Introduction
Unlike classical constructivism, Rawls significantly revises the concept of the social contract. It is a kind of ideal hypothetical situation in which people choose the principles of a fair social structure. Philosopher seeks to model the conditions for concluding a contract that would guarantee a fair outcome; in other words, an agreement will be reasonable if accepted in a proper procedure. Thus, certain rules are approved on which interaction in society is based.
Analysis of Justice-as-Fairness Concept
Firstly, when making a decision, the participants of the initial position act in their interests and strive for the most beneficial result for themselves. They are equal and free to propose any principles they deem necessary. Acting rationally, participants will try to choose effective means to achieve their goals and avoid things that contradict their desires. They have general information and knowledge about human nature, society, politics, and economics. Most importantly, the participants are entirely unaware of their future in the society of their choice. They do not know if they will be talented or ordinary people, rich or poor, healthy or sick, hardworking or lazy.
If people chose the principles of justice, people know precisely how such morally random attributes are, and then the following would happen. The agreement will reflect the existing inequality and be more beneficial for those whose share has already been lucky. Fairness, however, requires that the decision be made on reasonable terms. Therefore, each participant in the original position should be, as it were, under the veil of ignorance towards themselves. There is a simple consideration behind this: a person will try to choose principles that ensure fair and favorable conditions for everyone.
The veil of ignorance, according to Rawls, should also be imposed on people’s ideas of what their good consists of. For the choice to be fair, people should not look for an agreement that would be most beneficial in terms of their values. In this situation, it is more critical for them to protect their freedom to decide the meaning and benefit of their life and act following this free decision of their own, making changes and corrections, if necessary. Thus, the veil of ignorance ensures that no one will be in a more favorable position when choosing the principles of justice due to accidental natural or social circumstances. Because everyone is in the same situation and no one has the opportunity to propose principles that could improve their position. Thus, the systems of fairness are the result of an honest agreement or transaction.
At the same time, Rawls emphasizes equality between agents as moral personalities, as people with their sense of justice and concept of the good. In this case, there is a situation where individuals have some meta morality since the moral norms of this socio-political organism themselves will be accepted only after choosing the principles of justice for the basic structure of society. Such an assumption can be blamed on Rawls because there are only three scenarios of how this can happen:
- These ideas of individuals are innate.
- People can create a moral personality from themselves, being in a situation of the original position, that is, lack of knowledge about the experience.
- A person has acquired their own concept of good and a sense of justice in a particular society before the initial point. After that, from the attitudes developed in this society, they choose the principles of justice, being in the original position.
The first two points seem unlikely, and the third destroys the very idea of the original position. It can be argued that the contractors with whom Rolls starts also show signs of socially-specific modeling. They are extreme cases of socially mobile individuals who consider the problem characteristic of a society that allows some economic intervention by the State. The idea of the initial position makes sense only against the background of a particular social experience (including the experience of the distribution of social and economic benefits). Therefore, the limitation in the form of ignorance does not look complete enough in this case.
The justice-as-fairness theory of John Rawls can at best explain the sense of justice of people in a particular society, namely in Western-type democratic regimes. The moment of transition from the author’s intuitive moral attitudes to the universal principles of justice by checking the former in the situation of the original position is quite controversial. A list of fundamental human rights and freedoms is being formed. Still, different communities may have varying opinions and attitudes, and, consequently, legislative norms on specific issues are not taken into account.
Political Liberalism Theory
With Mill’s classical liberalism, Rawls’ theory is associated with the recognition of the principle of inviolability of human rights and freedoms and the principles of equality and tolerance. However, Rawls rejects utilitarianism as a way to justify these principles. The philosopher follows Kant and believes that no empirical considerations (whether of the common good, prosperity, or happiness) can serve as a moral law. Consequently, they are not a reliable guarantor of human life, rights, and freedoms. Justice is impossible without recognizing the autonomy of the human person and without granting everyone the right to exercise their freedom. Hence, the justification of individual rights lies not in the fact that they maximize the general welfare or contribute to the good but that they form a necessary condition for equity.
In fact, it is associated with the ideas of John Mill and the principles of individual freedom. This also partly reflects the centrist position in conjunction with criticism of Rawls’ original position theory. The State should exercise control only over the prevention of the last of these actions, including establishing measures of legal responsibility supported by the force of the coercion. Certainly, J.S. Mill’s ideas about the principle of individual liberty, based on the theory of utilitarianism, are essentially idealistic and utopian and cannot be applied in their pure form to all social interactions. At the same time, applying this theory to particular social relations is justified and the most effective from the position of maximizing public welfare.
All this is also reflected in Immanuel Kant’s ideas about perpetual peace and cosmopolitanism. Currently, globalization has led to the development of human relations, transferring them to the transnational level. Thus, humanity is more connected in a world where local and global cultures are closer. This is where cosmopolitan thinking can be linked to the current trend toward international development. Such a society is based on morality, common economic relations, and political systems that include different nations. Thus, in cosmopolis, people of different backgrounds can establish relations of equality and mutual respect.
On the other hand, the idea of responsibility stems from the fact that a person acts as a member of a global community, and every action comes from responsibility to others. In modern times, these ideas have developed into a Theory of the Democratic World.
However, there is every reason to believe that the TDM, although formally based on the ideas of the treatise, in fact significantly distorts them and largely departs from the essence of Kant’s peace project. There was a borrowing from the philosopher of the view of the influence of the form of government on foreign policy, the idea of the peacefulness of the republics. The concept of a peaceful union of peoples and the thesis about the beneficial effect of trade on establishing peaceful relations between countries were also adopted. In fact, the representatives of the TDM transformed them into a theory convenient for explaining the aggressive foreign policy of some modern democracies.
Conclusion
Summing up, it should be noted that it was possible to determine the main provisions of John Rawls’ concepts. In addition, it was found that some aspects of the theory of justice (the original position and the veil of ignorance) cannot be fully applicable in reality. On the other hand, certain provisions of political liberalism are reflected in modernity, correlating with the ideas of Mill and Kant.
Bibliography
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Immanuel Kant. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. 1795. Web.
Levin, Noah. Political Philosophy Reader: An Open Educational Resource: N.G.E. Far Press, 2019.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Cosmopolitanism.” Web.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “John Rawls.”. Web.
Weithman, Paul. “Autonomy and Disagreement about Justice in Political Liberalism.” University of Chicago Press Journals 128, no. 1 (2017): 95–122.