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**RotsLoado** · 08-05-2011, 01:41 AM

This question reminds me of John Rawls with his work 'A Theory of Justice'. He came up with the two principles:

'each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others'

and

'Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that:
a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).
b) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity'

In other words: people are not created equal by nature! And if we come up with standard opportunities and laws which apply to everyone, then there will always be people in advantage or in disadvantage. So in order to overcome this gap, but still keep people in responsibility for their own lifes, opportunities and laws have to be modified to the degree of fair equality.

Rawls very much helped with the shift in meanings of terms in political philosophy that I mentioned, especially in shifting the meaning of the term justice. It's always seemed like an unfair co-opting to me that confuses things. We're all for rights, equality, and justice, right? So, he uses those terms to mean things that support what he believes the goals of government and society should be, even when those goals have more appropriate terms that could be used. For example, "rights"="entitlements," "justice"="appropriate distribution," and "equality"="equal distribution."

Then, we can fairly assess what Rawls is calling for. Basically, he is calling for a more equal distribution of things (goods and jobs mainly), which suffers from the problems discussed earlier (conflict with freedom and failure to taken advantage of certain niches). Again, it comes down to what balance we want to strike. I think his difference principle strikes the wrong balance.

08-05-2011, 01:41 AM	#12
RotsLoado Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 634 Senior Member	This question reminds me of John Rawls with his work 'A Theory of Justice'. He came up with the two principles: 'each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others' and 'Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that: a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). b) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity' In other words: people are not created equal by nature! And if we come up with standard opportunities and laws which apply to everyone, then there will always be people in advantage or in disadvantage. So in order to overcome this gap, but still keep people in responsibility for their own lifes, opportunities and laws have to be modified to the degree of fair equality. Rawls very much helped with the shift in meanings of terms in political philosophy that I mentioned, especially in shifting the meaning of the term justice. It's always seemed like an unfair co-opting to me that confuses things. We're all for rights, equality, and justice, right? So, he uses those terms to mean things that support what he believes the goals of government and society should be, even when those goals have more appropriate terms that could be used. For example, "rights"="entitlements," "justice"="appropriate distribution," and "equality"="equal distribution." Then, we can fairly assess what Rawls is calling for. Basically, he is calling for a more equal distribution of things (goods and jobs mainly), which suffers from the problems discussed earlier (conflict with freedom and failure to taken advantage of certain niches). Again, it comes down to what balance we want to strike. I think his difference principle strikes the wrong balance.
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