Rawls’s theory is that the way to identify the fundamental principles for society is by asking what the parties in what he calls the original position would prefer. And he maintained that they would choose his two principles of justice instead of utilitarianism.
Full Answer
Rawls contends that the most rational choice for the parties in the original position are two principles of justice: The first guarantees the equal basic rights and liberties needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to pursue a wide range of conceptions of the good.
Rawls specifies that the parties in the original position are concerned only with citizens' share of what he calls primary social goods, which include basic rights as well as economic and social advantages.
In A Theory of Justice John Rawls provides a theory of social distribution based on two principles. The Difference Principle is the second principle which states that any inequality that is permitted in society should only be permitted on the basis that it benefits the least favoured in society.
The original position is a hypothetical situation in which we have no knowledge of our place in society.
Rawls believes that human beings once enjoyed an “original position” of perfect equality. The principles chosen by people in Rawls's original position would eliminate all inequality. Rawls uses the term “veil of ignorance” to refer to everything that prevents us in ordinary life from seeing what justice requires of us.
1:163:07The Difference Principle illustrated - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipThere is an inequality group C you can see has more than Bay and B has more than a but importantlyMoreThere is an inequality group C you can see has more than Bay and B has more than a but importantly who is the least advantaged in this distribution.
The difference principle provides that inequalities are unjustified unless they make the least advantaged better off. But in order to apply this principle, we must make predictions about the future economic effects of current economic policies, predictions that are notoriously difficult to make.
first, known as the “difference principle,” requires that any unequal distribution of social or economic goods (e.g., wealth) must be such that the least-advantaged members of society would be better off under that distribution than they would be under any other distribution consistent with principle 1, including an ...
Rawls’s principles govern what he calls the basic structure of society. He’s concerned with institutions, such as the education system, legal system, tax system, central banking system, and so on. So none of this is about what individuals should do. It’s about how society’s institutions should work.
Patrick asked if the difference principle is equivalent to what is called “prioritarianism.” I had to look up the latter. This seems to be a fair statement of the view.