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Rawls Vs Kant

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In the “Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals,” Kant presents his interpretation of autonomy and how it relates to moral responsibility. Autonomy in its most general form is understood to be self-government, self-directing freedom, or moral independence. Kant strongly supports the idea of autonomy and providing yourself with your own law. In “A Theory of Justice,” Rawls takes the idea of autonomy and applies it to his view on justice in the world. After reading both accounts, I have found that Kant’s categorical imperative and Rawls state of original position very much mirror each other in that both conditions promote people to freely choose their guiding principles. Both Kant and Rawls believe that autonomous humans would live …show more content…

In his opinion, good will is the one thing that is always intrinsically and unconditionally good, even if its efforts fail to bring about positive results. The reason Kant feels this way about good will is because he only wants us to be morally responsible for the things we have control over. He focuses on our intention of an action, not on the consequences. Our will is something related to our own choosing and completely under our control. This is the first place that autonomy can be found in Kant. He believes that freedom is at the heart of good will because we have total power over what our intentions are. This freedom of good will is possible because of reason and rationality. Kant emphasizes the fact that reason serves a purpose higher than happiness. Reason’s main function is to create a will that is good in itself, not good for a specific purpose like happiness. Our good will is the determination to do what reason requires is right no matter …show more content…

According to Rawls, justice is what society agrees is just. Justice is how we relate with others and does not make sense for a single person. Rawl’s social contract theory is based on the justice that people choose together. His main idea of a theory of justice considers what kind of society people would choose if they did not know what place that would be in within this society. Rawls refers to this state as the original position. In this state, people are behind the veil of ignorance. They cannot see details about themselves or their qualities. This will prevent people from making decisions based on natural advantages. This original position is an unbiased vantage point from which fair agreements can be made. Rawls claims that ignorance to the details about oneself will lead to principles that are fair to all. He believes that behind the veil of ignorance, anyone would pick a society which benefits all, especially those least

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596 Words | 3 Pages

Kant’s notion of freedom connects to morality, which displays contrast between duty and inclination, explaining how only the motive of duty, doing the right thing for the right reason, confers moral worth of an action. Kant believes that everything in nature, including humans, “works in accordance with laws,” that all actions must be appointed by law, The formula of universal law that basically states how you should treat humanity as an end rather than as a means. He says we should only act upon the maxim, a principle that gives a reason for action, without contradiction. Davis claims that law is not always reliable when insuring justice; moreover, Kant can support

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901 Words | 4 Pages

I will talk about John Rawls’ philosophy and two major critiques made to his work by G.A. Cohen John Rawls was born in Baltimore in 1921. He was always concerned about poverty in the United States and wanted to change the society he lived in. He wrote his most famous book A Theory of Justice in 1971. This book is considered the most important book in American philosophy after the World War II. John Rawls philosophy is based on his vision of justice.

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This approach says that a society is in some sense is an agreement amount all those who make up the society. In the analogy Rawls shows his disagrements and gives solutions or what he things is a more just way of doing such things. Rawls starts off by saying “I believe that the contrast between the contract view and utilitarianism remains essentially the same in all these cases. There fore I shall compare justice as fairness with familiar variants of intuitionism, perfectionism, and utilitarianism in order to bring out the underlying difference in the simplest way.” Rawls strongly opposes utilitarianism.

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775 Words | 4 Pages

Rawls’ idea of justice as fairness, which he presented in his book, “A Theory of Justice,” emphasizes the importance of equal opportunities and equal distribution of wealth and resources in society. This idea resonates with me because, as someone who values fairness and equality, I believe that everyone should have the same chance to succeed and live a fulfilling life. Rawls’ work has taught me to be more aware of societal inequalities and to work towards creating a fairer and more just

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568 Words | 3 Pages

John Rawls and Robert Nozick are well known as the most eminent political philosophers of the U.S in the late twentieth century. Both of them have had their views of justice and are reviewed and explained as follows: Rawls did a work in 1971 and was about A Theory of Justice. This was his major work that he did, and it greatly assisted to shape a social justice concept, which is social democratic and liberal. He provided a theory that represented an alternative to utilitarianism.

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Many objections to the achievability of neutrality in justice argue that one cannot actually detach themselves from their personal beliefs and concepts of the good, such as Michael Sandel in his work, “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self” (Sandel, 248-249). He argues that in philosophies like Rawls’, which support the difference principle that personal assets do not belong to the individual, presuppose previous moral ties, which is the morality of sharing (Sandel, 248). Sandel asserts, “we cannot be persons for whom justice is primary, and also be persons for whom the difference principle is a principle of justice” (249). Moral ties are inseparable from our individual selves, which do not allow us to look through the veil of ignorance that Rawls proposes when approaching justice neutrally (Sandel,

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339 Words | 2 Pages

Kant stated that human beings are living by their own reason, own rationale. Moral responsibility requires our action to be free. Freedom is not just the ability to do what we want, when we want, it actually comes from reasoning and rationale. According to Kant it is necessary that human beings have free will, otherwise it will be unreasonable to hold people reasonable. Holding people responsible would not make sense without free will.

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2052 Words | 9 Pages

Rawls proposes to develop a theory of justice by revising the social contract tradition of theorizing about justice associated with the 17th and 18th century writers John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke sees legitimate political authority being derived from the free and voluntary consent of the governed, from a contract or agreement between governor and those who are being governed. Rawls says he will take the social contract idea to a higher level of abstraction. According to Rawls, justice is what free and equal persons would agree to as basic terms of social cooperation in conditions that are fair for this purpose. This idea he calls "justice as fairness.

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Rawls’ aim was to not violate human rights, and with his theory, the violation of human rights is not possible due to the existence of the original position and the veil of ignorance. As a conclusion, Rawls was a strict defender of individual freedom, he believed people’s actions should be tolerated as much as possible. However he admitted that people’s actions that threaten other people’s rights should be punished. Furthermore he talks about liberty of conscience, here again he believes that it should be limited only if it is a danger for other

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615 Words | 3 Pages

Immanuel Kant is one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. As a result of his exposure, he made several contributions to the field of philosophy by coming up with arguments that have given scholars a strong basis with which they do their studies. In this paragraph, the contribution of Kant towards the idea of Freedom of Will be discussed to make it clear for every person about the idea of freedom of the will (Kant, 1993). To start with, Kant had a strong believe that a rigorous application of same techniques of reasoning will automatically lead to an equal success in the process of dealing with the issues of moral philosophy. Kant puts it very clear that every individual needs to admit to free will for purposes of morality, that we will intuitively accept to be of help to all those involved.

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532 Words | 3 Pages

Rawls affirms that “there are two basic principles that define a “just” society” (p. 117). These two concepts are the liberty principle and the difference principle. The liberty principle states that “we should all be willing to agree to a system of rules which guarantees each person the free exercise of basic liberties” (p. 117). On the other hand, the difference principle states that there should be a “fair equality of opportunity” (p. 117). Nonetheless, our criminal justice system should have both of these principles, instead it is inequitable.

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1348 Words | 6 Pages

Rawls’ first principle of justice outlines that social institutions in a just society must aim for maximum equal liberty (Rawls, p. 82). His second principle, the difference principle, justifies inequality, but only when it maximally benefits those who are worse off (Rawls, pp. 65-66). Rawls ‘acknowledges that these principles are an oversimplification of distributive justice, but believes they should be applied to the basic structures of society (Rawls, p. 77). Rawls acknowledges that there needs to be regulations on when civil disobedience is justifiable.

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1386 Words | 6 Pages

In addition, I outlined the strong confinement in Rawls’s theory of Justice with regards to his perception of fairness. I have argued that Rawls’ perception of fairness is quite distinctive as it seems largely irreconcilable with the perception of fairness that is widely accepted by most people. To ensure a fair and equal treatment for all, Rawls stresses a complete obliteration of national capabilities and circumstances in order to create justice. However, Rawls’s perception of a just society differs a lot from the contemporary society we live in and is therefore of little significance to us.

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869 Words | 4 Pages

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls describes justice as “the first virtue of social institutions”, and as a matter of fairness. He sets out his aim for a theory building on the social contract idea, as a feasible alternative to classical utilitarian conceptions of justice (Rawls, 1971, p. 3). In seeking an alternative to utilitarianism, Rawls argues against what he regards as the prevailing dominant theory. He comments that in the utilitarian view of justice “it does not matter, except indirectly, how the sum of satisfactions is distributed among individuals” (Idis, p. 23). In other words, utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between individuals (categorizing everyone in one branch).

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1821 Words | 8 Pages

On the other hand, while philosopher Robert Nozick paid a generous tribute to the brilliance of Rawls’ philosophical construction, he provides a rejection to Rawls’ claims from a libertarian perspective. Libertarians have the desire to divide and limit power. That is, government will be limited generally through a written constitution limiting the powers that the people delegate to government (Boaz, 2015). Nozick stated that Rawls’ idea would have resulted in the restriction of free choice or forced distribution within the society.

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