Monday, 19 December 2016

John Rawls and Just Society



What is truth to scientific theories, justice is to social and political institutions. A theory however elegant if false cannot be justified, similarly an institution however efficient cannot be legitimate if unjust.------John Rawls.

Is it right to sacrifice rights of few to make masses happy? Is it right to sacrifice few to save many? Is it right to take organs of a healthy person without his consent to save lives of five? Utilitarianism seems to answer affirmatively to these perplexing moral questions. But, John Rawls seem not satisfied. He is a fierce advocate of human rights. For him, a just society constitute of rational, free an equal peoples.

What is a just society? For answering this fundamental question, he resorts to a thought experiment. How would divide a cake if you do not have any prior information as to which part of the cake you would get. Probably, you would divide it fairly. Suppose, if you had any prior information regarding which piece of the cake you would get, you would not have been such honest. This, John Rawls called, famously, as veil of ignorance.

How to conceive a just human society by veil of ignorance.  What is more important distribution of income or possession of human rights. If faced by such choice as to whether one would like to be born into a rich inegalitarian society with minimal human rights or a poor egalitarian society with atleast basic human rights, a logical person would chose second. This fact has been psychologically proven too. So, John Rawls concludes a just society could be conceived behind veil of ignornace where no party has any prior information and advantage but everyone agrees to similar conception of a just society.

But provided that we have such unequal and highly inegalitarian society; could it be justified? For this, Rawls gives two cardinal principles on whether such inequality which is pervasive feature of todays society could be justified.
(1) The inequality should be accessible and open to all.
(2) Such inequalities could be justified only if the benefits of it accrues to the advantages of least well of.

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