John Rawls, a Theory of Justice as Fairness

PINISI Discretion Review, 2020

John Rawls's theory of Justice is one of the most influential conceptions of justice. Scholars have continued to study it to understand the principles in the formation and to further frame it in the context of contemporary situations. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion by presenting Rawls’ concept of “justice as fairness” as it evolved from the traditional conception of justice to the modern-shift in the concept. The paper also examines Rawls’s concept of justice as fairness, and it focuses on analyzing or studying the concept of justice as fairness in terms of the principles used in its formulations. Several criticisms developed by political philosophers to critique the idea were examined. In conclusion, it was argued that Rawls's invention of the veil-of-ignorance for the original position has affected the theory negatively.

2019

This dissertation is a critical analysis of John Rawls’s theory of justice in its historical and philosophical context. To that end, his works from A Theory of Justice (1971) to Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001) are examined. Not only Rawls’s theory of justice but also his approach to metaphysics and metaethics are also tackled to understand justice as fairness deeply. While setting out Rawls’s main arguments and theses, a critical approach is adopted with his foremost critics. This study thus searches for answers to the questions such as whether Rawls’s theory is workable, what does he precisely defends, what does he aim at with justice as fairness, and whether it is consistent or not. Unfortunately, it is seen that Rawls fails to propose a coherent egalitarian as well as liberal theory of justice. Hence, he could not reconcile the ideas of freedom and equality.

The Difference Principle Beyond Rawls, 2008

I presented this paper in August 2008 at the XXII World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul, South Korea. It is forthcoming (2010) in the Proceedings of that conference. John Rawls (1921-2002) and Jurgen Habermas (born 1929) are widely considered the most important and influential moral, social, and political philosophers to have written since 1950. In this paper I propose a modified Rawlsian theory of social justice (that I call "Justice as Fair Rights") which is an elaborated version of earlier versions of this theory that I put forward in "Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice" (Princeton University Press, 1990) and "Towards a More Adequate Rawlsian Theory of Social Justice" (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Special Issue on John Rawls' Political Liberalism, 75, nos. 3 & 4, Sept. Dec. 1994). It is, in part, a response to John Rawls's acceptance of three modifications I proposed to his theory in my 1990 "Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice" -- and his rejection of one other -- as indicated by him in his "Political Liberalism" (Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 7) and his "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement" (Harvard University Press, 2001, pp.44-45).

John Rawls is one of the most prominent American political and ethical philosophers of the 20th century. His major work is ‘’A Theory of Justice’’ where he set the foundations of Rawls’s construction of the original position considers that the people or hypothetical contractors of the social contract are placed behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, which makes them unaware of their particular circumstances. Justice as fairness is a sophisticated version of the well- known idea of social contract, presented by Rawls. His ideas were considered highly ambitious and progressive. They won enormous praise and inspired many authors to generate literature based on his texts. Besides that, critics have followed Rawls’ works, detecting weaknesses on certain aspects of his theory of justice.

Theory and Decision, 1983

Philosophical Papers, 2010

John Rawls' famous work is based on a definition of justice as fairness that is neither necessary (justice may want to be fair but doesn't have to be) nor sufficient (justice also involves e.g. punishment, control, and retribution). Where Rawls is a rationalist, I propose an alternative " four quadrants " view based on the classical notions of the cardinal virtues and the four causes, arguing that each quadrant is an essential moment of the truth, while Rawls' and most modern philosophers' arguments rest on the notion that only the quadrant of reason/temperance/formal cause matters and the other three (final, material and efficient causes, or the virtues of justice, wisdom and courage) do not exist in their own right, but can be derived from reason alone, or ignored. This is wrong and leads to damaging consequence that I investigate.