Rawlsian Contract Approach

1. Rawlsian Contract Approach • Attempts to reconcile utilitarianism and intuitionism. • Theory of distributive justice: account of how rights, duties, goods etc. should be distributed by a society.

2. Intuitionism: • Consists of a number of first principles that may conflict with one another and that give contrary directives in particular types of cases. • Does not include an explicit method, not priority rules for weighing one principle against another. • Examples: equality, autonomy, benevolence, non-malfeasance, efficiency.

3. Utilitarianism • Utilitarianism:(greatest overall good) suffers because we believe that there are limits on the way individuals can be legitimately sacrificed for the benefit of others.

4. Rawls’s General Conception of Justice • “All social primary goods—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored” (TOJ 303)

5. Details of the General Conception: • Justice: equal share owed to all with the proviso—we only remove those inequalities that disadvantage someone. • Inequalities that benefit everyone are allowed provided they improve my initially equal share but are not allowed if they invade my fair share. • This is not a full theory of justice because we still need a priority principle.

6. Special Conception of Justice • First Principle: 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. • Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both, • To the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. • Attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

7. Special Conception of Justice (Cont.) • First Priority Rule (The Priority of Liberty) – the principles of justice are to be ranked in lexical order and therefore liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty. • Second Priority Rule (The Priority of Justice Over Efficiency and Welfare) – the second principle of justice is lexically prior to the principle of efficiency and to that of maximizing the sum of advantages; and fair opportunity is prior to the difference principle.

8. Equality of Opportunity • Our commonly held view is that inequalities are justified if there was a fair equality of opportunity i.e., if no one was disadvantaged by their race, sex, or social status. • Example $100,000 salary vs. national average of $20,000: such unequal incomes are often considered just regardless of whether or not the less well off benefit from that inequality.

9. Why do we believe the ideology of equal opportunity is fair? • We believe peoples’ fate should be tied directly to their choices and effort. • Outcomes are therefore “deserved”.

10. Social and Natural Inequalities • It is true that undeserved social inequalities are not fair, and there is another type of inequality, namely, undeserved natural inequalities. • Same unjust effects derive from natural inequalities as they do with social inequalities. • Natural inequalities are arbitrary from a moral point of view.

11. Social Contract Argument • Social contract argument is an argument about what sort of political morality people would choose were they setting up society from an original position. • The contract that Rawls is proposing is a device for teasing out the moral implications of certain moral premises concerning people’s moral equality—Model of Moral Equality.

12. Figure 1. Method of R. E. Initial Situation Yields Principle. Shared Conditions of the Initial Situation. Considered Judgments Principles Compared with Considered Judgments. Principles Match Judgment ? Revise Judge. ? Done

13. Original Position: State of perfect equality • Corrects on the natural inequalities between individuals by placing a ‘veil of ignorance’ over the contractors in the original position. • Class position/Social status • Natural assets: Intelligence; Strength • Conception of the good • Psychological propensities

14. Original Position constitutes an intuitive test of fairness. • Reasonable constraints on arguments for principles of justice. • Cannot tailor principles to one’s biases. • What principles would be chosen? While we do not know what position we will occupy or what goals we will have, there are things we will want or need for a good life.

15. O.P. and Primary Goods • Social Primary Goods: goods that are directly distributed by social institutions like income, wealth, opportunities and powers, rights, liberties. • Natural Primary Goods: goods like health, intelligence, vigor, imagination and natural talents that are affected by institutions but are not directly distributed by them.

16. Outcome of the Original Position • Result of the O.P. is benevolence. • What counts as a rational distribution: Maximin Strategy – maximize what you would get if you wound up in the minimum or worst off position in society.