstances). However, when choosing these principles,
the parties do possess general social, psychological, and economic knowledge, and
they also know that the circumstances of justice obtain in the society to which they
belong.

From this hypothetical initial situation, which Rawls calls the “original position,”
these individuals will presumably endorse two principles of justice. The first,
known as the equal liberty principle, is that “each person is to have an equal right
to the most extensive scheme of basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of
liberties for others,” and the second is that “social and economic inequalities are to
be arranged so that they are both reasonably expected to be to everyone’s
advantage, and attached to offices and positions open to all.”3
Rawls’ primary argument for the two principles is that they would be chosen over
any variation ofutilitarianism, which he considers the strongest opposition to
justice as fairness. Constrained by the veil of ignorance, the parties in the original
position (as mutually disinterested rational agents) try to agree to the principles
which bring about the best state of affairs for whatever citizen they represent
within society. Since the parties are all unaware of precisely what social role they
will occupy, they strive to maximize their individual shares of primary goods.
These goods are defined as “things that every rational man is presumed to want”
regardless of this person’s rational plan of life and include (among other
things) rights, liberties, social opportunities, and income.4 Rawls argues, largely
through the appeal to the maximin rule, that the parties in the original position
would favor the equal liberty principle over variations of utilitarianism. He further
argues that the parties would support using the difference principle to regulate the
distribution of wealth and income instead of a principle of average utility
(constrained by a social minimum) because the difference principle provides a
stronger basis for enduring cooperation among citizens.

The full application of justice as fairness can be regarded as a 4-stage sequence.

The deliberations concerning the two principles occur at the first stage. With the
two principles established, the parties then progressively thin the veil of ignorance
and, as they acquire more specific knowledge about society at the subsequent
stages, determine more specific principles of justice. At the second stage, the
parties learn more about society’s political and economic circumstances and create
a constitution that is consistent with the two principles. At the third stage, the
parties agree to laws and policies which realize the two principles within the
context of the agreed-upon constitutional framework. At the fourth stage, the
parties possess all available information about their society and apply the
established laws and policies to particular cases.

One of Rawls major tasks in presenting justice as fairness is to show that the
society it generates can endure indefinitely over time. To achieve this aim, Rawls
deploys the just savings principle, a rule of intergenerational savings designed to
assure that future generations have sufficient capital to maintain just institutions.
Additionally, Rawls argues that the society generated by the two principles is
congruent with citizens’ good and that citizens can develop the necessary
willingness to abide by these principles. As a result, the society generated by
adherence to justice as fairness is stable and can be expected to endure indefinitely
over time.

Notably, however, the arguments for the stability of justice as fairness that Rawls
presents in A Theory of Justice do not prove convincing. Rawls does not account
for reasonable pluralism, a critical aspect of any constitutional democracy with the
guaranteed liberties that Rawls specifies. Thus, Rawls recasts his arguments for the
stability of justice as fairness in Political Liberalism and strives to demonstrate that
citizens, despite reasonable disagreement about many issues, will agree on a
limited, political conception of justice through an overlapping consensus of their
individual viewpoints.

1. John Rawls, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (New York: Columbia

University Press, 2005), xli (fn 7).
2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition (Cambridge: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 15.
3. Ibid., 53.
4. Ibid., 54.

Justice as Fairness by John Rawls — A Summary

John Rawls, “Justice as Fairness,” The Philosophical Review 67, no. 2 (1958):
164–94.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182612

Section I claims that the fundamental idea for the concept of justice is fairness.
Section II introduces the two principles of this conception.

Section III explains how these two principles are arrived at.

Section IV pre-empts possible criticisms against justice as fairness as developed in

Sections II and III.

Section V sketches why fairness should be central to any concept of justice.

Section VI characterises the utilitarian conception of justice as one concerned with

efficacy.

Section VII discusses why such utilitarianism fails as a conception of justice.

The fundamental idea in the concept of justice is fairness. The paper will try to
justify this claim. It is this aspect of justice, i.e. fairness, that classical
utilitarianism fails to account for.

Three things should be kept in mind. First, justice is considered as a virtue of social
institutions (henceforth “practices”) and its function is essentially
distributive. Some clarifications. Justice considered only in its application to social
institutions because its application to social institutions is “basic” and may be
easily applied to other “subjects of justice” such as persons or particular actions
once its principles are established. The word “practice” is used as a technical term
meaning any form of activity specified by a system of rules which defines offices,
roles, moves. penalties, defenses, and so on, and which gives the activity its
structure

Second, justice is considered as only one of the many virtues of practices. Justice is
just one aspect of any conception of a good society. Third, the principles of justice
discussed below need not be seen as the principles of justice.

II

There are two principles of justice as fairness:

(a) first, each person participating in a practice, or affected by it, has an equal right
to the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all;

(b) and second, inequalities are arbitrary unless it is reasonable to expect that they
will work out for everyone’s advantage, and provided the positions and offices to
which they attach, or from which they may be gained, are open to all.

The term “person” could mean human individuals, nations, provinces, business
firms, churches, teams, and so on. In any case, the principles apply to all. The use
of the term is self-confessedly ambiguous.

The first principle expresses a presumption against “distinctions and

classifications” created by practices. Put another way, the first principle presumes
an original and equal liberty of all persons without ruling out deviations from this
state of equality.

The second principle defines what sort of deviations from this original situation of
equality — or inequalities — are permissible. These inequalities are not the
differences in offices and positions and the differences in benefits and burden that
ensue from them. First, only those inequalities are permitted which
benefiteveryone. This modification which requires that everyone must benefit from
the inequality disallows utilitarian justifications that appeal to the greater
magnitude of the benefits accruing to some compared to the burdens borne by
others. Second, those offices and positions of practices that have benefits attached
to them must be open for all to acquire through fair competition.

III

How are these two principles arrived at?

Imagine a society of persons where a system of practices is well in place. Now

suppose that they are, by and large, mutually self-interested. This means that they
are self-interested but not always so. They have loyalties to their families, nations,
churches and the like whose interests they also pursue. This does not imply
however that they are mutually self-interested under all circumstances. They are so
only when they participate in “common practices”.
Also, suppose also that they are rational meaning that (a) they know their own
interests, (b) they can foresee the consequences of their actions, (c) they can adhere
to their chosen course of action, (d) they can resist enticements for immediate gain,
and (e) they are comfortable with certain limited differences in their condition and
that of others. The last point is the only addition to usual definitions of rationality
and it implies that the rational man in not greatly worried by seeing others in a
better position unless that were the result of injustice. The rational man, in a word,
is free from envy.

Finally, suppose that they have similar needs and interests which enables their
fruitful cooperation and also that they are sufficiently equal in power and ability to
guarantee that in normal circumstances none is able to dominate the others.

This society of mutually self-interested, rational, and similarly situated persons,

since they already have a system of practices in place, can be imagined to regularly
discuss complaints about the practices they have set up. They first establish the
principles based on which their complaints will be judged by letting everyone
propose the principles based on which he thinks complaints should be tried. This is
done on the understanding that once the principles are adopted, they will be
binding on everyone in all future cases. This provision disallows principles that
may be peculiarly advantageous for a particular complaint as they will be, if
adopted, imposed on everyone for every complaint that might arise.
The two parts of this conjectural story have definite significance. The first part
reflects the typical circumstances in which questions of justice arise. Such
circumstances are those where conflicting demands are brought to bear on the
design of a practice by persons insisting on what they consider to be their rights.
The second part represents the constraints under which persons are brought to act
reasonably. The constraints are those of morality which, at the very least, imply
acknowledgement (a) of principles that must be pursued even if they conflict with
self-interest and (b) that principles must be applied impartially to all.
It is sufficient to remark here that having a morality is analogous to having made a
firm commitment in advance; for one must acknowledge the principles of morality
even when to one's disadvantage. A man whose moral judgments always coincided
with his interests could be suspected of having no morality at all.
Given the circumstances and the constraints specified by the two parts, it can be
seen how the two principles of justice put forth at the beginning of Section II might
come about. This is not offered as proof that those two principles will necessarily
be chosen but merely to show that those principles could be chosen.
 IV

Justice on this account appears to be a sort of pact between rational and egoistic
persons similar to the sort advanced by Glaucon at the beginning of Book II of
Plato’s Republic. However, this is not entirely so.
They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice bad, but that
the badness of suffering it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it that those who
have done and suffered injustice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it
and avoid suffering it, decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with
each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. As a result, they begin to make
laws and covenants, and what the law commands they call lawful and just. This,
they say, is the origin and essence of justice. It is intermediate between the best and
the worst. The best is to do injustice without paying the penalty; the worst is to
suffer it without being able to take revenge. Justice is a mean between these two
extremes. People value it not as a good but because they are too weak to do
injustice with impunity. Someone who has the power to do this, however, and is a
true man wouldn’t make an agreement with anyone not to do injustice in order not
to suffer it. For him, that would be madness. This is the nature of justice, according
to the argument, Socrates, and these are its natural origins.
The Republic, 358e–359b. from Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper,
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997) (See this if you don’t know what the numbers mean.)
First, the conjectural account does not advance any theory of human motivation (or
human nature) underlying the actions and decisions of persons. The account refers
simply to the fact, in the circumstances of justice, the different parties do press
their conflicting and competing claims on one another and do regard themselves as
representing interests which need to be considered. Second, the account does not
seek to explain the establishment of any particular society or practice as most
social contract theories set out to do. The different parties “jointly acknowledge
certain principles of appraisal relating to their practices [which are] eitheralready
established or merely proposed” (emphases added). Third, the account does not
imply that the parties are coming together for the first time. It applies even when
highly developed social institutions already exist. This means that the account is
not fictitious. In any society where people reflect on their practices, there will be
times when principles of justice would actually be discussed in the way sketched
by the account.
 V

Thinking about justice in the manner so described brings out the idea that fairness
must be central to justice. Rules of a practice are fair if they are accepted as
applicable by all concerned on the basis that they are legitimate. Similarly for
principles of justice. It is this idea of mutual acceptance (or mutual
acknowledgement) which makes fairness central to justice because when
understood through the conjectural account, the principles of justice arrived at are
what can be undoubtedly called as fair since they are premised on the notion of
mutual acknowledgement brought about by the condition that these principles are
binding on everyone. It is this notion of mutual acknowledgement that ensures a
community between persons and their practices based not on force.

If the rules of a practice are correctly acknowledged as fair, duties on the part of
the parties to act in accordance with those rules when it fall upon them to comply
are born. This is the duty of “fair play”. This obligation to abide by the rule does
not depend on any explicit contract acknowledging the practice but merely requires
knowing participation in and acceptance of the benefits of the practice.

The duty of fair play might enjoin upon the participants to sacrifice their self-
interests in particular situations. This is the expected consequence of the strong
commitment to the rules made in the general position (the situation described in
the conjectural account, see Section III). The acceptance of the duty of fair play
along with this constraint is recognition of the others as persons with similar
interests and capacities, as specified in the general position.
These comments are made in order to anticipate and forestall the misinterpretation
that the account presented of justice and fair play requires that there be de
factoequality in the general position. Such equality is important but is not the basis.
The recognition of one another as persons with similar interests and capacities
involved in a common practice is enough basis for the acceptance of the principles
of justice and the duty of fair play.
One consequence of the conception as explicated thus far is that there is no moral
value in satisfying a claim that is incompatible with it. Put concretely, there is no
moral value in the satisfaction derived out of something which one imposes on
others but would not accept for himself, regardless of the pleasure it generates.
 VI

For the classical utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham and Henry Sidgwick, justice
is a kind of efficiency. Justice is tied to benevolence and benevolence is brought
about through the most efficient design of institutions to promote the general
welfare.
... justice, in the only sense in which it has a meaning, is an imaginary personage,
feigned for the convenience of discourse, whose dictates are the dictates of utility,
applied to certain particular cases. Justice, then, is nothing more than an imaginary
instrument, employed to forward on certain occasions, and by certain means, the
purposes of benevolence. The dictates of justice are nothing more than a part of the
dictates of benevolence, which, on certain occasions, are applied to certain subjects
....
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,
1789, Ch. X, footnote 2 to section XL.
A common objection is that this would “justify institutions highly offensive to our
ordinary sense of justice”. This, of course, is the objection that the general welfare
could be bought at great particular cost. The greatest happiness of the many, to use
other words, could come at the expense of the greatest suffering of the few.
However, classical utilitarianism can answer this objection. For one, individuals
are considered as having roughly the same utility function and differences due to
accidents of birth and upbringing are ignored. Hence the maxim that each counts
for one and no more than one. For another, they accept the idea of marginal
diminishing utility according to which satisfaction derived from additional units of
a good diminishes. The implication here is that due to the operation of diminishing
utility, fantastic differences in levels of satisfaction (or utility) are unlikely to
occur. These two assumptions build a strong case for equality.

However, even if these assumptions actually operated and led to similar principles
of justice as the ones presented here, they would still be fundamentally different
from justice as fairness. Firstly, in the utilitarian conception, the principles of
justice are the contingent result of a higher administrative decision similar, for
instance, to that of an entrepreneur deciding how much to produce of this or that
commodity in view of its marginal revenue. Second, the individuals receiving the
benefits due to the utilitarian calculus represent so many different directions in
which limited resources may be allocated. Their enjoyment of the benefits value
irrespective of the moral relations between persons, say as members of a joint
undertaking.
It is assumed that justice will prevail so long as the administrator makes the correct
executive decisions based on utilitarian principles.
In this fact the principles of justice are said to have their derivation and
explanation; they simply express the most important general features of social
institutions in which the administrative problem is solved in the best way. These
principles have, indeed, a special urgency because, given the facts of human
nature, so much depends on them; and this explains the peculiar quality of the
moral feelings associated with justice.

VII

Many social decisions are of course administrative decisions. And classical

utilitarianism can properly account for many of these decisions about social utility.
However, as an interpretation of the principles of justice, classical utilitarianism
fails.

For one, it allows one to argue — this is not to say that any of the classical
utilitarians ever did — that slavery is unjust because the disadvantage to the slaves
outweighs the advantages to the slaveholder. Slavery is unjust, no doubt, but not
for this reason. The point is not whether the disadvantages to one party can
outweigh the advantage of the other, which is what utilitarianism considers, but
simply that slavery is not in accordance with principles that can be mutually
acknowledged, which is what justice as fairness says, and it is for this latter reason
that slavery will always be unjust. For justice as fairness, slavery is unjust by
definition.
The question whether these gains [accruing to the slaveholders] outweigh the
disadvantages to the slave and to society cannot arise, since in considering the
justice of slavery these gains have no weight at all which requires that they be
overridden. Where the conception of justice as fairness applies, slavery is always
unjust.
The classical utilitarian might retort that it is not always true that the disadvantage
to the slaves outweighs the advantages to the slaveholder. He might insist that
there could be, in principle, cases where the advantages to the slaveholders
outweigh the disadvantages to the slaves and that in such case, slavery would not
be wrong. Indeed, in such cases, slavery would be right. He would contend that
utilitarianism is correct/justified in giving no special weight to justice above and
beyond the basic concern with effectiveness. That’s to say, if slavery is unjust, it
should be for reasons of effectiveness only. That justice as fairness, in accordance
with common moral opinion, finds slavery unjust is just a useful accident or error.
But reasons of justice do have a special weight which utilitarianism cannot account
for but justice as fairness can. The defence of slavery is never that it is sufficiently
advantageous to the slaveholder to outweigh the disadvantages to the slave. If
someone does make this claim, he would be guilty of a moral fallacy. This is
because slavery does not ensue from principles that could be accepted by the
slaveholder anymore than it would be by the slave. As such, the advantages or
disadvantages that result from slavery have no moral significance. That’s to say,
the slaveholder has no moral title to the advantages which he receives as a
slaveholder. Such (morally arbitrary) advantages then cannot be grounds for
defending any practice, slavery included, as just.
Amongst persons in a general position who are debating the form of their common
practices, it cannot, therefore, be offered as a reason for a practice that, in
conceding these very claims that ought to be denied, it nevertheless meets existing
interests more effectively. By their very nature the satisfaction of these claims is
without weight and cannot enter into any tabulation of advantages and
disadvantages.
This criticism of utilitarianism does not depend upon whether or not the
assumptions of similar utility functions for individuals and diminishing marginal
utility (see Section V) are understood to be psychological/scientific or
moral/political. However we consider them, the mistaken belief in the intrinsic
value of satisfaction of (moral and psychological) desires which disregards the
relations between persons still remains.

To see the error of this idea one must give up the conception of justice as an
executive decision altogether and refer to the notion of justice as fairness: that
participants in a common practice be regarded as having an original and equal
liberty and that their common practices be considered unjust unless they accord
with principles which persons so circumstanced and related could freely
acknowledge before one another, and so could accept as fair.

VIII

“By way of conclusion I should like to make two remarks: first, the original
modification of the utilitarian principle actually has a different conception of
justice standing behind it. I have tried to show how this is so by developing the
concept of justice … [which] involves the mutual acceptance, from a general
position, of the principles on which a practice is founded, and how this in turn
requires the exclusion from consideration of claims violating the principles of
justice.
Second, … I have been dealing with the concept of justice. …Societies will differ
from one another … in the range of cases to which they apply [the concept of
justice as fairness] and in the emphasis which they give to it as compared with
other moral concepts. A firm grasp of the concept of justice itself is necessary if
these variations, and the reasons for them, are to be understood.”

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wuishiu394
I am a chronic procrastinator. View all posts by wuishiu394
Posted onDec 14, 2017Authorwuishiu394CategoriesJustice and Equality, Political
PhilosophyTagsJohn Rawls, Justice, Justice as Fairness, Political
Philosophy, Summary, The Philosophical Review

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