The Main Idea of the Theory of Justice

A summary of and some thoughts on my reading of John Rawl's A Theory of Justice (revised edition) (1999) section 3 "The Main Idea of a Theory of Justice":

Traditional social contract theories are a set of rules for those entering a given society, or under a given governance structure. John Rawls abstracts this idea and considers social contract theory from a pre-societal position, which he calls the Original Position. Starting the construction of our social contracts from the Original Position allows us to engineer a society that has justice built in to its structure, rather than trying to make the most of an existing structure which may have injustice and inequities built in to it. From the Original Position we are to develop principles that "...free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association".

Social contract theory is by its own terms social in nature. It relates to how we govern and interact as a society. The rights that we accord to each other relate to how we treat each other, both directly and in terms of access to and use of the technosocial system which we inhabit. Our interests are shaped by our psychology and our physiology; the architecture of our personhood and its embodiment. Rights relating to these are (relatively) fixed to that embodiment, but rights relating to the society that we inhabit are relative to what is available.

Rawls points out that the Original Position is not intended to be a historical state, it is a hypothetical state. By starting from the Original Position we consider how things should be. Rawl's hypothetical starting point includes a 'veil of ignorance'. In constructing a society and rights we should do unknowing of our particular circumstances and interests. In this way we can create for all, not just for ourselves or our own world view. A simple analogy is of cake cutting; if one cuts a cake into portions without knowing (or being able to influence) which portion they will receive, then they will be best served by cutting the cake into equal portions or at least with no portion smaller than the minimum acceptable size. In this way looking after your own interests also looks after the interests of others.

Although those born into a society have not explicitly agreed to the social contract, but in a justly organised society its citizens should be able to reflect and recognise that even if their personal circumstances are not to their liking that the societal structures are just and fair (assuming of course that they are!). Recognition from citizens of what makes for a just society, and assuming these are (largely) realised, and that it "...meets the principles which free and equal persons would assent to under circumstances that are fair" provides implicit consent.

Rawls argues that in the Original Position people are likely to adopt some mix of two strategies; the first is "equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties" and the second is the 'minmax' strategy which accepts inequalities providing they bring around "...benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged of society".

Rawls - The Status of Majority Rule

Next up on the reading list is section 54 of Rawls' A Theory of Justice: The Status of Majority Rule.

I have difficulty reading Rawls. I largely agree with him and think he has sound arguments, but I tend to get a little lost in his exposition. So, this attempt at a summary will be a cheeky walkthrough to produce only a sentence from each paragraph.

1. Majority rule (e.g. democracy) is, hopefully, an instrumental good in that it brings about a legislative state of affairs grounded on the principles of justice (loosely liberty and equality).
2. It does not follow that what the majority wills is right, which is why we need constitutional limitations, though (interesting multiculturalism angle) we should be wary that entrenched minorities may use these limitations to preserve their illicit advantages.
3. A just constitution is "...defined as a constitution that would be agreed upon by rational delegates in a constitutional convention who are guided by the two principles of justice" and the Viel of Ignorance (VI) and Original Position (OP) come into play here as part of a conceptual ideal procedure.
4. A law or policy is just if it could be arrived at via the ideal procedure (VI and OP).
5. A problem with majority decision as an instrument of reaching a correct decision is that people influence each other (lots of human interaction stuff here: group think, evaluation apprehension, social loafing, etc... hmm... perhaps law making needs a fresh looking using the group decision making and creativity literature)
6. There are some benefits from having lots of people involved in decision making though, the exchange of opinion "...checks our partiality and widens our perspective"
7. So we want an ideal procedure.. but don't have it at the moment
8. An ideal political process is different to an ideal market process, because you won't get an efficient outcome if everyone only considers their own interest
9. We can't really bring about an ideal procedure (where people make the laws), we must rely on a certain extent on the people being just, but we should still aim to move towards it
10. Because of the equality principle, in the ideal procedure everyone's vote has equal weighting; one *cough* man one vote, which is a bit different to the ideal market, though I don't know why we should be caring about the ideal market at this stage
11. For any given legislative choice there may be a range of possible outcomes in the 'outcome landscape' that could be considered to be just
12. The role of majority decision making is to choose policies that lie on the 'justice peaks' in the 'outcome landscape', which will make the decision authoritative though not definitive.


Interesting aside: (some) theists claim that only God can provide objective morality. Setting aside the truth value of that, the subjectivity of interpreting that morality, and the Euthyphro dilemma... can the Original Position be considered a basis for objective morality? It appears to be in all but name in A Theory of Justice. Well, to be fair I've not read the whole thing so it could be in name as well.