John Rawls
77 quotes
Biography
"Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic."
"Thus I assume that to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice."
"This is a long book, not only in pages."
"I am particularly grateful to Nozick for his unfailing help and encouragement during the last stages."
"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 concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role."
"The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."
"Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society."
"It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper."
"A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitted together into one coherent view."
"Indeed, it is tempting to suppose that it is self evident that things should be so arranged so as to lead to the most good."
"An individual who finds that he enjoys seeing others in positions of lesser liberty understands that he has no claim whatever to this enjoyment."
"An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception."
"We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception."
"Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable."
"Our concern is solely with the basic structure of society and its major institutions and therefore with the standard cases of social justice."
"The first statement of the two principles reads as follows. First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both(a)reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all."
"In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class."
"A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved."
"The even larger difference between rich and poor makes the latter even worse off, and this violates the principle of mutual advantage."
"In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage."
"We may reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action. In justice as fairness men agree to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit. The two principles are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune; and while no doubt imperfect in other ways, the institutions which satisfy these principles are just."
"Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for example, allow a person to achieve ends he could not rationally contemplate otherwise."
"The difference principle, for example, requires that the higher expectations of the more advantaged contribute to the prospects of the least advantaged."
"No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society."