Riker and Brams have demonstrated the paradox of vote trading (“… that rational trades by all members [may] make everyone worse off”). In so doing the authors indicate the existence of an apparent disequilibrium when vote trading occurs. I extend this latter point and prove that the preference conditions required for vote trading are the same as those which produce the cyclical majority; the conditions for vote trading and the cyclical majority are logically equivalent. The conclusion briefly indicates the impact of this finding with respect to the work of a number of other authors and gives some idea of the restrictions which would be required to eliminate vote trading among rational legislators.

John Rawls's theory of justice is best understood as an attempt to adapt Rousseau's theory of the general will to the modern liberal democratic state. Central to the theory is a belief in the rationality of human nature and dynamics. In a well-ordered society men's natural sentiments will prove to be both unified and stable, and they will not permit morally arbitrary advantages to influence their social arrangements. Rawls's theory offers a rational accommodation of freedom and equality. His philosophical perspective opens him to the charge that his theory slights the historical dimension of human justice. His conception of human personality is somewhat ambiguous. There is incongruity between his ethical theory and the realities of democratic politics. Nevertheless, Rawls's formulation of the moral and political principles of liberalism is a major achievement and entirely worthy of his intellectual ancestry

It is argued that Rawls does not offer a viable alternative to utilitarian morality. It is shown that the maximin principle would lead to absurd decisions. Thus, it is unfortunate that Rawls bases his theory on the assumption that the maximin principle would serve as decision rule in the original position. The present writer has shown (prior to Rawls's first paper on this subject) that we can obtain a highly satisfactory theory of morality, one in the utilitarian tradition, if we assume that in the original position expected-utility maximization would be used as a decision rule. Rawls's theory is unacceptable because it would force us to discriminate against the legitimate human needs of all individuals enjoying good fortune in any way— whether by being relatively well-to-do, or by being in reasonably good health, or by having good intellectual ability or artistic talent, etc.

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls assumes that the principles of justice are for individuals in a society, and in general he assumes that the society is an ethnically homogeneous state. He thus follows the tradition associated with the dominant form of the social contract theory, which focuses on the individual and the state. His assumptions neglect the fact that almost all states are ethnically plural or heterogeneous, and that many of them confer special status and rights on ethnic groups as collective entities; for example, many of them confer special status and rights on indigenous groups, on groups disadvantaged by prior discrimination, and on minorities and other groups conceded a right to survive as distinct cultural entities. Status and rights for groups necessarily mean differentiation among individuals depending on their membership; and this in turn means that a theory of justice that focuses on the individual and neglects the group both fails to account for existing practices and fails to give guidance where the practices are at issue.

The argument is made that Rawls's proposed principles of justice would not rationally be chosen in his proposed version of the “original position.” First of all, Rawls's own account of the information available in the original position provides no basis for the conclusions about “primary goods” which he believes would imply his proposed principles. Second, even if those conclusions about primary goods were to be accepted, they would not imply the proposed principles (the “general” and the “special” conceptions of justice) because the claims which Rawls cites in support of “maximin” actually imply a different conception. Lastly, an alternative version of the original position is suggested which would avoid these difficulties and which would, in addition, successfully support a maximin conception of justice. This is not meant, however, as a conclusive argument for maximin, but only as an indication that the objections advanced here do not apply to “social contract theory” as such, but only to the particular version of it which Rawls has proposed.