Javad Heydari in Conversation with Sedanet: “John Rawls’s Theory of Justice”

John Rawls is, on the one hand, the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century, for the reason that he is the most-cited political philosopher of the twentieth century; on the other hand, he is the most spiritual political philosopher in the history of Western thought, for the reason that he had a lifelong concern for justice and focused his attention on injustices related to race, class, religion, and war.

Before Rawls, a long stagnation prevailed in the fields of political philosophy and moral philosophy, resulting from the combined influences of positivism and Marxism, because these schools were, in various ways, skeptical of any form of moral thinking. Positivism reduced morality to feelings, emotions, and excitements that were not truth-apt, and Marxism also reduced morality to class, which was likewise not truth-apt. In the second half of the twentieth century, centered on John Rawls, real and substantive political and moral questions were taken seriously and found new life. With his masterpiece, A Theory of Justice, Rawls transformed both the subject and the method of moral and political philosophy from the ground up. He defended the belief that morality is not limited merely to the analysis of moral concepts and the study of moral language, but rather morality must bring us into confrontation with first-order questions.

Hence, Rawls turned both political philosophy and moral philosophy upside down. He transformed morality from a sterile subject into a serious and lively discussion, and revolutionized ethics in two respects. The first respect is that before Rawls, most discussions in moral philosophy were under the domination of discussions in the philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. For example, if we asked whether abortion is the right thing to do or not, before Rawls they would say that to answer this question, we need to know what the meaning of "good" and "bad," "ought" and "ought not," "right" and "wrong" is. How can these moral judgments be known, if indeed they are knowable? Can moral judgments and verdicts be true, and what makes them true or false? But Rawls delivered ethics from this "fruitless captivity"; he said the question "Is abortion the right thing to do or not?" is a real, first-order question, and we should not entangle ourselves in unreal, second-order questions like the meaning of "rightness" and "wrongness" and their "knowability" or "unknowability"; we must answer the question, and do so with moral reasoning, not evade answering by posing the aforementioned questions. The second respect is that before Rawls, individual ethics was mostly under consideration, but Rawls employed ethics for judging and evaluating the performance of "institutions," and in this respect, he created an immense transformation in ethical discussions. He brought ethics into discussions of "public policy"; thus, ethics became relevant in the decisions of very important institutions: concerning war, taxation, health, insurance, education, punishment, and so on.

Rawls's students, who possessed extraordinary intelligence, acumen, and power of thought, formed a unified intellectual community that had a single outlook on real ethical questions (normative ethics) and also on the best method for answering them. This community took the shape and form of an informal institution (as a discussion group) that called itself SELF; an acronym for Society for Ethical and Legal Philosophy. This intellectual group was organized by Thomas Nagel and Robert Nozick in 1967, which provided the means for meetings of philosophers, legal scholars, and political theorists interested in real ethical subjects (whether concerning politics, law, or personal conduct). The members of this group consisted of these prominent thinkers: John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, Ronald Dworkin, Derek Parfit, T. M. Scanlon, and others. For several consecutive years, once a month during the year, alternately in New York and Cambridge, they would gather together, and each of them would present a work they were currently working on to the group for serious analysis and critique. The result was the creation of masterpieces in the fields of legal philosophy, political philosophy, and moral philosophy, each of which, in the following decades, completely changed the subjects and methods of its own field of research.

Rawls’s central problem was this: “How can people whose interests and values potentially bring them into conflict live together in a shared world according to moral principles.” Three elements are of key importance in this formulation: a) moral principles; b) conflict of interests; c) conflict of values. It can be said that Rawls’s entire intellectual project was elaborated in response to this formulation of the central problem of political theory. The book A Theory of Justice deals with resolving the conflict of interests, and the book Political Liberalism deals with resolving the conflict of values. There is no room here to address the question of what relation and connection exists between interests and values. Are these two separate from one another, do interests arise from values, or values from interests? Here we will only address the problem of resolving the conflict of interests, based on the book A Theory of Justice.

The works of John Rawls are of vital importance for contemporary political philosophy. His book, A Theory of Justice (1971), turned its back on the utilitarian tradition that dominated political and moral theory at the time, and also turned its back on a current in analytic philosophy that defended the redundancy and even the uselessness of normative theorizing. But Rawls not only offers a systematic and meticulous critique of utilitarianism, but also a convincing, wide-ranging, and excellent defense of the liberal alternative. Rawls’s justice as fairness is the official manifesto of liberal political philosophy. Justice as fairness is a theory against which almost all subsequent works in Anglo-American analytic political philosophy are compared and measured.

Here we will outline the main contours of Rawls’s central idea: his critique of utilitarianism on the one hand, and his theory of justice on the other.

Rawls’s Critique of Utilitarianism

Rawls’s conception of liberal justice is rooted in his two critiques of utilitarianism.

1) Utilitarianism ignores the ‘separateness of persons’

The first problem with utilitarianism, according to Rawls, is that it adopts an idea about an individual—that he is a selfish, rational being—and applies that idea to the whole of society. In the view of utilitarians, an individual has various preferences and chooses a course of action that satisfies as many of those preferences as possible. In the same way, a utilitarian society should choose a course of action that satisfies the various preferences of as many of its members as possible.

But Rawls says there is a very important difference between the individual and society. For any individual, it is reasonable to say that the satisfaction of some preferences may compensate for the non-satisfaction of other preferences: the fact that I am eating ice cream for dessert compensates for the fact that I cannot eat cake. But this cannot be true for the whole of society. Utilitarianism, at the social level, imagines an impartial spectator, that is, a perfectly rational individual who can observe the preferences of the members of society and then decide which members’ preferences should be sacrificed and whose should be satisfied. In doing so, the impartial spectator treats the members of society not as separate individuals but as parts of a whole. If I want the nation’s money to be spent on education, but it is spent on defense, nothing consoles me, and those who supported defense spending are now happy. From the perspective of the impartial spectator, their happiness outweighs my bitterness, but from the perspective of individuals, there is no corresponding benefit. According to Rawls, this means that utilitarianism ignores the separateness of persons and treats individuals as though they are merely members of a group, ignoring their personal and moral values and interests.

Furthermore, Rawls argues that sacrificing the happiness of some in order to increase the happiness of others is unjust. What matters for utilitarians is the overall level of happiness in society, not the level of happiness experienced by any single individual. Thus, it seems, for example, that a utilitarian would have no moral objection to persecuting minority groups if doing so made the majority happier. Indeed, utilitarianism appears to require such persecution! Similarly, if society’s overall utility could be increased by authorizing public executions, suppressing minority religions, or imprisoning climate change skeptics, utilitarianism apparently requires a state capable of doing such things. But, as Rawls puts it, such a conclusion is counter-intuitive and wrong. Instead of leaving the minority vulnerable to the mistreatment of the majority, a theory of justice should protect the minority and safeguard the basic rights of all individuals so that they cannot be violated—regardless of whether doing so increases overall happiness. In Rawls’s words, ‘Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override’ (Rawls 1971: p. 3)

2) Utilitarianism has a mistaken understanding of the relationship between the right and the good

Rawls’s second problem with utilitarianism is that this theory is teleological and not deontological. Teleological theories begin with the stipulation that there is an end or good toward which the whole of society should be directed. These theories derive the principles of morality and justice from that good. For utilitarians, the good is utility, and therefore the right (doing the morally correct thing) is whatever maximizes this good of utility. But, in Rawls’s view, modern societies are filled with citizens who hold different views about the nature of the good. Teleological theories ignore the fact that individuals have their ‘own conception of the good’ which may or may not resemble anyone else’s.

Moreover, utilitarianism requires everyone to subordinate their own interests and desires to a general good (overall utility) and also asks us to engage in utilitarian calculations in our daily lives and in matters of personal morality. In this way, as Rawls puts it, this theory does not take seriously each individual’s personal motivations, moral convictions, or the forms associated with moral reasoning: it does not view individuals as ends in themselves but rather as means by which the broader ends of the whole society can be achieved. Should I go to the shop or stay home and watch television? Should I read a book or make a peace offering to our neighbor? The answer to these questions is always the same for utilitarians: I should do whatever produces the greatest good for all. But, as Rawls puts it, it is not fair to ask everyone always to place the overall happiness of society above their own reasonable interests. Human beings may have a moral conviction to act in a way that does not produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, or they may simply wish to engage in personal pursuits that bring happiness to themselves and not to others. Why, from a moral standpoint, should homosexuals conceal their sexual orientation to increase the pleasure of those who are fearful of homosexuals? Why, from a moral standpoint, should women submit to a norm based on sex discrimination to satisfy the pleasure of the majority that favors sex discrimination?

Rawls’s Positive Theory

Rawls’s challenge is to offer an alternative to utilitarianism that can preserve the separateness of persons, take seriously the aspirations and desires of each individual citizen, and create a stable and cohesive society. He does this by rejecting the teleological approach of utilitarians such as Bentham and Sidgwick, and instead shifts toward the deontological approach defended by Kant. A teleological approach, like utilitarianism, derives the right from the good, but a deontological approach, like Rawls’s, defines the right independently of and prior to the good. Thus, Rawls does not regard the right as that which maximizes a predetermined good. Instead, the right is a constraint on action and acts as a constraint on the conception of the good that a person can reasonably pursue. Therefore, if a person’s conception of the good entails treating others unjustly, then that conception of the good is set aside. In this case, Rawls’s argument first asks us to arrive at what justice is and then to apply this conception of justice in two instances: (a) as a guide for the operation of social and political institutions and (b) as a constraint on the kind of life that human beings can legitimately pursue.

The Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance

So, how do we arrive at what justice is? Rawls asks us to imagine ourselves in a hypothetical situation called the original position. We can think of the original position as a situation prior to the formation of society. People in the original position come together to decide what principles of justice should govern a society. In some respects, they are like contracting parties in a state of nature choosing social rules. However, they do not want to decide whether forming a society is rational or not. They know they will live in a society, so instead they want to decide how that society should be organized and what principles of justice they should adhere to.

To make the principles of justice fair, Rawls stipulates that people in the original position must be deprived of a certain kind of knowledge about themselves and others. This deprivation of knowledge is called the ‘veil of ignorance.’ Rawls specifies three types of things that are hidden behind the veil of ignorance:

1_ Social Status: In the original position, you do not know whether, when you are placed in the society you are contemplating, you will be rich or poor, a member of the aristocracy or the working class, a leader or a servant. You also do not know whether the job you will have will be low-ranking or high-ranking, whether you will be at the bottom of the social pyramid or at the top.

2_ Talent: When you place yourself in the society you have designed, you do not know whether you will have high intelligence or low intelligence, whether you will be strong or weak, or what you will be good at.

3_ Conception of the Good: Your conception of the good is the set of ideas or beliefs you hold about how you should live. In the original position, you are deprived of knowledge about your own conception of the good. You do not know what you will believe once the veil of ignorance is lifted.

Why should fairness require the veil of ignorance? The point is that people are most likely to choose principles of justice that will be fair if they are under conditions of ignorance.

Imagine two people have a cake. Each person is to have one piece of the cake, and each wants to get as large a portion of that cake as possible for themselves. Only one person can cut the cake. In this situation, the fairest way to divide the cake is for the first person to cut it and the other to choose which of the two pieces to take. In this way, the person cutting the cake knows that the other person will choose the largest piece. Therefore, it is in the cutter's interest to cut the cake as fairly as possible so that the two pieces are as similar as possible. If the person cutting the cake does not know which piece they will end up with, they will cut the cake fairly. On the other hand, if they know which piece they will get, they will cut the cake unfairly and make their own piece larger.

A similar idea lies behind the veil of ignorance. People in the original position will choose principles of justice that make a fair judgment among different types of people, because they do not know what type of person they will become. If you know that you will be an upper-class atheist, you might choose a system of justice in which upper-class atheists obtain more rights and resources compared to others. But, if you know instead that you might be a working-class Muslim, then you would seriously consider that things like rights and wealth should not depend on class and religion, and this is a fairer outcome.

Thus, the idea of the veil of ignorance is the denial of people's knowledge of their own particular circumstances: knowledge that people might use to skew the principles of justice in their own favor. If they do this, these principles will not be fair. Therefore, in order to elaborate fair principles of justice, it is essential that people be unaware of their own particular circumstances.

However, if the original position is to truly generate fair principles of justice, other requirements are necessary. Let us return to the cake example. Imagine you are cutting the cake and you know that the other party is very modest and humble. Although they like cake very much and, if left to themselves, would like to eat as much cake as possible, their natural kindness and humility lead them to take cake after others. Therefore, if you know this and if your conscience does not trouble you, you will not cut the cake fairly. Instead, you will cut the cake into one small piece and one larger piece, knowing they will take the small piece. If you ask them to cut first, they will also cut unfairly, feeling that others deserve more than themselves.

If fairness is to be preserved in this type of situation, everyone must pursue their own self-interest. In other words, everyone must think only of their own position and not the position of others. Therefore, Rawls stipulates self-interest as another condition of the original position: thus, in this position, people pursue self-interest and are also rational. Hence, people in the original position calculate and prefer the best thing for themselves. In this way, the chosen principle will be fair.

This is not to say that the principles chosen in the original position are based on selfishness and individualism; rather, the crucial point is the role of the veil of ignorance. Imagine that we are all in a political philosophy class and are asked to agree without delay on the principles of justice governing the class. If we are asked to do this using self-interested rationality, each of us will selfishly defend principles that bring the greatest benefit to ourselves. Women will defend principles that benefit them, tall men will defend principles that benefit them, and so on. But if we use self-interested rationality from behind the veil of ignorance, we are forced not to be selfish but in fact to carefully examine what it is like to be every and any person in this class. Since we do not know whether we are male or female, tall or short, and things of this sort, we must imagine what it would be like if we were any of these. We might imagine that it is difficult for a short person to be stuck at the back of the class. We might imagine that if there were a rule that only women or tall men are allowed to be note-takers, you would not like this situation if it turned out you were a man or short. The original position, far from encouraging selfishness, encourages us to imagine what it is like to put ourselves in the place of each and every different person. Thus, the original position encourages us toward sympathy, kindness, and above all, fairness.

Therefore, we must be deprived of certain information to ensure fair outcomes. But why should the veil of ignorance keep talent, status, and especially conceptions of the good hidden? The reason these three are placed behind the veil of ignorance is straightforward and vital: they are veiled to safeguard core liberal values such as freedom and equality and to constitute individuals as free and equal persons.

The veil of ignorance safeguards equality by keeping talent and status hidden. Talent and status, in Rawls's view, are the two main forms of inequality. Talent, in this sense, can refer to anything that society values, whether that value is intelligence, strength, the ability to sing or dance, or profiting from the stock market. One reason some people have more resources and opportunities compared to others is that these individuals perform better at the kinds of tasks society values.

Status is another key factor in creating inequality. A person's position in the class system can affect their opportunities regarding education, employment, housing, and so on. A person's position in the gender and racial structure can affect their success in the labor market. Such a position influences how a person is viewed, treated, or expected to behave within a particular culture.

Thus, Rawls argues that a just system can only be one that respects equality and does not allow people's status and talent to determine their life prospects. Because status and talent are the two factors that most affect equality, they must be set aside when choosing principles of justice.

But why should people in the original position not be aware of their conception of the good? The aim here is to safeguard freedom. Imagine that people who are not aware of their conception of the good are to choose the principles of justice. Imagine that 80 percent of the people are fundamentalist Christians and the other 20 percent are atheists and belong to other religions. When these people choose the principles of justice, the Christian majority could impose Christianity as the official and compulsory religion of society. If they know that they are fundamentalist Christians, they will argue that the state must compel all citizens to be Christian, that only Christian teachings should be available, and that all non-Christians must be punished. In such a society, there will be no religious freedom. People cannot choose or change their conception of the good. In such a society, even those who are Christian will not be free, because they cannot leave their religion.

Rawls argues that the crucial aspect of freedom is the ability to choose and change one's conception of the good. If this is the case, then if the principles of justice are not chosen independently of any conception of the good, such principles will not safeguard freedom. Therefore, the conception of the good must be behind the veil of ignorance.

Thus, the original position has emerged specifically to protect and safeguard the liberal values of freedom and equality. This position is not an open path for deducing first principles, but rather begins its work from the first principles of freedom and equality and moves from there toward the principles of justice.

The Two Principles of Justice

Rawls argues that the parties in the original position would choose two principles of justice. He describes the two principles as follows:

1_ The First Principle of Justice: 'Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others' (Rawls 1971: p. 60);

2_ The Second Principle of Justice: 'Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity' (Rawls 1971: p. 83).

These principles are usually referred to by their abbreviated forms. The first principle is called the principle of equal basic liberty. The second principle (a) is called the difference principle and the second principle (b) is called the principle of equality of opportunity.

Rawls also tells us how to resolve conflicts between these principles. The principle of equal basic liberty is the most important principle. One cannot undertake any action that violates this principle, even if it observes the other two principles. Next is the principle of equality of opportunity, and finally the difference principle.

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John Rawls's Theory of Justice

Javad Heydari in Conversation with Sedanet

Host: Omid Ghaempanah

Friday, March 5, 2021

Held on Sedanet's Instagram

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