Shelby fails in his attempt to use Rawls’ apparatus for achieving corrective racial justice. Although Rawls “does not directly address matters of compensatory justice” (“Race and Social Justice” 1711), Shelby thinks his theory established in A Theory of Justice can be used to solve this problem. Shelby uses FEO, a principle in Rawls’ ideal apparatus, to solve racial justice, which is a matter of non-ideal theory.
To show why Shelby’s interpretation and application of Rawls’ theory is flawed, I will use three criticisms delineated by Charles Mill in “Retrieving Rawls for Racial Justice?: A Critique of Tommie Shelby.” These include an inaccurate distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, a conflation of racial and class injustice, and the non-endorsement of Rawls himself regarding the application of his principles to non-ideal theory. Further, along the way I would like to address
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[insert quote about his project]. His project is to establish a theory of social justice that describes who should get what in society. To do this, he encourages us to engage in a thought experiment, starting from an “original position” behind the “veil of ignorance.” With knowledge limited to ___ , we then choose principles to maximize our social goods. From this Rawlsian apparatus of rational choice theory, we get two principles, lexically ordered: individuals would first choose to secure the equality of their basic liberties (BL) and then their access to wealth. Breaking down the wealth component further, individuals will want to achieve this by ensuring a fair equality in opportunity (FEO) and then establishing the least worst socioeconomic level for the poorest (DP). By fair equality of opportunity, Rawls means that individuals “who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same willingness to use them, should have the same prospects of success regardless of their initial place in the social system” (Theory