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219 - The two principles of justice (in justice asfairness)

from T

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

By
Pablo Gilabert
Edited by
Jon Mandle  and
David A. Reidy
Jon Mandle
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
David A. Reidy
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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Summary

Rawls’s substantive conception of social justice, justice as fairness, includes two principles. They are an answer to this question: “viewing society as a fair system of cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal, what principles of justice are most appropriate to specify basic rights and liberties, and to regulate social and economic inequalities in citizens’ prospects over a complete life?” (JF 41). The following are three key formulations of the two principles:

FIRST PRINCIPLE

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.

SECOND PRINCIPLE

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. (TJ 266)

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon
, pp. 845 - 850
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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