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John Rawl's Definitions Of Society

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They are two principal that can be used for regulating society. Rawls’s first principle guarantees moral equality between people, which is a grounding condition for a just society. Each person should, therefore, have an equal right to the most comprehensive set of basic freedoms that are compatible with a reciprocal system of freedom for all. The second principle states that social economic inequalities will only be justified if they benefit the worst off in society and if they are attached to positions and offices open to all.
John Rawls first of all argues that society is inherently unfair as it is. Income disparities and the vast differences in life expectancies of the top 10% and bottom 10% bearers of wealth or income in society supports …show more content…

Behind this veil we would have no knowledge of what sort of parents we had, where we lived, how the schools performed, and how the police and judicial services would treat us. The central question that forms the basis of all these assumptions is that “If we knew nothing about where we would end up, what sort of society would it feel safer to enter?”
This veil of ignorance stops us thinking about all those who have done well and draws attention to the downside risks of entering the South African Society as if it were a gamble like the lottery without knowing you would end up as a Child of a Millionaire business tycoon in the affluent parts of Pretoria or a child of a single mother just getting by on the outskirts of Cape Town, Kayelisha.
The gamblers would not in their lucid mind take the risk, and would also probably not accept the current dispensation as it is today. Rawls suggests that every sane player in the game from behind the veil, will want to see well-kept and well-performing schools, affordable and quality healthcare, fair judicial conduct and decent housing for all. Rawls’ theory is thus of the utmost importance to policy makers when deciding how best to allocate resources, as policy makers have to according to Rawls take a step back into this veil of ignorance in order to devise the best or most just solution.

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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

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The wealthy continue to grow as they get more of everything and the lower class continue to get less. The average wealth has increased over the last 50 years, but it has not grown equally for all. “ Families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having no wealth on average to being

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Paul Krugman, an economics professor at Princeton, writes “Confronting Inequality” chapter 7 in his book. Equality in America is what makes America, what it stands for. Social and economic inequality still is a part of everyday life in America. Education is making parents struggle because they want to give them a good education; but also, health care for those who need it. Middle-class starts to scramble more every day while the high-class gets more prosperous.

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Nowadays, there is a huge gap of income and wealth inequality in the U.S. and that means the richer people are super rich while bottom people are struggling for basic living standard. There are some direct and explicit statistics from Inequality for All graphic package from which we can tell the phenomenon. In 2010, the typical 1% people earn 33 times of typical male workers but in 1978 the ratio is tenth comparing the male workers with the “1%” people. Also, it says “Today, the top 400 richest people have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans put together” (Inequality for All). This shows considerable wealth of the U.S. is controlled in the minority people, which is totally unlike the period of 1950s through 1980s.

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The United States is one of the most developed and wealthiest nations on the planet. However, the nation today has more income and wealth inequality as compared to any other key developed nation. In addition, there is a very large gap that exists between extremely rich and the rest of the people. Most of this income and wealth is controlled by a shocking small percentage of individuals. This accrues to only 1 percent of the nation’s total population.

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In this small paper I am going to focus on the two crucial contributions of John Rawls to the field of political philosophy, namely, his theories of justice and political liberalism, as those were presented in Justice as Fairness (later restatement of his fundamental Theory of Justice) and Political Liberalism. I will start with several major assumptions that guide Rawls ' thinking and should, in my opinion, guide any scrutiny of his ideas. First of all, he attempts to develop a political conception, that is, a framework for dealing not with all of the issues concerning a given society, but with essentially political affairs. Although he does not provide a theory of the political as such (in a sense of Schmitt), it is possible to see to what

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The Veil of Ignorance by John Rawls is one of the most important philosophical ideas of the twentieth century. An acceptable society is built on the Veil of Ignorance. Rawls says that we should figure out what justice means by building a community from the ground up in a way everyone can accept. So, we have to imagine ourselves before any society exists. The best way to think about justice is to pretend that we are starting a new society from scratch.

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Rawls accepts the fact that everyone does not want to better themselves but that should not hinder those who want to achieve more. Rawls also believes that luck-based features should not put a particular group, or groups, above others. It is unfair to give the upper hand to certain people because of factors beyond our control, such as race, age, talent, and more. With Rawls, I believe that there is an obligation to help others because you never know when you may need their help. Therefore, it is important to not stack the odds against anyone who lacks a particular feature, or features.

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Secondly, Rawls brings in dignity. Rawls says that the worst of in a society governed by the difference principle can bear their inferior position

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Wealth and Inequality in America Inequality The inequality in America has increased over time; the gap between the rich and the poor has become a problem that many Americans don’t see. Inequality is the extent of income which is distributed unequally among the citizenry. The inequality of the United has a large gap between the poor and the rich making it unfair to the population, the rich are becoming wealthier and the poor remain poor. The article “Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%”, authored by Joseph E. Stiglitz describes that there is a 1 percent amount of American’s who are consuming about a quarter of the United States income in a year.

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One of the major responses to the book came from Robert Nozick in his book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Nozick offers a libertarian response to Rawls. Libertarian notion of politics implies that there is a recognition of natural human rights and if these rights are deprived would be an immoral act. The examples of this natural rights are the rights to personal autonomy and the right to properties. The assumptions behind A Theory of Justice are essentially redistributive: That is, Rawls posits equal distribution of resources as the desirable state and then argues that inequality can be justified only by benefits for the least advantaged.

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Thus, in his book A Theory of Justice (1971), he provides us with a theory that he calls Justice as Fairness, aiming to the setting up a fair and just society for all, considering the existing inequalities. The model of this theory was like a response to the Utilitarianism, which does not take into account the rights and liberties of the minorities. The reason to come up with something substitutional to the prevailing utilitarian theory, can be traced to the very basic assumptions that according to Rawls, constitute human nature. Rawls believes that humans are individuals, differently equipped with physical features, natural talents and circumstances. What puts them on an equal basis, is their capacity of rationality and reasoning, meaning that individuals are rational in terms of conceptualizing what is good for themselves, but at the same time, they are reasonable in terms of acknowledging the right things for themselves and for the others in the community.

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John Rawls, a political philanthropist, work has immensely altered modern day political expectations. Rawls was able to begin his work off the bases that he didn't see many social institutions doings as just, in which motivated him began to work on his own theory of what a just society could potentially look like and consist of. He believed that the American society had no proper social justice system in place, but that the rich and powerful controlled how things were going. The powerful group was determining who was succeeding and moving to the top and ultimately, who remained at the bottom. “The ‘difference principle’ states that ‘social and economic inequalities should be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantage.’

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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.

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J RAWLS, The Laws of Peoples-with the Idea of Public Reason Revisited, Harvard University Press: USA, 1999. John Rawls was an influential political philosopher and his publications are widely read. One of which is the Law of Peoples published in 1993 which is the subject of my study. In the Law of Peoples Rawls concerns of the general principles whereby one can uphold and be accept by the liberal people as well as the non-liberal society. “This principle is a standard for which can be useful in regulating the behavior of the citizens towards one and other.”

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