Excerpt
from A THEORY OF JUSTICE by JOHN RAWLS
THE ROLE OF JUSTICE
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 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 not
allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of
advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal
citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject
to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing
that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better
one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid
an even greater injustice. Being first virtues of human activities, truth and
justice are uncompromising.
These propositions seem to express our intuitive conviction of the primacy of justice. No doubt they are expressed too strongly. In any event I wish to inquire whether these contentions or others similar to them are sound, and if so how they can be accounted for. To this end it is necessary to work out a theory of justice in the light of which these assertions can be interpreted and assessed. I shall begin by considering the role of the principles of justice. Let us assume, to fix ideas, that a 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. Suppose further that these rules specify a system of cooperation designed to advance the good of those taking part in it. Then, although a society is a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, it is typically marked by a conflict as well as by an identity of interests. There is an identity of interests since social cooperation makes possible a better life for all than any would have if each were to live solely by his own efforts. 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 a lesser share. A set of principles 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. These principles are the principles of social justice: they provide a way of assigning rights and duties in the basic institutions of society and they define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation.
Now let
us say that a society is well-ordered when it is not only designed to advance
the good of its members but when it is also effectively regulated by a public
conception of justice. That is, it is a society in which (1) everyone accepts
and knows that the others accept the same principles of justice, and (2) the
basic social institutions generally satisfy and are generally known to satisfy
these principles. In this case while men may put forth excessive demands on one
another, they nevertheless acknowledge a common point of view from which their
claims may be adjudicated. If men’s inclination to self-interest makes their
vigilance against one another necessary, their public sense of justice makes
their secure association together possible. Among individuals with disparate aims
and purposes a shared conception of justice establishes the bonds of civic
friendship; the general desire for justice limits the pursuit of other ends.
One may think of a public conception of justice as constituting the fundamental
charter of a well-ordered human association.
Existing
societies are of course seldom well-ordered in this sense, for what is just and
unjust is usually in dispute. Men disagree about which principles should define
the basic terms of their association. Yet we may still say, despite this
disagreement, that they each have a conception of justice. That is, they
understand the need for, and they are prepared to affirm, a characteristic set
of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining what
they take to be the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social
cooperation. Thus it seems natural to think of the concept of justice as
distinct from the various conceptions of justice and as being specified by the
role which these different sets of principles, these different conceptions,
have in common.1 Those who hold different conceptions of justice can, then,
still agree that institutions are just when no arbitrary distinctions are made
between persons in the assigning of basic rights and duties and when the rules
determine a proper balance between competing claims to the advantages of social
life. Men can agree to this description of just institutions since the notions
of an arbitrary distinction and of a proper balance, which are included in the concept
of justice, are left open for each to interpret according to the principles of
justice that he accepts. These principles single out which similarities and
differences among persons are relevant in determining rights and duties and
they specify which division of advantages is appropriate. Clearly this
distinction between the concept and the various conceptions of justice settles
no important questions. It simply helps to identify the role of the principles
of social justice.
Some
measure of agreement in conceptions of justice is, however, not the only
prerequisite for a viable human community. There are other fundamental social
problems, in particular those of coordination, efficiency, and stability. Thus
the plans of individuals need to be fitted together so that their activities
are compatible with one another and they can all be carried through without
anyone’s legitimate expectations being severely disappointed. Moreover, the
execution of these plans should lead to the achievement of social ends in ways
that are efficient and consistent with justice. And finally, the scheme of
social cooperation must be stable: it must be more or less regularly complied
with and its basic rules willingly acted upon; and when infractions occur,
stabilizing forces should exist that prevent further violations and tend to
restore the arrangement. Now it is evident that these three problems are
connected with that of justice. In the absence of a certain measure of
agreement on what is just and unjust, it is clearly more difficult for
individuals to coordinate their plans efficiently in order to insure that
mutually beneficial arrangements are maintained. Distrust and resentment
corrode the ties of civility, and suspicion and hostility tempt men to act in
ways they would otherwise avoid. So while the distinctive role of conceptions
of justice is to specify basic rights and duties and to determine the
appropriate distributive shares, the way in which a conception does this is
bound to affect the problems of efficiency, coordination, and stability. We
cannot, in general, assess a conception of justice by its distributive role
alone, however useful this role may be in identifying the concept of justice.
We must take into account its wider connections; for even though justice has a
certain priority, being the most important virtue of institutions, it is still
true that, other things equal, one conception of justice is preferable to
another when its broader consequences are more desirable.
