Rawls, John

Bordley John Rawls (1921–2002) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 21, educated in philosophy at Princeton University, and served in the military in the Pacific theater during World War II. He taught at Cornell University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before becoming a professor at Harvard University where he taught philosophy for almost forty years. His theory of justice transformed twentieth-century political philosophy and has important implications for understanding the ethics of science and technology in terms of political governance and economics of the marketplace. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 24.

Rawls's major works include A Theory of Justice (1971), The Law of Peoples (1993), Political Liberalism (1993), and Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001). His writings have been widely distributed and translated into more than twenty languages.

Rawls developed his thought against the background of two existing philosophies: (a) utilitarianism, which employs the principle "the greatest good for the greatest number," and (b) emotivism, which claims moral and political judgments are basically personal or social preferences. Rawls finds both views inadequate, and in A Theory of Justice argues at length for a concept of "justice as fairness," which entails the economically "just distribution" of societal benefits and burdens through democratic procedures and institutions. Political procedures for advancing justice must run parallel to those of technological and economic progress.

In effect, Rawls revivifies theories of justice, rights, and international law that have their roots in Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and social contract theory, as a broad response to totalitarianism and post–World War II inequities. Also, as a World War II veteran, Rawls authored "Fifty Years after Hiroshima," in which he argued against the use of the atomic bomb, and the employment of nuclear technology for nuclear weaponry. The crux of Rawls's argument may be found in a set of hypothetical conditions as follows. Imagine yourself in some "original position" in which you know that you are going to be placed in a complex world among persons with different abilities living in complex social institutional arrangements. At the same time you are prohibited by a "veil of ignorance" from knowing which abilities you might be given or which social institutions you will initially occupy.

In such a situation, Rawls argues, all persons, being both rational and self-interested, would choose to structure their social world around two principles of justice. The first, the "equal liberty principle," would establish equal basic rights and liberties for all. The second, the "difference principle," would defend inequalities on two conditions: (a) equality of opportunity (positions open to all having comparable prospects, talents, and abilities) and (b) economic and social inequalities distributed to benefit those disadvantaged by their social position. Rawls's argument is that when people do not know what abilities or benefits, or deficits and liabilities they might be given, such frame of mind affects the social order they would accept as just or fair. Moreover, such a well-ordered society based upon these principles will justly pair political democracy with economic capitalism.

Since the democratic-inspired revolutions of the eighteenth century, liberal philosophers have argued that rational individualism, republican democracy, and capitalism together could do more than any other systems to increase human rights, opportunities, and goods for more people. Historically, however, philosophers have also noted the recurring divide between rich and poor. In Political Liberalism, Rawls thus charges future progress, whether in government or business, in science or technology, with a moral imperative: Use political liberalism to promote justice, to ensure equal rights, and to acquire human rights as well as economic ones.

Rawls's principles of justice remain critical in evaluating these future problems and progress. Reminding his readers, in The Law of Peoples, that burdens accompany goods, and responsibilities come with liberties, Rawls analyzed who and what institutions will bear these responsibilities and duties to provide just and more equitable rights in a world in which people are actually situated, and materially advantaged or disadvantaged. Rawls directly formulated definitive tenets for law, rights, and duties that must be publicly instituted to address ongoing concerns and conflicts of minorities, pluralities, or the majority of global peoples. Therein, cosmopolitan individuals, technical experts, scientists, political leaders, and multinational corporations alike could find the principles, laws, and procedures in place to address fairly their worldly operations, disputes, and affairs.

Rawls's work has inspired countless commentaries and critical replies in the United States and abroad. For instance, from its first publication in 1971 to its revised edition in 1999, A Theory of Justice has been challenged by communitarians and feminists. Both argue that Theory is too abstract and individualistic, despite its broad global outreach to diverse peoples, governments, and cultures. Arguably, Rawls draws heavily from Kant's rationalist, individualistic ethics and political philosophy of contractarian government, whereby citizens and their states jointly contract and consent (implicitly and explicitly) to institute and legitimate the just rule of their government.

Rawls has been criticized not only from the left (communitarians and feminists) but also from the right (libertarians and free-market theorists). Most notably, Robert Nozick (1938–2002), Rawls's well-renown Harvard colleague, was also his life-long critic, promulgating a counter theory known as the "entitlement theory" of social justice. In short, Nozick's theory extends another long-standing Western trend, libertarianism, which, like political liberalism, also originated in the eighteenth century, starting with Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776). Nozick wrote Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) in direct response as a critique of Rawls's Theory of Justice. Nozick thereby enlivened visions of justice based upon free-market capitalism and a minimalist state, in which the state serves solely to protect its members from violence and theft, and hence should possess no rights to interfere with one's property acquisition, use, and distribution, nor with any technological innovations and enterprises, unless fraud and unlawful force have been committed or contracts breached.

Rawls's political liberalism provides critical assurance that rational principles of justice and ethical government can control global capitalism, biotechnology, and engineering enterprises, so as to assure more of the world's people that liberties, goods, and opportunities can be more fairly distributed. Because Rawls rejects the premise that the powers and forces of right, possessed by people who are merely empowered and advantaged by circumstance or their societal position, can legitimately constitute justice, his Theory can test the progress made, and that still must be made, toward expanding global liberties and economic justice. In demonstrating "justice as fairness," Rawls firmly reestablishes liberal political philosophy: In facing global pluralism—diverse beliefs, values, and bases for differing notions of good—politically just principles and powers for human rights-distribution are morally required to evaluate and improve the actual positions of individuals, states, and global peoples in working toward greater fairness.

Human Rights;; Justice;; Liberalism.

Freeman, Samuel, ed. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Rawls. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rawls, John. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press. Rev. edition, 1999.

Rawls, John. (1996). Political Liberalism and the "Reply to Habermas." New York: Columbia University Press. Political Liberalism originally published in 1993.

Rawls, John. (1999). The Law of Peoples; with, "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Includes a major reworking of the essay "The Law of Peoples," originally published in 1993, along with the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," originally published in 1997.

Rawls, John. (2000). Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Barbara Herman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rawls, John. (2001). Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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