John Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971) is a social contractarian and a qualified egalitarian because he doesn't believe all inequalities are unjust.
SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORISTS advocate forming societies and their agreements as the outcome of tacit or explicit contracts between individuals or groups. Thus some social contract theorists envisage a state being formed by individuals as the best way of advancing their mutual interests: they contract with the state to protect and enforce the terms of this bargain, and to do no more than that. Rational, collective choices make and enforce morals by agreement. This is a moral, political and economic theory.
Rawls: "...society is a more or less self-sufficient association of persons who in their relations to one another recognize certain rules of conduct as binding and who for the most part act in accordance with them...these rules specify a system of coperation designed to advance the good of those taking part in it."
But, "There is a conflict of interests since persons are not indifferent as to how the greater benefits produced by their collaboration are distributed, for in order to pursue their ends they each prefer a larger to lesser share. A set of principles [of social justice] is required for choosing among the various social arrangements which determine this division of advantages and for underwriting an agreement on the proper distributive shares."
EGALITARIANS hold that justice consists in equal treatment: Every person should be given exactly equal shares of a society's benefits and burdens. Where there is no relevant, legitimate difference between people, there must be equal treatment. So goods or services should be allocated to people in equal portions. Humans differ in their abilities, intellect, talents, virtues, needs, desires, industriousness etc.
PROBLEM for Egalitarians: Not all are equally deserving of equal treatment. Lazy people get as much as industrious people do; sick people get as much, and no more than, healthy people do. If everyone is given exactly the same, then no one has any incentive to work hard or excel, thus efficiency and productivity decline.
The problem for both: It is difficult if not impossible to guarantee peaceful, willing, COOPERATION when there are inherent conflicts of interest and disparities in the distribution of social goods.
Social Contract Justice: IF everyone would meet to decide in advance what kind of society we could have, AND if there were unanimous agreement on the basic rules for setting-up and governing that society, AND if the resulting society faithfully adhered to those rules, THEN it would be a just society.
Rawls: JUSTICE must be associated with fairness and the moral equality of persons, and not just reduced to what is socially useful. Principles of justice assign rights and duties and distribute equitably the benefits and burdens of social cooperation.
Imagine people start form the ORIGINAL POSITION: the hypothetical situation from which free, rational, mutually disinterested but equal people concerned to further their own interests meet and contract.
mutually disinterested = not taking an interest in one another's interests
They will choose basic principles assigning rights and duties that will govern their society solely on the basis of shared (rational) self-interest. Such principles of fairness will regulate all further interactions and agreements. This is a purely hypothetical position devised to produce justice (as fairness).
rational = taking the most effective means to given end (viz. a mutually assured distribution of goods)
Imagine further that these people are behind a VEIL OF IGNORANCE: No one knows what social situation or economic status one has in society—no personal information about themselves or their propensities or their personal circumstances; sex or race info is not available (they do not know whether they are rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, bright or dim, lazy or hard-working). This ensures no one is advantaged or disadvantage in the choice of principles.
Acknowledging these constraints, autonomous, self-interested contracters will accept the self-imposed principles agreed to.
Rawls contends that any principles agreed to under these circumstances have a strong claim to be considered the principles of justice. We identify genuinely equal and fair principles of justice when people produce principles all would agree to under conditions of equality and free choice. [PROBLEM: They would choose P, so we should choose P?]
"Since all are similarly situated [in the original position] and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain ... This explains the propriety of the name 'justice as fairness': it conveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation that is fair." (TJ, p.12)
The veil of ignorance forces people in the original position to be objective an impartial, this makes agreement about basic ground rules possible. But the veil is temporary, so people will not choose self-sacrificing or hardship-inducing rules: ultimately, people will be unwilling to risk personal happiness for the greater good. Contracters will not select a noble-serf feudal arrangement of power and wealth.
ANALOGY: If we make up a game and all agree ahead of time, freely and equally, on how the game is to be played, nobody can later complain that the rules are unfair.
What principles would such people choose? Rawls argues that people in the original position would follow the MAXIMIN RULE for making decisions (a conservative decision principle):
Maximize the minimum you that one will receive.
Rational agents would choose principles guaranteeing that the worst that could happen to them is better than the worst that could happen to them under any rival principles. Rawls argues that they would agree on two principles. The first states that each person has a right to the most extensive scheme of liberties compatible with others having the same amount of liberty. The second principle states that to be justified, any inequalities must be to the greatest expected benefit of the least advantaged and open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
Two basic principles of (economic and social) justice we would, in the original position, select if we were to use a fair method of choosing principles to resolve social conflicts.
The distribution of benefits or burdens in a society is JUST if and only if:
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. Arrange social and economic inequalities so that they are both (a) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity, and (b) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. [This latter point is the "difference principle".]
3. When principles conflict, (1) takes priority over (2), and (2a) takes priority over (2b).
Principle (1) refers to freedom of speech-acts, person, conscience, religion, politics. When a more extensive liberty is possible, without inhibiting the liberty of others, it would be irrational to settle for a lesser degree of liberty. E.g. Permitting right-turns at red traffic-lights enhances our liberty to get where we want to go.
Principle (2a) refers to social and economic inequalities in wealth, power, prestige, rewards and salaries. Permit jobs or social positions that have greater rewards as long as they are open to all.
Principle (2b) allows inequalities only if they benefit the least well off. Original position contracters will divide goods and liberties equally expecting to be no worse off than any other. But they will not divide wealth equally when paying people more as an incentive to do difficult or dirty work would benefit everyone by providing the highest minimum standard of living. Physicians and janitors earn more because they help to keep society well and sanitary. Result: Permitting some people to be better off than average resuls in the least-well-off being better off than it would if social and economic equality were imposed.
UTIL permits and produces an unfair distribution of burdens and benefits: the tyranny of the majority subjugates the weak and least advantaged. Would people really CHOOSE that some have less, so that others may prosper, when all may be guaranteed an equal distribution of goods? Contracters desiring to protect their own interests will not endure any loss for themselves in order to produce a greater net balance of satisfaction. Rational agents would not accept a set of principles that just raised the sum of advantages.
Social cooperation of equals seeking mutual advantage is inconsistent with the any principle putting some (possibly oneself) at a disadvantage. Given a choice, the principle of reciprocity overrules any principle of utility: everyone's well-being depends on cooperation.
UTIL is not concerned, except indirectly, with the distribution of happiness: our attachment to distributional issues, e.g. to equal rights, liberties, treatment, etc., is no doubt useful, but from a philosophical point of view a mistake.
Rawls' difference principle excludes the (cold utilitarian) "justification of inequalities on the grounds that the disadvantages of those in one position are outweighed by the greater advantages of those in any other position." "Rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests."
Contrary to the libertarian entitlement theory (which makes society competitive) he argues that the primary focus of justice should be in establishing a basic equitable social structure, not just legal transactions between individuals. Any economic system requires institutions to "secure free and fair background conditions against which the actions of individual can take place." Without regulating inequalities, an initially just social process will eventually cease to be just since some will acquire and exercise advantages (in transactions and contracts) others do not have. [Q.v. p.110-1 in the text.]
He contends that society is a cooperative project for mutual benefit and that justice requires that we minimize social and economic consequences of arbitrary natural differences among people.
Even strengths of character and cultivated skills reflect the environment in which one is raised and not what one deserves. We have no strong claim to the rewards these personal characteristics might bring. Actually the least advantaged are better off if our socio-economic system does not gain or lose given natural differences.
Individuals do not deserve benefits that result from natural talents: it's as much a matter of luck that one has those talents as of the class into which one is born, and since one doesn't deserve the latter, one cannot be said to deserve the former. [Read Rawls excerpt on p. 112 in the text. TJ, p101.]
"We see then that the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset and to share in the benefits of this distribution whatever it turns out to be. Those who have been favored by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out. The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits more favorable starting place in society. But it dos not follow that one should eliminate these distinctions. There is another way to deal with them. The basic structure can be arranged so that these contingencies work for the good of the least fortunate. Thus, we are led to the difference principle if we wish to set up the social system so that no one gains or loses from his arbitrary place in the distribution of natural assets or his initial position in society without giving or receiving compensating advantages."Thus, acc. to Rawls, society can be a cooperative project for mutual benefit.
"In designing institutions they undertake to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit."
How do we justify moral principles when they conflict with intuitions? Answer: Use RE. We re-examine any conflicting intuitions in the light of those principles and revise them until our well-considered intuitions are fully in harmony with our considered principles.
Narrow reflective equilibrium results when one has been "presented with only those descriptions which more or less match one's existing judgments except for minor discrepancies."
Wide reflective equilibrium results when one has been "presented with all possible descriptions to which one might plausibly conform one's judgments together with all relevant philosophical arguments for them" (p.49). Once we have considered these principles, "our knowledge of these principles may suggest further reflections that lead us to revise our judgments." Wide reflective equilibrium is the state where your principles and considered judgments are in harmony with each other, and will no longer be disturbed by considering any further principles.
The quest for narrow reflective equilibrium will leave one's sense of justice more or less unchanged, except perhaps for smoothing out a few irregularities; but the quest for wide reflective equilibrium may make one's sense of justice undergo a radical shift. While the former more closely reflects the method of descriptive syntactics, it is the latter, Rawls suggests, that one is concerned with in moral philosophy. In this way, moral philosophy is a project, not just of describing one's sense of justice, but of rationally revising it.
Rawls assumes (1) that it is OK for a person to rely on her sense of justice; and (2) that it is necessary for our ethical judgments to be principled - it must be possible to formulate appealing general principles that support all of a person's reasonable or warranted ethical judgments.
But are these dubious assumptions correct?
These are serious problems for any philosophical account of how our ethical beliefs can be justified or made more rational. Nevertheless, there seems to be no other method to use if we are to devise a conception of justice that could form the basis of a well-ordered society, which is what Rawls hopes to do. We have nowhere to start from except the beliefs about justice that we already hold; and mere appeal to intuition will not help us to achieve agreement through rational discussion - we need to advance at least some distance towards more general principles of justice.
According to John Rawls, "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory, however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of the society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many."