PHIL 2280 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Justice As Fairness, Minimax
19 Oct 2017
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Theoretical background: social contract theorists like hobbes and locke and enlightenment philosophers like kant. For rawls the ultimate bases of society rests on a set of tacit agreements among its members. Based on such an implicit contract he formulates a theory of justice. Rawls calls his approach justice as fairness, which aims the principle of justice at the institutional level of society so that they organize any further social cooperation. He invites us to imagine an initial situation of political negotiation that he calls the original position. It is to be understood as a purely hypothetical situation. When social conditions provide sufficient goods rawls believe that we would opt for a special conception of justice. The difference principle does not allow inequalities in institutional practices on the ground that the hardship of some is offset by a greater good of the majority. So, it is different from the utility principle.
