ipl-logo

John Rawls's Argument On Distributive Justice

1037 Words5 Pages

In this essay, I will explain John Rawls’s argument concerning distributive justice and Roland Dworkin’s argument concerning why a government should be a welfare state, as well as arguing for the fair and just treatment for those least advantaged in society, whatever that society might look like. Rawls’s argument in favor of distributive justice begins with his initial overall idea that one’s ability to lead a good life should not be based upon things one cannot control, such as his endowments, but instead based upon one’s ambition. This gives everyone the same opportunity in achieving success within their life. Being ambition-sensitive is key to his argument because one’s success should be based upon the work they put into life (their ambition) …show more content…

Although, there are still some things we, as humans, are given naturally that we cannot just avoid or take away. These are our natural primary goods such as intelligence, health, or strength, and they sometimes do influence our social standing or success in life. This made Rawls’s argument instable, and in order to fix it he came up with the difference principle which states that such inequalities are acceptable, as long as they enhance the wellbeing of the least advantaged. The idea of being ambition-sensitive and endowment-insensitive are key to his overall position on distributive justice. For Rawls, distributive justice means a world …show more content…

It begins with a ship crashing on an island, stripping everyone of their previous status and endowments. Then everyone is given 100 clam shells which gives everyone equal purchasing power to buy the same amount of the community’s resources. While everyone is using their money to purchase some of the community’s resources, it is imperative that they also enforce the envy test, which tests to make sure no one is envious of anyone else’s bundle of resources. If everyone is happiest with the resources they received, this is how we know the resources of the community were distributed justly. The envy test makes his experiment more endowment-insensitive because everyone has a say in what is fair and just, because if they do not believe the distribution is fair or just then everyone must put everything back in the middle and start over. But before dividing up the resources, it is important to include an insurance scheme in the community. Dworkin believes this should be done “behind a veil of ignorance” so no one knows of their natural advantages or disadvantages. For the insurance scheme, each person gives a portion of their clam shells purely based on how much, based on their idea of justice as a human, they would like to put aside to help those in the community who are disadvantaged currently or who might encounter bad brut luck in the future. Because if someone has a

Show More
Related
1008 Words | 5 Pages

This short story is kind of similar to the modern day problems. Many people say they want equality but fail to realize that everyone having equality is not always the best choice. When it comes to equality, either everyone is poor or everyone is rich. The really is no in

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

Consequently, many rich Americans believed in this view, and used it as an explanation of why some are poor and some are rich. Additionally, a similar view is expressed in Progress & Poverty, written by J.M Dent. (Doc. 11). In Progress & Poverty, Dent explains that an uneven distribution of wealth will aid social progress, because it will drive people to work harder, which in almost all cases, never worked, and only caused social unrest and strikes. Conversely, some politicians fought for workers’ rights and developed legislation in response.

Read More
764 Words | 4 Pages

Rawls states that equality of opportunity represents, “… the background institutions of social and economic justice,” that help those who are most disadvantaged (Rawls 288). Through his own story, Moore displays how education allows those who come from essentially nothing can achieve success. It gives, “… a reason to believe that a story of struggle apathy, and pain… can still have a happy ending,” (Moore 183). Rawls also believes in the, “… equal opportunities of education for all regardless of family income” (Rawls 286). Both see education not only as providing knowledge for all people, but also resources and role models, as the most direct and effective method for creating greater social equality within a

Read More
661 Words | 3 Pages

William Shakespeare states, in his play "King Lear," that "so distribution should undo excess, and each man have enough.” Shakespeare simply suggests what men should do in order to demolish the inequality that happens to everyone, as well as one's values and opportunities. As like Shakespeare, a lot of different authors and writers utilize their pieces of literature as a tool to oppose the inequality which exists in every society, so does Simone Weil. She witnesses a lot of unfairness in her lifetime that pursuits the author to form her belief about equality which later reflect on her writing. "Equality" is one of the texts that Simone Weil focuses on the idea of unequal abilities of men that creates variable social levels by identifying two

Read More
284 Words | 2 Pages

Dr. Timothy Hinton proposes an ideology in his paper that states he believes justice requires humans to have duties to our fellow citizens. Although he also provides libertarian views to explain each sides role in society when dealing with others in our community, Hinton favors the egalitarian view claiming everyone should rest at a medium having all classes be well off and willing to share the Earth’s resources equally (Hinton,2012:539). However, Hinton clarifies that the people deserving aid need to have made an attempt to support themselves first. This common ownership formula is important in society because it provides a new social balance in which people will need to become accustomed to and alters certain classes mindset and lifestyle.

Read More
349 Words | 2 Pages

Michael I. Norton wrote the article titled “Unequality: Who Gets What and Why it Matters.” Collaborating with several experiments to prove his ideas, Michael came to the understanding that inequality, from whichever ladder of wealth you fall from, almost everyone supports the idea of being unequal (Norton 152). They do not believe however that we should be as unequal as we are today (Norton 151). Correspondingly, he also understands that inequality in its severity; negatively damages clear decision making, ethical and unethical choices, and demote motivation (Norton 151). Michael asked 16 countries what they assume the level of inequality is versus what they believed the right level of inequality should be (Norton 152).

Read More
1073 Words | 5 Pages

Another example of this idea is the food, “ ‘Nex’, please!’ yelled the white-aproned prole with the ladle. Winston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. On to each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch” (Orwell 64). The government gives out regulation lunches to the working class since it is all the same for each person, while the upper class has better food.

Read More
600 Words | 3 Pages

For when those who have none spend their lives at work to gain, if anything, little else than what they need to keep a roof over their head, the argument that inequality forces them to strive for more and work harder rings hollow. It rings hollow when those who struggle to gain anything barely gain at all; while those who do not struggle, who instead benefit from wealth inequality, continue to gain far more than the average human being will in the entirety of their lives. Socially and poltically, inequality can limit those who have little to no money from changing their society for the better. In terms of survival, inequality can also pose undue challenges on those in

Read More
1371 Words | 6 Pages

To begin, John Rawls’ concept of justice is looked at in terms of social justice. Rawls challenged the ideal of justice as equivalent to fairness. Instead, Rawls argued that we are in a social contract, behind a veil of ignorance, and this is the way to fairness. Rawls’ concept is discussed thoroughly in A Theory

Read More
1541 Words | 7 Pages

Through this explanation, it is my intention to show why people would use the “maximin” rule to adopt Rawls' principles of justice. Moreover, it is my contention that an

Read More
908 Words | 4 Pages

Everyone believes that they know the right way to deal with economic justice, however the issue of how to make a society economically just has been a problem debated between many different viewpoints of distributive justice for hundreds of years. These differing viewpoints all bring with them the ability to interpret information provided about the economic conditions in a society and tell if that society is just or not. The five major principles of distributive justice are as follows: libertarian, utilitarian, egalitarian, sufficiency, and priority. Given graphs of the American distribution of wealth and income, I will apply these principles and try to interpret if these graphs reveal and injustice in the distribution of wealth and income in

Read More
913 Words | 4 Pages

John Rawls believed that if certain individuals had natural talents, they did not always deserve the benefits that came with having these abilities. Instead, Rawls proposed, these inherent advantages should be used to benefit others. Although Rawls makes an excellent argument on why this should be the case, not all philosophers agreed with his reasoning, especially Robert Nozick. Nozick believed in distributing benefits in a fair manner in accordance with the Entitlement Theory, which has three subsections: Just Acquisition, Just Transfer and Just Rectification.

Read More
761 Words | 4 Pages

This leads to an unequal distribution of means among people belonging to the same society and having similar aspirations. This lack of accessibility to available means encourages deviant behaviour among people to attain their cultural goals. Such people then resort to deviant activities that violate social norms such as theft and embezzlement, to fulfill their economic goals and cultural ambitions. Individuals who are oppressed or those that are marginalized by the society are most likely to indulge in such unsanctioned activities to achieve economic success as even they have similar cultural and economic goals as the rest of the people in the society. This example validates Merton 's theory that a society which fails to provide adequate and equal means to all the people creates a strain on the less privileged and limits their scope for success through socially accepted means.

Read More
925 Words | 4 Pages

she also made three important rules that in reality made her experiment unfair. The first rule was that she would always have a car. which is not really fair considering the aim of her experiment. Most people living in poverty do not have the luxury of owning a car. The second rule was that she would never allow herself to become homeless.

Read More
589 Words | 3 Pages

In its simplest form, consequentialism requires that one maximizes the overall well being of any situation whenever possible. Consequentialism also promotes impartiality and moral flexibility. In other words, consequentialism treats everyone as equals and allows for more wiggle room when it comes to breaking certain moral rules as long as the means justify the ends. Although there is no exact way to calculate the overall well being, John Stuart Mill suggested that we focus on “the greatest good for the greatest number” (Shafer-Landau 122). On the surface, consequentialism may seem like a viable moral theory.

Read More

More about John Rawls's Argument On Distributive Justice

Related Topics

Open Document