A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice ( A Theory of Justice ) is a 1971 published, highly acclaimed book of the American philosopher John Rawls .

In his work Rawls outlines a basic social-political order based on the value of equality . In doing so, he opposes the utilitarianism prevailing in the Anglo-American region in particular , which in principle allows individuals to be harmed for the greater common good of society. He also takes a critical look at alternatives to his concept such as ethical skepticism , egoism or intuitionism .

The book, along with Robert Nozick's response to Anarchy, State, and Utopia , published in 1974 , brought about a revival of political philosophy . The two works immediately sparked a debate between libertarianism (Nozick) and egalitarian liberalism (Rawls). The representatives of communitarianism also intervened in this discussion from a different perspective .

With his theory, Rawls follows the tradition of the contract theories of Locke , Rousseau and Kant . He demonstrated his concept of the social contract with a now famous thought experiment : The parties are in a hypothetical "original position" ( original position ) defined by a " veil of ignorance " ( veil of ignorance is marked). In this assumed situation, a decision is made about the principles of justice that are supposed to underlie the real social order. In the original state, however, the decision-makers themselves do not know where they will be in this order to be determined. This neutral, anonymous decision-making situation is intended to ensure that the chosen principles of justice come about in a fair process.

Starting from this thought experiment, Rawls argues for two principles of justice.

"1. Everyone should have the same right to the most extensive system of the same basic freedoms, which is compatible with the same system for all others.
2. Social and economic inequalities are to be designed in such a way that (a) they can reasonably be expected to serve everyone's advantage, and (b) they are associated with positions and offices that are open to everyone. "

- TG 2.11, 81

The first principle takes precedence over the second, and the principle of fair equal opportunities (b) takes precedence over the principle of difference (a).

On the basis of these principles, Rawls develops a concept of procedural justice and applies it, among other things, to the problems of tolerance towards intolerance, civil disobedience , questions of distribution and intergenerational justice (see also Hartwick rule ).

Since he proposed a realistic ideal of a “well-ordered society” as a yardstick for concrete democratic societies, his theory of justice became an immediately effective political theory and gained considerable importance for the practical discussion of justice.

Origin and structure of the book

Rawls worked systematically on his theory of justice for over ten years and wrote several basic articles in preparation until he published his magnum opus in 1971 . The first essay on Justice as Fairness dates from 1958. He had already dealt with the question of utility maximization in utilitarianism in 1955 in the publication Two Concepts of Rules . The decision theory as a method of ethics was 1951 theme of an essay. Rawls developed parts of his theory in various lectures and discussed and revised a total of three manuscript versions with his students and colleagues.

The main work on the work performed Rawls during a research stay from 1969-1970 at the Center for advanced Studies at Stanford University . Rawls emphasized that the volume of over 600 printed pages was not only due to the elaboration of the theory itself, but also to the embedding in general ethical concepts and the intensive discussion of alternative concepts of justice.

The book is structured as follows:

Part 1 - Theory

Chapter 1: Justice as Fairness (Sections 1-9)
Chapter 2: The Principles of Justice (Sections 10-19)
Chapter 3: The Original State (Sections 20-30)

Part 2 - Institutions

Chapter 4: Equal Freedom for All (Sections 31-40)
Chapter 5: The Distribution (Sections 41-50)
Chapter 6: Duty and Commitment (Sections 51-59)

Part 3 - Goal

Chapter 7: Good as Reasonable (Sections 60-68)
Chapter 8: The Sense of Justice (Sections 69-77)
Chapter 9: The Good of Justice (Sections 78-87)

All chapters have introductory sections in which Rawls classifies the overall structure of his work. The first four sections provide an introduction to the basic intuitive ideas of the theory of justice , which are elaborated in detail in chapters two to four. Chapters five to nine serve to deepen individual questions and to justify various basic positions contained in the theory.

Rawls refrains from a metaethical discussion throughout the book . Methodological discussions are only found sporadically. Rawls emphasizes that he endeavored to present the content of the theory of justice. There is no explicit discussion of the metaethical position of noncognitivism, which is significant in analytical philosophy . Rawls is primarily interested in the political question of social justice . When he speaks of justice, what is meant is distributive justice . He does not explicitly deal with justice as a virtue or commutative and legal justice. He considers justice in relation to social institutions : "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, like the truth in systems of thought."

Formal and Substantive Justice

To determine the content of justice, Rawls distinguishes between formal and substantial justice. Formal justice arises through the impartial and consistent application of generally applicable rules. It thus demands that everyone affected by a rule is actually treated according to this rule - there must be no exceptions, otherwise a formal injustice would arise. Content justice, on the other hand, concerns the rule itself. Whether a rule is content-wise does not depend on whether it is applied impartially, but on the requirements that make up the content of the rule.

In order to find substantial justice, a theory of justice must make substantial statements. This task is fulfilled according to Rawls' principles of justice, which relate to a real society and can be recognized by all reasonable participants. Rawls deliberately does not want to set up an ideal, ultimately founded moral theory, but a political theory about the basic principles of a just society that is suitable to serve as a yardstick for practical political action.

Conditions of application of justice

Rawls describes application relationships as the usual objective (environmental) and subjective (personal) conditions of human cooperation. He sees society as a useful cooperative system. All members compete for the same goods (income, assets, freedom, etc.), which leads to conflicts of interest. On the other hand, the members of society also have the same interests, such as security, peace or the opportunity to realize their life plans.

Procedures are necessary to regulate this conflict of interests with the aim of safeguarding the interests of society as a whole. Rawls expressly distances himself from the state of nature formulated by Thomas Hobbes , according to which members of society are potentially in a permanent state of war over scarce goods. Rather, it assumes a group of people with similar interests. "The theory of justice sees society as an enterprise of cooperation for mutual benefit." The group members try not to wage war, but to achieve a solution that is advantageous for all - that is, the allocation of basic goods - through (peaceful) agreement .

Rawls' theory of justice is contract-theoretical in the sense that it relies on the general approval of its principles for justification. The contract is a hypothetical construct that only exists “in the minds of philosophers”. It is not the contract that matters, but the consensus it implies. It is not about the factual consent, but about the hypothetical ability to consent.

Rawls assumes that a society already exists and that there is a certain distribution of the (naturally limited) basic goods. With this important assumption, he deliberately ignores the difficult discussion about the origin and development of the distribution of goods found. For him, as a result, every allocation found at any point in human history is based on violent possession, warfare or other unjustified actions. This can never be revised. Rawls expressly wants to make a contribution to practical philosophy and not to set up a theoretical concept that would be impracticable because of its premises. A revision of the distribution found would require, as it were, a reversal of human history, which is impossible. The problem of the origin and merit of an existing distribution becomes relevant in Rawls' work with regard to its (moral) randomness, which must be compensated for by the institutional order of society.

Fictitious constitutional election

Rawls assumes that society at any given point in time will come together for a fictitious “constitutional election”. In this election, society should, under certain conditions, agree on principles for coexistence, in particular the distribution of basic social goods, in which every member of society has an interest.

Rawls explicitly describes rights, income, assets and opportunities as basic goods to be distributed. He assumes that the members of society are driven by self-interest insofar as they would definitely prefer more of these goods to less. In doing so, he distances himself from all approaches in which altruism is a condition of a just society.

For Rawls, what can only be described as fair is what the people would agree on in a fair starting situation on the basis of sensible decisions in a constitutional election.

Reflective equilibrium ( reflective equilibrium )

For his theory of justice as fairness and the framework conditions of his original state, Rawls does not give a final justified argument. He considers it futile to justify an idea of justice solely with a reference to fundamental, self-evident truths. Indeed, factually existing intuitions are taken into account in its justification, but only conveyed through a reflection process in which well-considered judgments, general principles and competing ideas of justice are weighed up against each other. So no ultimate justification is attempted (e.g. through self-evident intuitions), nor are widespread intuitions completely ignored - this approach can be understood as a pragmatic influence in Rawls' theory. Specifically, he refers to Nelson Goodman , who had proposed a similar procedure in the field of philosophy of science.

Rawls presents this process of deliberative equilibrium roughly as follows: The individual, concrete and possibly unsystematic judgments made by a person about the justice of a society are first reduced to a set of considered judgments that no longer contain uncertain, erroneous or inattentive judgments . On this basis, general principles are formulated which include the individual judgments as precisely as possible. Generalizations and theoretical idealizations will be incorporated here. If one now compares the established principles with the individual well-considered judgments, incoherences can be eliminated by either adapting the individual well-considered judgments to the principles or, conversely, the principles to the well-considered judgments. The result should be a balance between principles and judgments that has arisen through the described reflection - i.e. a reflective equilibrium . Rawls does not rule out the need to further develop the resulting concept of justice if new reasons for an adjustment are put forward. The equilibrium of thought is thus open to new suggestions and changes in moral thinking.

The equilibrium of thought can be seen as a method with which recognized and well-founded everyday moral judgments and general moral principles are combined into a consistent, coherent overall system of statements. Using this method, Rawls ensures that his theory does not get stuck in a formal universalism, but rather takes into account the horizon and the values of the respective society in the hypothetical contractual situation in a particular (culture-immanent) way.

Conception of the original position ( original position )

Rawls puts the members of society in a fictitious original state in which they jointly decide on the principles of justice that determine the basic structure of society. The English term original position indicates more clearly than the German term “Urstatus” that Rawls is not describing a historical situation, but rather developing a hypothetical starting situation that can be imagined as a pure thought model at any time, regardless of any empirical society. In the original state there is equality, that is, all participants have an equal vote and each of the participants can prevent an agreement by rejecting it.

Competence of those involved

Rawls describes the members of society as "competent moral judges". Your competence can be determined by:

sufficient intelligence
sufficient life experience
Knowing the facts
Ability to use deductive logic
Willingness to weigh the pros and cons
Ability to take new knowledge into account
personal distance, self-criticism
Unprejudiced ability to empathize with others.

By assigning these skills Rawls wants to ensure that the participants not only a rational ( rationally ), but also a reasonable ( reasonable is made) decision. With these criteria, skeptical and nihilistic attitudes as well as incorrect decisions due to subjective impairments should be excluded from the start.

Assuming the willingness of those involved to reach consensus, Rawls presupposes a society for his process of determining the conception of justice that accepts his intention to create a set of rules for a just society. His theory of justice is not suitable for extreme situations such as revolutionary upheavals or fundamentalist religious intolerance.

Formal conditions for the concept of what is right

Before letting the Constitutional Assembly decide, Rawls lays down a number of conditions which conceivable principles must conform to. In the original he describes them as “ formal constraints of the concept of right ”. In detail these are:

Generality - general applicability (for every person)
Universality - unlimited applicability (free of contradictions)
Public - Recognition and Effectiveness
hierarchical order - a suitable instrument for conflict resolution
Finality - no higher authority

These conditions serve in particular to exclude various forms of egoism. With a corresponding conception of the original state, Rawls finally allows the principles of justice to fulfill these conditions. One alone should not be able to come to different results than all members of society together.

The original state concept as a means of representation

However, this meeting can only be fictitious, just as all contract theories only assume a hypothetical agreement on the social contract. At no time can a constituent assembly of all members of society be held. Contract theories therefore require that the decision-makers in the original state agree on principles, compliance with which would be sensible and positive for every hypothetical member of society in the present and in the future. So if the principles are reasonable for everyone at all times, the contract can be made sufficiently binding. It is the task of contract theory to test this characteristic.

In a real decision-making situation, each member would consider whether the principle under discussion would improve or worsen their own situation and, in case of doubt, allow themselves to be guided by these considerations in their voting behavior. Rawls' conception of the original state wants to avoid this problem. At the same time, he does not want to exclude the members' self-interest. Because he assumes that the members know that after the constitutional election, social goods will be distributed according to the chosen principles of justice. So you decide quite selfishly, albeit under a “veil of ignorance”.

The veil of ignorance ( veil of ignorance )

The " veil of ignorance " (§ 24) ensures that the members of society do not know anything that could cause them to decide in their own favor to deviate from what is socially desirable. Nobody should let their social position, income or wealth, belonging to a social class or caste , intelligence or physical strength influence their decision.

For Rawls, behind this is the original injustice - in the sense of undeserved - of the distribution of these goods. The current distribution of goods, in particular the distribution of natural abilities (such as intelligence or physical strength) and belonging to a certain social class are fundamentally undeserved. Therefore it is not justified that the decision-makers in their original state let themselves be influenced by the knowledge of their relative social position.

For this purpose he introduces the “veil of ignorance” as a condition in the situation of the original state. The members of society know nothing of their relative social position, not even their personal preferences. The members decide without arbitrariness, without emotionality and without habituality (according to their habits).

In detail:

Self-ignorance: The members of society have no knowledge of their own income, their assets, their social status. They do not know their likes and dislikes, drives and needs, just as little as their special physical and mental abilities and skills.
General knowledge: But you have general knowledge. You know economic relationships and have basic psychological and sociological knowledge.
No Chances: Members of society are known to have different gifts, roles, and ranks. However, those involved in the decision do not know anything about the concrete distribution of these features, so that they cannot make any meaningful considerations based on probabilities.
Rationality: All members respect one another. They make their decisions on the basis of rational considerations and are not guided by irrational considerations.
No mutual interests: They are not interested in one another, so neither love nor hate guide them in their decisions. Furthermore, they are not out to take advantage of each other.
No envy: Rawls does not accept envy as a decision-relevant, subjective feeling either.

The veil of ignorance not only guarantees the fairness of the decision, but it is also the reason for a unanimous decision:

“First of all, it is obvious that all those involved are convinced of the same arguments, since they do not know the differences between themselves and all are equally reasonable and in the same position. Hence the agreement in its original state can be seen as that of a randomly chosen participant. If anyone, after careful consideration, prefers one concept of justice to another, then everyone does so and unanimity is achieved. "

The two principles of justice

Rawls is now letting his constituent assembly vote in favor of just principles. This is done by making a list of all possible principles, which then, by eliminating the rules perceived as unjust, lead to the principles of justice recorded by Rawls.

Rawls begins with the formulation of the two principles cited at the beginning, but modifies them in the course of his treatise and finally gives them the following final form, taking into account the rules of precedence introduced in the course of the discussion:

First principle

Everyone has the same right to the most extensive overall system of the same basic freedoms that is possible for everyone.

Second principle

Social and economic inequalities must be of the following nature:

(a) They must offer the least beneficiaries the greatest possible advantage, subject to the principle of fair savings, and

(b) They must be associated with offices and positions open to all in accordance with fair equity.

First rule of precedence (primacy of freedom)

The principles of justice are in a lexical order; accordingly, the fundamental freedoms can only be restricted for the sake of freedom in the following cases:

(a) a less extensive freedom must strengthen the overall system of freedom for all;

(b) a less than equal freedom must be acceptable to those affected.

Second rule of precedence (priority of justice over productivity and standard of living)

The second principle of justice precedes the principle of performance and utility maximization lexically; fair equality of opportunity takes precedence over the principle of difference in the following cases:

(a) an inequality of opportunity must improve the opportunities of the disadvantaged;

(b) a particularly high savings rate must overall alleviate the burden of those affected by it.

Rawls describes even this version of the principles as incomplete. It still needs to be developed further. Nevertheless, the principles and the rules of precedence have proven themselves in examples. They can therefore also be used as guidelines in non-ideal situations.

Lexical order

Rawls' introduction of a "lexical order" requires the first principle to be fulfilled before the second principle can be applied. This is to express the primacy of the first principle. The equal distribution of fundamental freedoms must therefore be guaranteed, while other fundamental goods are distributed according to the principle of difference. Likewise, the abolition of equal opportunities cannot be justified on the basis of inequality, even if this would improve the position of the worst off.

The primacy of freedom

The priority of freedom results from the construction of the original state with the veil of ignorance. Before the participants can even make a decision, they must mutually recognize their equality in the original state. In contrast to material goods, freedom as an abstract right is not a scarce good and can be granted to everyone. Since no one knows what position he will take in the future society, freedom is the cornerstone of a common agreement; because with the assurance of freedom it is guaranteed for everyone that he, no matter what position he is in, can shape his life according to his own life plan.

“The differences between people are profound and nobody knows how to reconcile them through reason; but under the conditions of the original state, people can agree on the principle of freedom, if they can agree on anything at all. "

This freedom includes in particular freedom of religion, active and passive right to vote, freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, speech and assembly, freedom of property and the rule of law, i.e. equal treatment, non-retroactivity, protection against arbitrary state decisions, etc. Rawls regards these freedoms as indispensable :

“Every human being has an inviolability that springs from justice and that cannot be undone in the name of the good of society as a whole. Hence, justice does not allow the loss of freedom for some to be made up for by greater good for others. "

It has no economic equivalent. Freedoms must not be violated for the sake of greater economic advantages (as, in his view, however, would be possible under utilitarianism ). Without them, according to Rawls, a well-ordered society cannot endure at all. The limits of freedom are only where the freedoms of others are restricted. Conflicts on the level of civil liberties can only be resolved through weighing up. Rawls even sees an obligation to uphold a just constitution.

The difference principle

Rawls understands the difference principle as a substantial extension of the Pareto optimum . It only allows the prospects of the best-off group to be improved if it improves the worst-off group.

The principle of difference also has its foundation in the original state. Each of the decision makers must reckon with the fact that he could be one of the worst off in the future society. Hence, from Rawls' point of view, it is sensible to elevate the difference principle to a general principle; because then the person concerned can count on the fact that in the worst case he will not have to reckon with further deterioration due to inequality, but that inequalities will always serve his advantage. In contrast to utilitarianism, nobody has to give up their advantage in favor of others. Rawls sees in the difference principle "the principle of brotherhood concretized."

Decision-making behavior and the minimax rule

The minimax rule is a decision rule "under uncertainty" . Uncertainty here means that the decision maker cannot assign any probabilities to the possibilities (such as in the case of decisions “under risk” , in which an expected probability can be assigned to every possibility). Minimax now means that the decisive person chooses the alternative that maximizes the minimum possible result. Rawls thus chooses the conservative principle of risk minimization.

A classic example to demonstrate this principle is the possibility that a person who lives in A has the opportunity to fly by plane to B for an interview for a job that is many times better paid. She now has to weigh up three options: She stays in A and keeps her old job. She flies to B and thus gets the new job. She flies to B and is killed in a possible crash of the plane. Since it cannot specify any probabilities for the second and third options, it would (have to) choose the first option, taking into account the minimax approach.

Applied to Rawls' theme, this means that individuals assume in their original state that the worst possible case will occur for them, namely that, after the veil of ignorance has been lifted, they will find themselves in the group of the worst-off members of society. Therefore, they choose the principles that maximize the prospect of that particular group of society.

Democratic equality

For the interpretation of the second principle, Rawls only accepts the principle of democratic equality. What he means by this only becomes clear when it is differentiated from the alternative interpretations he has rejected: According to Rawls et al., The system of natural freedom as a Pareto-optimal system in which all possibilities are open to everyone according to their own abilities. a. therefore not fair, because the initial distribution of skills and opportunities does not correspond to personal merit. The principle of liberal equality , in which the random distribution of opportunities is institutionally balanced as much as possible, is also not fair, since the Pareto optimality would in principle also allow slavery and the like. Rawls clearly rejects the principle of the natural aristocracy , in which the opportunities are distributed according to the abilities, but these opportunities are to be used (altruistically, so to speak) to implement the principle of difference. In his opinion, only the principle of democratic equality remains . Here the distribution of the basic goods should take place according to the principle of difference, while equal opportunities are promoted institutionally. Rawls is again based on his dictum that no one deserves his natural better or worse position. Therefore, this better or worse position should be judged neither as just nor as unjust, but as a given condition that can ultimately only be compensated by the social constitution.

Legitimate and illegitimate inequalities

According to Rawls, there is “nothing injustice about the greater advantages, if it also makes things better for the less fortunate.” According to Rawls, unequal distribution of property and assets is basically possible, but limited to the case that there is also a benefit for the worst off is connected. According to Rawls, an equal distribution without performance incentives in the economy is worse than the possibility of achieving higher incomes and building wealth, because this reduces welfare. However, there are limits to this. Because it is possible that

“The accumulated results of many individual, apparently fair agreements, combined with social tendencies and historical contingencies, change over time the relationships and opportunities of citizens, so that the conditions for free and fair agreements do not exist, even if they change to an earlier one Time passed. "

Rawls even goes so far that, of course, advantages also have to be compensated by society, because these are contingently (randomly) distributed and the disadvantaged cannot do anything for their disadvantage.

“Whoever is favored by nature, be it whoever wants it, can only enjoy the fruits as much as it improves the situation of the disadvantaged. Those favored by nature must not have advantages simply because they are more talented, but only to cover the costs of their training and to use their gifts in such a way that the less fortunate are also helped. Nobody deserves their better natural abilities or a better starting place in society. "

Society must therefore create institutions that create equal opportunities for the disadvantaged, for example in education; because a social system is not an immutable order, but is shaped by people.

Intergenerational justice

The veil of ignorance also relates to the position of the members of society in time. They don't know which generation they live in. They do not know how many generations lived before them, nor how many will come after them.

However, since the original state is understood to mean that those involved enter it in the present, they at least know that they are contemporaries. Under the original conditions, you would therefore have no reason to even consent to saving. As a result, Rawls introduces two conditions in order to arrive at a "useful result":

Those involved in the original state are representatives of descendant lines to which at least their immediate descendants are not indifferent.
The savings principle that has been adopted must be such that you could wish all previous generations would have followed it.

The application of the second principle of justice now also applies to intergenerational distribution, which means that inequalities can only be tolerated if the worst-off gain an advantage. These worst off can now also belong to a distant generation.

A consistent application of this principle leads directly to the result that a present generation is basically not allowed to use up any irretrievable resources, as these are definitely no longer available to the following generations after they have been used. Through this handling, however, the current situation can come to the point where the prospects of the poorest of the current generation begin to deteriorate because of the renunciation of resource consumption with a view to future generations. However, this must also be avoided because of the second principle.

In order to get the problem under control, Rawls introduces the concept of the just savings principle .

The fair savings rate

In order to come to a solution that is satisfactory for him, Rawls must now for the first time seriously use the concept of brotherhood. Rawls had used this term in the introduction to clarify his understanding of a just society. He expresses that many questions of justice can be solved better by putting the decisive subjects in the position that the individuals whose interests they have to balance are brothers or members of the same family.

In order to derive an appropriate savings rate, one should consider how much the individuals would save for their sons and daughters and what claims they would feel entitled to have against their fathers and grandfathers. Rawls advocates a fair amount of real capital that must not only consist of material things and that should be passed on to future generations. The final thought to these remarks is the statement that a good and just society does not necessarily have to be associated with a high standard of living and wealth.

Time preference

Rawls rejects any time preference , even with individuals and regardless of the veil of ignorance. For him, nothing justifies the preference of a lesser present good over a greater future good.

It is important here to perceive that he is not indifferent between two goods of equal value now and in the future. With the terms “low value present” / “larger future” good, he already implies the principle of discounting future goods to the present time.

Critique of alternative ethical concepts

Critique of Intuitionism

Rawls describes ethical theories as intuitionistic that take the first principles as given in such a way that they can be in opposition to one another in concrete situations. Assessments and decisions in such situations require an intuitive weighing of what the correct judgment is. Both teleological and deontological theories can be intuitionistic . Rawls mentions GE Moore and WD Ross as examples, and more recently Brian Barry , RB Brandt and Nicholas Rescher . Such theories rely on compromises between different goals such as fair wages, fair taxes, welfare principles, and the like. Ä. addition. According to Rawls, the problem of such theories is arbitrariness, which cannot be ruled out with such intuitive principles and their weighting.

Criticism of perfectionism

When perfectionism Rawls distinguishes two forms. Strictly speaking, it is a "teleological theory that instructs society to determine institutions, duties and obligations in such a way that human achievements in the fields of art, science and culture are maximized." He sees Nietzsche as an example .

In moderate perfectionism, the perfection principle is only one of several basic values. Rawls claims that in the original state a perfectionist principle would not be adopted insofar as this contradicts the principle of freedom of association . Nor does perfectionism ensure an equal distribution of fundamental freedoms. Perfectionism is also associated with the risk of being guided by “aesthetic feelings and personal propriety”.

Critique of Utilitarianism

Above all, Rawl's theory is an alternative to utilitarianism . In order to work out the merits of his theory, he formulates a detailed and differentiated criticism (§§ 5, 27, 28, 30). He opposes the concept of maximum overall benefit ( Bentham , Sidgwick , Edgeworth , Pigou ) as well as the principle of maximum per capita benefit ( Mill , Wicksell ). Utilitarianism is based on a collective egoism which, if necessary, degrades people to a mere means. Justice cannot be achieved with rationality alone. It also needs moral reason. The basic problem of utilitarianism is that an individual model of rational action is raised to the level of a whole society. As a consequence, this can lead to a violation of fundamental and human rights if it only brings a predominant economic or social advantage.

Rawls' criticism is essentially based on the following arguments:

For Rawls, utilitarianism implies an incalculable sequence of consequences that cannot be overlooked by any rationally acting individual. By this he means that a utility maximizer must take into account all further subsequent actions resulting from the action. He cannot do this because of the limitations of his knowledge. People cannot have a complete knowledge of the consequences, consequently they cannot take all consequences into account in their decisions and thus cannot be able to maximize the overall benefit of a society.
An assessment of the usefulness of an action can only follow on the basis of past experience. But there is no law that says that an event in the future will always have the same consequences as in the past.
Maximizing the benefits can only be done from the perspective of the current decision makers. In this way, however, their current interests are also absolutized and carried forward into the future.
Individual interests are ordinal at best, but not cardinally measurable.
For Rawls, utilitarianism does not contain any considerations of justice, as it focuses on maximizing utility and does not explicitly formulate considerations of justice. Rawls also sees this concept as indifference to manifestations of injustice.
Rawls does not consider the advantages of one individual to be offset against the disadvantages of another.
Rawls considers utilitarianism to be indifferent between the interests of individuals. As an example, he compares the animal abuser with the social worker, whose two occupations bring them an equal degree of satisfaction. He now sees in utilitarianism no possibility of deciding between the two actions if they are available.
The last argument for him is the degradation of the human individual to a pure "happiness container".

Fairness as a natural duty

A cornerstone of the theory of justice is the reason why someone should submit to the principles outlined. It was important to Rawls to find arguments that were universal and necessary. If the justification were based only on a rational pursuit of self-interest (as in utilitarianism ), the “well-ordered society” sought by Rawls would not be stable, because in case of doubt the principles in favor of divergent interests would also be given up with a rational justification. For Rawls, on the other hand, "the most important natural duty is to maintain and promote just institutions."

Rawls made a distinction between obligation and duty. Obligations are such promise on voluntary agreements: "We must in cooperation not take the fruits of foreign efforts to complete, without even play its part." However, for a stable and just basic order voluntariness is not enough. The reason for the obligation arises in the original state:

“Although the parties in their original state take no interest in their interests, they know that they need the respect of their fellow human beings as support in society. Their self-esteem and their trust in the value of their target system is no match for indifference, let alone contempt for the other. "

The requirement of fairness is just as an unconditional duty as other moral requirements, such as loyalty or assistance to others. Such “natural” duties are indispensable for human coexistence, because one cannot imagine how coexistence could take place without obeying such commandments. This unconditional requirement of fairness results in a moral basis for the principles of justice, which comes from practical reason. Rawls argues here in a very similar way to Kant and therefore also spoke of his principles as categorical imperatives . His theory fulfills the Kantian tradition because it reflects the desire to treat people not just as a means, but as an end in themselves.

An almost well-ordered society

Based on the principle that fairness is an individual duty, Rawls discusses the relationship between his ideal theory of justice and a necessarily imperfect practice from various angles. He demanded that a usable theory of justice must prove itself as a concept for practice and be superior to alternative theories of justice. Rawls set the premise that the morally based principles of justice can best be realized in a democratically constituted state.

The four-step process as procedural justice

In order to check the practicability of his principles, Rawls outlined a “four-step course” that makes it possible to imagine how his abstract principles can be put into practice in relation to practical law. He points out that the United States Constitution and its history served as a model for his considerations.

The four-step process as procedural justice
step	Level of knowledge of the decision-makers
I. Establishing the principles of justice	Original state with a full veil of ignorance
II. Establishing the Constitution	Knowledge of the geographical, technological and economic fundamentals that must be taken into account in the constitution
III. Legislation and Policy Programs	Knowledge of general social structures, existing views and interests, but not the individual case of certain people
IV. Application of the rules by the judiciary and administration to the individual case	Complete lifting of the veil of ignorance

The top level is the original state, as it was developed by Rawls for his theory of justice. In it the veil of ignorance is fully developed. It defines the principles of justice that apply to all societies.

In the second stage, the constitution is established. This includes in particular the same civil rights for everyone such as freedom of conscience and thought, personal freedom and equality. The first principle in particular applies at this stage. In it it is already necessary that the veil of ignorance is partly lifted because there are general facts that must be taken into account in a constitution. All information that could affect the principle of impartiality, such as the attitude of the population to individual political issues, should not yet be available.

According to the framework laid down by the constitution, the third stage involves drawing up specific laws and political programs. These laws must ensure permissible solutions within the framework of the principles of justice and the constitution. Rawls points out that in this four-step process there is a transition from an ideal model to an imperfect procedural justice. "There are simply no political procedural rules that rule out unjust laws with certainty." When it comes to the specific regulation of questions relating to the Maximin principle, which must be incorporated into legislation, the problem in the real world is the empirical knowledge of social and economic mechanisms of action .

The fourth stage is the application of the rules by the judiciary and administration to the individual case. Knowledge of the facts is no longer limited at this level.

In the practical example one can imagine that the constitution stipulates that everyone has one vote in the right to vote. It is regulated by law that the constituencies per member of parliament are the same. Finally, the judiciary and administration ensure compliance with electoral laws.

Unjust laws

If one assumes that in the four-step process a constitution was created that is just but imperfect, it is possible that individual laws contain at least a certain degree of injustice. In practice there will always be conflicts between different notions of justice. In the interests of the stability of a well-ordered society, Rawls demands that one nevertheless accept the validity of positive law. “The civic duty demands to accept the mistakes of the institutions to a reasonable extent and not to use them unchecked. Without a certain recognition of this duty, mutual trust must collapse. At least under almost just circumstances there is usually an obligation (and for some an obligation) to obey unjust laws if they do not exceed a certain level of injustice. "

Majority decisions

In political practice there is no procedure that reproduces the original state of mind. Rawls considers majority rule to be the best approximation. This, however, only if the conditions of “framework justice” are met, i.e. if the overriding principle of freedoms is sufficiently ensured. Rawls also advocated the development of procedures before a majority decision in legislation that would allow a reasonable discussion to a sufficient extent, because he saw such a discussion as being as close as possible to an ideal situation. "In establishing the criterion of just legislation, we want to apply the deliberate collective judgment that is won when everyone does their best under ideal conditions to apply the right principles." From this point of view, Rawls' theory of justice at least results a compatibility with the discourse theory of law .

Civil disobedience

Rawls does not speak in connection with civil disobedience about a right of resistance against an unjust, totalitarian rule . This is outside the theory of justice. Rather, Rawls viewed a more or less just democratic state. Civil disobedience consists of "a public, non-violent, conscientious but politically illegal act, usually intended to bring about a change in the law or government policy." Rawls' analysis of civil disobedience is to be seen against the background of the American civil rights movement in the 1960s .

Rawls saw the justification for such civil disobedience in a sense of justice developed by the citizens of a democratic state, which in individual cases contradicts the actual circumstances. Civil disobedience is a correction to majority rule. "With civil disobedience, the minority forces the majority to examine whether they want their actions to be understood in this way, or whether, in view of the common sense of justice, they want to recognize the minority's justified demands."

Anyone who commits civil disobedience must be prepared to accept the legal consequences of their actions. The fact that these actions are public and non-violent shows that they are not directed against the entire order of society. Civil disobedience is a nonconformity on the verge of abiding by the law. It expresses the tension between morality and law, between legitimacy and legality . Militant opponents of the system, on the other hand, act violently and in secret, because they do not recognize the foundations of the state per se.

For Rawls, however, civil disobedience is only justified if there are clear violations of the first principle of justice or the violation of the principle of difference assumes glaring proportions. Rawls cites as examples the withholding of the active or passive right to vote , the suppression of the right to property , to the free choice of residence or to the exercise of religious belief. Above all, civil disobedience must not jeopardize the functionality of a well-ordered society as such. Rawls requires anyone who practices civil disobedience to scrupulously examine his position against the principles of justice. Under these restrictions, civil disobedience is even a stabilizing factor for a well-ordered society.

criticism

"Rawls' theory, especially after the publication of 'A Theory of Justice', aroused sustained interest among philosophers, economists, sociologists and lawyers and aroused myriads of contributions to the discussion and critical acknowledgments."

Peter Koller suspects that the intense reaction as well as the timing for the book itself were due to a need of the time. A repeated recognition of the book comes from Robert Nozick , one of Rawls' harshest critics:

“His book 'A Theory of Justice' is a substantial, subtle, wide-ranging, systematic work on the philosophy of politics and moral philosophy that has been unparalleled since John Stuart Mill - possibly including this one. It is a source of the most stimulating thoughts that are put together into a beautiful whole. From now on, the philosophy of politics must work within the framework of Rawls' theory or explain why it does not. "

“Rawls’s theory of justice is extremely rich and detailed. The reviews and alternative concepts that have emerged since then are correspondingly broad. "

Libertarianism

Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia is believed to be the direct response of libertarianism to Rawl's egalitarian position. Based on Locke , Nozick emphasizes that man by nature belongs only to himself. With the redistribution envisaged by Rawls, he overlooks the historical dimension of property. Property did not fall from heaven, but was acquired by man. There is no basis for redistribution unless the acquisition of property was unjust. “The whole approach of Rawls, in which people in the original state choose principles, presupposes that no historical, claims-oriented concept of justice is correct.” “People in the original state ask themselves at all whether they have the right about the distribution of everything and everyone to decide? "

Nozick developed a theory of the claim to property against Rawls, according to the following rules:

Anyone who acquires property in accordance with the principle of fair distribution is entitled to this property.
Anyone who acquires property from someone's just transference principle is entitled to property.
Claims to property only arise through the (repeated) application of rules 1 and 2.

Differences in wealth arise from the history of acquisition and are not inherently unfair. For Nozick, Rawls does not provide a convincing argument why someone should even embark on the thought experiment of the veil of ignorance when he himself knows that he has a relatively better starting position with his skills and justly acquired property. The only task of the state is to protect personal rights from internal and external attacks. At Nozick, the state becomes a night watchman state . James Buchanan and Friedrich Hayek hold positions similar to Nozick .

Even for more moderate liberals, the principle of difference, as a principle of redistribution that is constantly at work in society, is critical because it fundamentally and without limitation violates the right to self-realization of the individual, with the exception of the benefit for the worst off. Accordingly, Ronald Dworkin states:

"Any community that claims to equate people in their well-being would need a collective identity of what welfare is and what makes one life better or more successful than the other, and any collective identification would embrace the principles of ethics Hurt individualism. "

Communitarianism

In his theory of justice, Rawls focuses on the individual as the decision maker. For communitarianism this is the wrong approach because the perspective of community and common sense is lost.

One of the first critics from this point of view was Michael Sandel . For him, the original state constructed by Rawls is not a permissible model because, like Kant and all deontological ethics, it is based on a false image of man. Humans are not isolated individuals with no social connections. Man's self does not arise independently of his experience. One cannot reduce the essence of man to freedom of choice. Individual rights are not independent of common good. They cannot therefore have priority. Man only gains his identity from being integrated into the social context. Therefore the values of the community take precedence over those of the individual. The unbound self, as Rawls conceives it, which sets its purposes and goals rationally and autonomously, is not at all able to live cooperatively in an existing community and to adopt an existing value structure.

Charles Taylor , like Sandel, criticizes Rawls' atomistic view of man because society is, contrary to this, based on the division of labor and strongly interwoven. People cannot achieve their goals in isolation from social ties. Individual rights are only justified by belonging to a community. A person can only develop as a moral subject within a community. That is why human dignity is also dependent on recognition by the community. Because the free individual can only maintain his dignity in the community, life in the community includes both rights and duties. Both are equivalent.

For Alasdair MacIntyre , the “good of freedom” takes precedence over the “evil of communism”, but freedom in the sense of liberalism is an abstraction that results in a dissolution of social, political and economic ties. Liberalism implicitly represents a specific, individualistic idea of the good that does not correspond to everyday life. "Deprived of my community, I run the risk of losing all real standards of judgment."

Michael Walzer emphasizes in spheres of justice that there is no universal principle of justice. The distribution of social goods is tied to the meanings they have in the lives of their recipients. Justice is complex and affects different spheres. The position of a citizen in one sphere cannot be offset against the position in another sphere. Boundaries have to be drawn between the spheres. "Every good should be allocated to its own sphere according to the rules of application."

feminism

Representatives of feminist philosophy criticize that Rawls ignores the special situation of gender relations at best. On the one hand, it is criticized that Rawls' model is based solely on rationality. Every irrelevant or emotional aspect is ignored. “This concept of the original state has a masculine effect through and through.” Due to the separation of public and private space made by Rawls, the social conditions that disadvantage women fall out of the analysis. Aspects such as understanding, affection and love are assigned to the private sphere and are thus beyond the theory developed by Rawls, which neglects the questions of social justice and equal opportunities. Susan Moller Okin , an early critic of Rawls, describes the issue of gender equality as a blind spot on Rawls. However, its theory seems to her to serve as the basis for a project that aims to develop a more just social order that includes the gender issue.

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas sees at least two problems. On the one hand, Rawls did not sufficiently clarify the “communication requirements and procedures for a discursive will-formation in which the public use of reason manifests itself”. On the other hand, Habermas does not agree with the strict separation of private and public spheres and uses an argument similar to that of the communitarians:

“Kantian republicanism, as I understand it, is based on a different intuition. No one can be free at the expense of another's freedom. Because people are individuated solely on the path of socialization, the freedom of an individual is not only negatively linked to that of all others through mutual limitations. "

Stanley Cavell

Stanley Cavell criticizes that a theory reduced to reason like that of Rawls cannot depict the concrete discussions about justice in a society. Factual agreement and consent cannot be represented by the idea of a social contract. Above all, Rawls does not explain how an identification with the existing society arises.

“The public circumstances in which we live, in which I participate and from which I benefit, are those that I consent to. They are those with an indefinite degree of injustice, inequality of freedom and goods that are not scarce, of inevitable delays in reforms. Consent to society is neither unlimited nor limited; its scope is part of the discussion about justice. "

Real society is always imperfect so it is always partisan and unjust. The intolerance of injustice is the motive to work for an improvement, a perfecting of society.

“Without the category of moral perfectionism, Rawls' theory cannot achieve its goal of saying (to yourself, if not elsewhere) that you are above criticism, or rather that you mean this claim, insofar as it can be expressed to meet. "

For Cavell, Rawl's theory lacks the dynamic aspect that arises from the imperfection of real societies, the fundamental need to constantly strive for improvement beyond what has been achieved.

Avishai Margalit

In his book The Decent Society (German: Politics of Dignity ) Avischai Margalit drafted a model for a political philosophy that can be understood either as an alternative to or as a supplement to the current theories of justice . He calls this model a “decent society”, which is characterized by the fact that its institutions do not humiliate people . In addition to the principle of justice, there is the principle of respect , which is aimed at ensuring human dignity .

Margalit distinguishes a "restrained society", in which violence is avoided, from a decent society without humiliation and a just society. These three types are in a lexicographical order. "So there is a series of steps: the decent society must also be restrained, the just society also decent."

In the final chapter, Margalit expressly compares his concept, albeit exemplary, with that of Rawls. It turns out that Rawls has certainly based his theory on a decent society in spirit, but his principles of justice do not guarantee this. Margalit cites three objections:

Rawls only refers to members of society. The problem of the exclusion of foreigners (e.g. guest workers, dependent persons in other societies) remains unsolved.
Rawls only refers to state institutions. However, there are identity-creating groups in societies such as religious communities or associations (“clubs”) where fundamental discrimination (e.g. lack of equality) cannot be ruled out.
A society can follow the principles of equity without ruling out degrading practices (e.g. when applying for social assistance).

From Margalit's point of view, a decent society is easier to achieve in practice than the higher ideal of a just society. It is therefore a better alternative as a primary political goal, even if one should not lose sight of the ideal of a just society as a goal.

Further criticisms

It is obvious that the fictional constitutional choice results solely from the particular conception of the original state chosen by Rawls. HLA Hart had already pointed out this point in 1973, for whom Rawls' primacy of freedom is based on ideals rather than the result of a rational, interest-driven decision. Rawls does not give sufficient reasons for the fact that the original state must be exactly as represented by him. There is also no adequate reason why people should agree on exactly these principles. Rawls' arguments are therefore only subjective for Richard Mervyn Hare and cannot establish general principles. Axel Honneth criticizes the fact that the image of the veil of ignorance, which Rawls uses to portray the demand for impartiality, "makes the fact of human intersubjectivity disappear: [If the participants in their original state had an elementary knowledge of their need for recognition] then would They presumably agree on principles of justice that, in contrast to Rawl's proposal, would take account of this social need. ” GA Cohen objected that the just society outlined by Rawls was inconsistent: on the one hand, Rawls starts from subjects who are defined by the just system through just social institutions, add. On the other hand, the difference principle implies the existence of (material) incentives that should actually be superfluous in a Rawlsian society.

For Amartya Sen , priority in the event of bitter economic hardship or catastrophes can be qualified much more precisely than Rawls did. He also criticized the ideal-typical character of Rawls' theory of justice, which does not allow statements about injustices in the real world, as well as its focus on institutions without considering aspects of actual human behavior. Thomas Nagel objected that the list of the basic goods named by Rawls was not neutral. These followed a liberal and individualistic conception of the good. However, according to Nagel, one cannot assume that this corresponds to all rational life plans for social coexistence. Furthermore, for Benjamin Barber , the list is inconsistent. For example, freedom and equal opportunities compete without rules for priorities. Also, for barbers, income is not a sufficient measure of its own to determine the worst off people. Ronald Dworkin criticizes Rawls' theory for failing to compensate for natural or social impairments if those affected are not part of the worst-off group. Similarly, Kenneth Arrow points out that Rawls fails to take into account that equal income does not mean equality when, for example, one thinks of the individual cost of serious illness. Will Kymlicka points out that Rawls doesn't give enough space to personal decisions and efforts. Furthermore, Kymlicka misses the compensatory consideration of natural inequalities and criticizes that, according to Rawls' concept, people are forced to subsidize others.

Wolfgang Kersting , who, among other things, has published an overall presentation of Rawls' work, has dealt critically with Rawls in various works. The main critical points are:

The fact that freedom should enjoy indispensable priority appears at best as a personal preference of Rawls himself, but is by no means empirically proven. On the one hand, people must first of all meet the vital requirements for such a preference. For example, the situation of a starving person is easy to imagine for whom freedom has a disproportionately low value compared to a life-saving portion of food. Because the greatest freedom is of no use to him if he cannot use it due to his own starvation.

In addition, against the background of everyday experience, the inalienability of democratic participation rights cannot be undisputed. The theory of justice conceived by Rawls is ultimately only the Western conception of justice. In underdeveloped countries it can often be observed that people without major need offer their vote to the highest bidder in an election. It is not easy to see what - assuming people are free to make decisions about this step - is supposed to be wrong. The principle must also apply here: volenti non fit iniuria .

Everyday experience clearly shows that people are often ready to take sometimes considerable risks. The Maximin Rule, however, entails an extreme risk aversion, which is either Rawls himself or at least what he personally considers most beneficial for society as a whole. If the former were true, any further discussion would be superfluous, because one cannot argue about the risk preferences of an individual. If, however, the second possibility applies, the question of the work changes: namely not what is just or fair, but what risk preference would be desirable for a society as a whole.

Incidentally, Rawls designed his original state in such a way that individuals do not even know their personal preferences. They are therefore unaware of their aversion to risk and consequently cannot take it into account.

If Rawls takes away all preferences, emotions, all habits and all personal knowledge from his members of society in the original state, are these subjects still human at all? How can decisions by such subjects be relevant to a human society? In this respect, the relation to reality of the theory of justice is questionable.

One can rightly ask to what extent Rawls' theory still meets the requirements of a contract theory. It does not contain any negotiating elements (“bargaining” component). The agreement was made unanimously. Nobody renounces something for the benefit of another. Rawls' principles should also explicitly apply precisely not because a contract exists, but because they correspond to reason and correspond to the intuitive moral-justice-fairness conceptions of the members of society. In this way, what Rawls himself called the “contract theory” differs fundamentally from the classical representatives of this type, such as the theories of Hobbes , Robert Nozick or David Gauthier . Because there, the contracting parties have their own tangible interests, which they forego in favor of others, with the aim of being able to look after their own other interests even better.

Wolfgang Kersting emphasizes the coherence theoretical nature of Rawls' conception. The feedback between individual judgments and principles results in constant further development. Rawls does justice to this aspect through his “ reflective equilibrium ” . Due to the endlessness of this process of reflection, the principles found are subject to the reservation of provisionality. A common sense morality develops. The everyday judgments form the logical priority and are the basis for the explication principles. Against this background, however, it is unclear what Rawls actually wants to achieve with his theory. On the basis of this consideration, it is reduced to the mere laying down of the current moral concept, and this only to a geographically limited area at a certain point in time.

The experiment by Frohlich and Oppenheimer

As part of empirical justice research , a concrete experiment to test the theory of justice was carried out by Norman Frohlich and Joe A. Oppenheimer. In this experiment, several test groups had to choose between four distribution principles :

Maximizing Least Income
Maximizing the median income
Maximizing the average income while ensuring a minimum income
Maximizing median income with a fixed difference between highest and lowest income

If the respective group would agree on a principle, it was promised to distribute a sum of money among the members according to this principle. Who received what amount should be drawn. Otherwise the principle of distribution should also be determined by lot. Most of the time, an agreement was reached and the principle that guarantees a minimum income (No. 3) was chosen.

The difference principle was clearly not favored by Rawls (No. 1). The unrestricted utility maximization of utilitarianism (No. 2) was also not preferred. However, the general conditions of the experiment do not allow a clear conclusion. On the one hand, contrary to the requirements of the original state at Rawls, real people do not abstract from their individual abilities in a real decision-making situation. On the other hand, the test subjects were predominantly students, so that there was no neutral, representative social structure in the experiment.

Criticism of the critics

Without wanting to evaluate the theory of justice directly, Volker H. Schmidt points out that a number of critics of Rawls overlook a fundamental restriction on which Rawls bases his work. Rawls has expressly emphasized that he is setting up a theory for the basic institutional structures of a society. Rawls' work is neither a comprehensive moral code nor a manual for making decisions under uncertainty.

Schmidt cites the economist and utilitarian John Harsanyi and Michael Walzer as examples of the failed criticism . Harsanyi had argued that Rawls' Maximin rule was so averse to risk that if you followed it, you could only come to decisions that were alien to life. In the area of ethical decisions, too, Harsanyi wanted to show that Rawls' criteria were unsuitable. In the case of an organ transplant, the decision on the recipient would be in favor of the less well-off patient. However, this is possibly someone who has only a few months to live as a cancer patient, while another patient, who is very likely to be able to live healthy for many years after the transplant, missed out on Rawls. Schmidt points out that Rawls does not want to solve specific allocation problems with his principles at any point in his work. The theory of justice is a political theory about the principles of constitution of a constitution.

For this reason, Michael Walzer's accusation of monism cannot be correct. For Schmidt, Rawls and Walzer address two different levels. Rawls did not comment on topics discussed by Walzer. At best, Rawls can be held responsible for the fact that his theory is incomplete, but not (under this aspect) that it is wrong. This counter-criticism also applies to critics who point out that Rawls, for example, does not use the principle of merit at all.

Rawls had already emphasized in the theory of justice: "The motives of people in their original state are in no way to be confused with the motives of people in everyday life." The social constitution of people is a " truism ". He later directly rejected the criticism:

"Michael Sandel is wrong when he assumes that the original state is based on a conception of the self that is deprived of all its randomly given attributes."

A typical criticism of the theory of justice is its transfer to concrete individual situations. Thus forming Ulrich Steinvorth the following example: In a surgery five accident victims to be admitted, one of which has a total brain damage, while the four other internal organs urgently need to survive. Steinvorth claims that, according to Rawls, because of their self-interest orientation, even under the veil of ignorance, the five people affected would decide to have their organs transplanted and "slaughtered" the brain-damaged person before the accident because they did not know what role they would take on after the accident and in the event that there was a 4: 1 chance in their favor. The objection with a reference to the basic values does not apply because rational egoists would not even choose the first principle of justice. On the other hand, Rawls' assumption, which is the basis of his entire theory of justice, stands: "Every human being has an inviolability arising from justice, which cannot be undone in the name of the good of society as a whole."

Individual evidence

↑ The German edition from 1975, translated by Hermann Vetter, is based on a version from 1975 revised by Rawls compared to the original edition, on which all further translations into other languages are based. In this updated version, Rawls already addresses some reviews, especially from the American area. His explanations are printed in Otfried Höffe : John Rawls. A theory of justice. Lay out the classic series. 2nd Edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2006, pp. 295-301.

↑ Quotations from A Theory of Justice are based on the German paperback edition, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1975, according to the scheme: TG part, section, page (s) (if necessary, also include the footnote (FN))

↑ TG Preface, 14, FN1

^ Two Concepts of Rules. In: The Philosophical Review. 64, 1955, pp. 3-32; German in: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Introduction to utilitarian ethics. UTB, Munich 1975.

^ Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics. In: Philosophical Review. 60, 1951; German in: Dieter Birnbacher , Norbert Hoerster (Ed.): Texts on ethics. Beck, Munich 1976, pp. 177-191.

↑ TG foreword

↑ TG Preface, 15

↑ Otfried Höffe: Critical introduction to Rawls' theory of justice. In: ders. (Ed.): On John Rawls' Theory of Justice. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1977, p. 14.

↑ TG 1.1, 19

↑ TG 10.2, 74-85

↑ TG 3.22, 148

^ TG 2.14, 105

↑ Otfried Höffe: Critical introduction to Rawls' theory of justice. In: ders. (Ed.): On John Rawls' Theory of Justice. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1977, p. 26.

↑ Nelson Goodman: Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. 4th editions, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1983.

^ TG 3.23, 152

^ TG 1.24, 162

^ TG 5.46, 336-337

^ TG 4.35, 250

^ TG 4.32, 229-235

↑ TG 4:38, 265

^ TG 1.1, 19-20

↑ TG 4:34, 244

^ TG 2.17, 126

^ TG 1.3, 32

↑ John Rawls: The Idea of Political Liberalism. Articles 1978–1989. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1992, p. 54

^ TG 2.17, 122

↑ TG 2:44, 323

^ TG 2.7, 52-59

↑ Principia Ethica, Chapters 1 and 6

^ The Right and the Good. Chapters 1 and 2 and The Foundations of Ethics.

^ Political Agreement. Routledge, London 1965, especially pp. 4-8 and pp. 186/287.

↑ Ethical Theory. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs 1959, pp. 426-430.

↑ Distributive Justice. Bobbs-Merrill, New York 1966, pp. 35-41 and pp. 115-121.

↑ TG 5.50, 360-367

^ TG 360

↑ TG 6.51, 368

^ TG 2.17, 133

↑ TG 6.51, 373

^ TG 4.40, 285

^ TG 205

^ TG 4.31, 223-229

^ TG 4.31, 224

^ TG 4.31, 226

↑ TG 6.53, 392

↑ TG 6.54, 398

↑ TG 6.55, 401

↑ Volker H. Schmidt: John Rawls, A theory of justice. In: Eberhard Braun, Felix Heine, Uwe Opolka: Political Philosophy. New edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2008, pp. 454–479, here p. 475.

↑ TG 6.55, 402

↑ TG 6.57, 409

↑ TG 6.59. 428

↑ Peter Koller: New Theories of the Social Contract. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, p. 77.

↑ Anarchy State Utopia. Translated by Hermann Vetter. Moderne Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1976, p. 243.

↑ Nico Scarano, Introduction to Chapter V, in: Christoph Horn, Nico Scarano (Ed.): Philosophy of Justice. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2002, p. 340.

↑ Anarchy State Utopia. Translated by Hermann Vetter. Moderne Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1976, pp. 268–269.

↑ Anarchy State Utopia. Translated by Hermann Vetter. Moderne Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1976, p. 264.

↑ Anarchy State Utopia. Translated by Hermann Vetter. Moderne Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1976, p. 144.

^ Wolfgang Kersting: Theories of social justice. Stuttgart 2000, p. 118; also Michael Köhler: Iustitia fundamentum regnorum. Justice as the basis of politics. In: Reinhold Schmücker, Ulrich Steinvorth (ed.): Justice and politics. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, pp. 25–40, here p. 38.

^ Ronald Dworkin: Do liberty and Equality conflict? In: Paul Barker (Ed.): Living as Equals. Oxford 1996, pp. 39–57, here p. 45, quoted from: Michael Köhler: Iustitia fundamentum regnorum. Justice as the basis of politics. In: Reinhold Schmücker, Ulrich Steinvorth (ed.): Justice and politics. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, pp. 25–40, here p. 38.

^ Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. 1982.

↑ Michael Sandel: The procedural republic and the unbound self. In: Axel Honneth (Ed.): Communitarism. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1993, pp. 18–35, here p. 25.

^ Sources of the Self. The emergence of modern identity. 1989, German 1996

↑ The Loss of Virtue. On the moral crisis of the present. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1995, p. 93.

↑ Michael Walzer: Spheres of Justice. P. 291.

↑ Michael Walzer: Spheres of Justice. S. 11/12.

^ Eva Kreisky : Against hidden sexuality. The masculine underside of political justice discourses. In: Andreas Dornheim, Winfrid Franzen, Alexander Thurmfart, Arno Waschkuhn (eds.): Justice. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1999, pp. 168-207, in particular pp. 194-197.

^ Eva Kreisky: Against hidden sexuality. P. 195.

↑ Herlinde Pauer-Studer: The other of justice. Moral theory in the context of gender difference. Berlin 1996, in particular pp. 55-59.

↑ Susan Moller Okin: From Kant to Rawls. Reason and feeling in ideas of justice. In: Herta Nagl-Docekal, Herlinde Pauer-Studer (Ed.): Beyond gender morality. Contributions to a feminist ethic. Frankfurt 1993, pp. 305-334.

↑ Jürgen Habermas: The inclusion of the other. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1996, p. 93.

↑ Jürgen Habermas: The inclusion of the other. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1996, p. 126.

^ Stanley Cavell: Cities of the World. Pedagogical Letters on a Register of Morality. Cambridge / Mass. 2004, p. 108, quoted from Martin Saar: Ethical-political perfectionism. Stanley Cavell and practical philosophy. In: DZPhil. Berlin 55 (2007), pp. 289–301, here p. 295, own translation

^ Stanley Cavell: Cities of the World. Pedagogical Letters on a Register of Morality. Cambridge / Mass. 2004, p. 174, quoted from Martin Saar: Ethical-political perfectionism. Stanley Cavell and practical philosophy. In: DZPhil. Berlin 55 (2007), pp. 289–301, here p. 296, own translation

↑ Avishai Margalit: Politics of Dignity. P. 181.

↑ Avishai Margalit: Politics of Dignity. P. 321

↑ Avishai Margalit: Politics of Dignity. P. 324/325

↑ HLA Hart: Rawls on Freedom. In: Otfried Höffe: John Rawls. A theory of justice. Akademie-Verlag (series classics interpret), 2nd edition. 2006, pp. 1117–1147 (original 1973)

↑ Richard Mervyn Hare: Rawls' Theory of Justice. In: Norman Daniels (Ed.): Reading Rawls. Critical Studies on Rawls' "A Theory of Justice". Blackwell, Oxford 1975, pp. 81-107, here p. 82.

↑ Axel Honneth: Justice and communicative freedom. Considerations following Hegel. ( Memento from January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 53 kB) p. 5/6, first published in: Barbara Merker, Georg Mohr, Michael Quante (eds.): Subjectivity and Recognition. mentis, Paderborn 2004.

^ GA Cohen: Rescuing justice and equality . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, ISBN 978-0-674-03076-3 , pp. 153 (English).

↑ Amartya Sen: Economy for the people. Hanser, Munich 2000, pp. 81-84.

↑ Amartya Sen: The Idea of Justice . CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60653-3 , chap. 2 .

↑ Thomas Nagel: Rawls on Justice. In: Philosophical Review. 82 (1973), pp. 220-234, reprinted in: Norman Daniels (Ed.): Reading Rawls. New York 1975, pp. 1–16, here p. 9.

↑ Benjamin Barber: The Justification of Justice. In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): About John Rawls' theory of justice. Suhrkamp Frankfurt 1977, pp. 224-258, here pp. 231 and 237

^ Ronald Dworkin: What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources. In: Philosophy and Public Affairs. 10/1981, p. 339.

↑ Kenneth Arrow: Some Ordinal Utilitarian Remarks on Rawls' Theory of Justice. In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): About John Rawls' theory of justice. Suhrkamp Frankfurt 1977, pp. 199–223, here p. 211.

↑ Will Kymlicka: Political Philosophy Today. An introduction. Campus, Frankfurt 1997 (1990), pp. 76-81.

↑ Liberal liberalism: necessary delimitations. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006; Critique of equality: beyond the limits of justice and morality. Velbrück, Weilerswist 2005; John Rawls for introduction. New version. Junius, Hamburg 2001; Social Justice Theories. Metzler, Stuttgart 2000.

↑ Norman Frohlich, Joe A. Oppenheimer: Choosing Justice. An Experimental Approach to Ethical Theory. University of California Press, Berkeley 1992.

^ “ Groups generally chose a floor constraint. The groups wanted an income floor to be guaranteed to the worst-off individuals- this floor was to act a safety net for all individuals. But after this constraint was set, they wished to preserve incentives so as to maximize production and hence average income. Only occasionally was there a sustained interest in the imposition of a ceiling on incomes (a range constraint). ”, Norman Frohlich, Joe A. Oppenheimer: Choosing Justice. An Experimental Approach to Ethical Theory. University of California Press, Berkeley 1992, quoted from: Stefan Liebig: Justice attitudes and justice judgments. In: Stefan Liebig, Holger Lengfeld (Hrsg.): Interdisciplinary research on justice. To link empirical and normative perspectives. Campus, Hamburg 2002, pp. 77–102, here p. 84.

↑ Volker H. Schmidt: Conditional justice. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 2000, pp. 81–89.

^ John C. Harsanyi: Can the Maximin Principle Serve as a Basis for Morality? In: American Political Science Review. 69, 1975, pp. 594-606.

^ TG 172

^ TG 567

↑ John Rawls: The Ideas of Political Liberalism. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1992, p. 276, FN 21.

^ Ulrich Steinvorth: Philosophy and Politics. In: Reinhold Schmücker, Ulrich Steinvorth (ed.): Justice and politics. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, pp. 7–24, here p. 18.

↑ TG 19

literature

John Rawls : A Theory of Justice. 1971, revised version 1975.
- German: A theory of justice. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1975, ISBN 3-518-27871-1 .
Otfried Höffe : John Rawls. A theory of justice. 2nd Edition. Akademie-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-05-004267-2 . (Interpret series of classics)
Wolfgang Kersting : Justice and public reason: About John Rawls' political liberalism. mentis 2006, ISBN 3-89785-535-6 .
Thomas W. Pogge : John Rawls. Beck 1994, ISBN 3-406-34637-5 .

Web links

Literature on A Theory of Justice in the catalog of the German National Library
Fred D'Agostino: Original position. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
Julian Nida-Rümelin : The two central intentions of the theory of justice as fairness by John Rawls - a critical reconstruction (PDF; 2 MB)

[1] The German edition from 1975, translated by Hermann Vetter, is based on a version from 1975 revised by Rawls compared to the original edition, on which all further translations into other languages are based. In this updated version, Rawls already addresses some reviews, especially from the American area. His explanations are printed in Otfried Höffe : John Rawls. A theory of justice. Lay out the classic series. 2nd Edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2006, pp. 295-301.