The traditional social contract has
flaws, it thus received criticisms now and then. Some of the flaws included
that it is nothing but a good thought experiment for trying to understand why
we are obliged to obey rulers. Thought experiments are useful in only
explaining a particular point but never a legitimate basis for establishing the
political order[1]
if the social contract dimension was to be removed from the theories of Locke,
Hobbes and the rest then their political conceptions would look hollow. We now
know from 150 years of anthropology that human beings were inherently
political, Aristotle took this view[2]. Aquinas
also wrote, “It is natural for man, more than any other animal, to be a social
and political animal, to live in a group”. Therefore there was no pre-political
condition. Therefore the revival of the social contract tradition that Rawls
led tried to answer some of this questions. He replaced natural law with Immanuel
Kant’s ethics and using a hypothetical contract he tries to ask the question
what would people agree to ? Rather than what did people agree to?
John Rawls, A theory of Justice. Not a
captivating read, his ideas kind of get obscured or more complicated than they
should be but on further research it was discovered that Mr Rawls first wrote a
couple of articles that led to the book and he used to circulate them and
receive criticisms and whenever he received a criticism he would add three paragraphs
to answer the criticism, the most famous article was justice as fairness. So
what are his ideas?
He tries to develop a theory of justice
by revising the social contract tradition of theorizing about justice
associated with the 17th and 18th century writers John Locke[3],
Jean-Jacques Rousseau[4],
and Immanuel Kant.
Locke saw legitimate authority arising
from the delegation of the citizens’ right to self-preservation, defense,
Rousseau believed that the social contract’s basis should be the general will of
the people. According to Rawls justice is what free and equal persons would
agree to as basic terms of social cooperation in conditions that are fair for
this purpose. This famous idea is called justice as fairness[5].
In summary he posits that justice cannot allow that a few suffer for the
greater good, it does not allow the interest of the greater good to trample on
the few[6].
Rawls imagined that he was coming up with a new social contract but based on
fairness. Fairness that would address the social inequalities in life, in order
to do this we must first go to the original
position, the original position is the hypothetical situation developed
Rawls as a thought experiment to replace the imagery of a savage state of
nature of prior political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes[7].
In the original position, the parties select principles that will determine the
basic structure of the society they will live in. This principles are for a
society that is well ordered, have the same public conception of justice, give
allegiance to this public conception and it is common knowledge that among the
people that this holds water.
Rawls also focuses on the basic structure
of this society because he says that it is the primary subject of justice
because its effects are so profound form the start for example in society there
are deep inequalities that we have no power over for example a baby cannot
choose its parents or their social position it is this basic structure
inequalities that the principles of justice must apply[8] .
So
what are these principles? What would we agree these principles to be? If we
cannot even decide what is good in life how do we agree what this principles
are going to be? Rawls proposes that
even though we disagree about what is ultimately good, we may agree that there
are certain general purpose good things that everyone would want regardless of
whatever else they want. These are primary social goods: he defines them as
those things any rational person who gave priority to developing and exercising
her capacities for a sense of justice and for a conception of her good would
want. The primary social goods, to give
them in broad categories, are rights, liberties, and opportunities, and income
and wealth[9].
In coming up with this principles of
justice one must be behind a veil of ignorance, this is a method of determining
the morality of a certain issue based upon the following thought experiment:
parties to the original position know nothing about their particular abilities,
tastes, and position within the social order of society. When such parties are
selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources
in the society they will live in, the veil of ignorance prevents them from
knowing about who they will be in that society. . The veil of ignorance makes
possible a unanimous choice of a particular conception of justice. Without these
limitations on knowledge the bargaining problem of the original position would
be hopelessly complicated[10].
What will the rational choice be for
fundamental principles of society? The only safe principles will be fair,
public, general and universal in application principles[11],
for you do not know whether you would suffer or benefit from the structure of
any biased institutions. Indeed the safest principles will provide for the
highest minimum standards of justice in the projected society[12].
For example how does one go about cutting a cake amongst a group of
individuals? Best case would be to let the person with the knife have the last
slice, he would then try to cut each slice as fair as possible so as to get the
best remaining slice however he cannot fully rely on the last slice.
Therefore this society can only be made
if it conforms to two rules;
1. Equal
Liberty. "Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive
total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of
liberty for all[13]"
2. Social
Inequality. "Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that
they are both (a) to the greatest expected benefit of the least advantaged and
(b) attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair[14]”
In this sense it’s not even really a
social contract ,he is not asking will you agree with one another based on this
principles of justice but will I, the reader agree with him that any rational
person would choose the principles that he posits , some similarity is seen
with Hobbes because to Hobbes the social contract isn’t legitimate because
people agreed to it but because it was the only rational thing to do, if not
then people would have descended to civil war.
These principles of justice are what
could have been used to evaluate what government do and therefore see whether
it is just. Rawls attacked utilitarianism citing it does not take into account
peoples’ differences.
Does Rawls progress the social
contract? Rawls in my view brings a whole new aspect of the social contract or
rather he changes the subject, he says that people are alike in some aspects
and unlike in others.so rather than focusing on utility lets focus on
resources, the primary resources that everyone needs regardless of whether one
will be a banker or an artist, this is quintessential in political theory as
the basic issue is normally what the state might or might not do. He is against
the habit of states applying utilitarianism to how it governs us or rather how
it plays its obligations under the ‘social contract’. If I was to borrow the
words of Prof Ian Shapiro, Rawls calls for ‘resourcism’.
[1] http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/06/taking-locke-seriously
[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/supplement3.html
[3]
Second Treatise of government, 1689
[4]
The Social Contract, 1762
[5]John
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Excerpts) Revised edn, Harvard University Press pg
4
[6]
Ibid, Pg 3
[7]
The Leviathan
[8] Pg
7 Supra (n 7)
[9] Pg
79,Ibid
[10]
J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Pg 121
[11]
J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Pg 115,
[12]
Dr. Charles Kay, Rawls, Justice as Fairness
[13]
Pg 220 supra (n 7)
[14]
Pg 72 Ibid
