John Rawls's Argument On Distributive Justice

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)

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

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