Original Position Essay

Probably, many of us feel that our societies are a little or sometimes completely unjust. However, it is hard to explain our sense of justice (or equality) to the authority that in a way that sounds rational and not huffish. That is why we need John Rawls. He is an American philosopher of the twentieth-century who provided us a model that is reveal what is truly unfair and how we can correct is. He was born in Maryland in the USA in 1921. The tragedy of the Second World War, the shocking poverty and his brothers’ death made him responded to injustices of the world from his early childhood. All this experiences inspired him to go to a college because he wanted to use the power of ideas to change the unjust world into equal. The publication

Rawls’ primary concern when addressing social justice is what rights and duties members of society have in the prevailing institutions and how the benefits should be distributed. With this, Rawls argues from two primary principles of justice. The first being the equality principle and the second being the difference principle. The equality principle stipulates that each individual must hold the same level of liberty as each other individual. The difference principle advocates that social and economic inequalities be distributed only to the advantage of the worst-off--giving the worst off in society a fair deal. This leads into Rawls’ Original Position.

We begin with John Rawls’s conception of justice. He has two principles of justice; they are the principle of basic liberties, the second principle has two parts: the principle of fair equality of opportunity and the difference principle. According to Cohen (2003), the principle of basic liberty says that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of liberties of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of

From its penning, John Rawls’ theory of Justice, states several foundational notions. First among them is the distinction that his concept of justice is not to give rise to any one specific form of governmental power or structure. It is simply the “principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association.” This crux of Rawls’ argument in the “Original Position” is the moniker of Justice as Fairness, which is rooted directly in the moment a shift

John Rawls' theory of justice is based on a belief in which all the people will have the same rights and opportunities. His theoretical idea assumes that people will enter into a social contract called original position. The Original Position idea is based on equality for everyone in economical, goods and liberties

John Rawls is an egalitarian philosopher and his framework of justice as fairness requires adherence to two principles: the original position and the veil of ignorance. Rawls states that governments should not simply provide basic liberties to its citizens but should ensure that the liberties are distributed fairly in society.

Why You Should Actually Read A Theory of Justice If pressed for the most simplistic one-sentence answer to how I viewed my understanding of this work I would not hesitate to exclaim, “The most conclusive qualitative argument for ‘justice as fairness’”. Notwithstanding, this simplistic review needs to be supported in a way that encourages others, who are inclined, to relish the challenge of critical discourse on the imperative questions of political philosophy raised by John Rawls.

Rawls’ Original Position and Veil of Ignorance Pertaining to Same Sex Unions Charnise Bonhomme University of Central Florida Rawls’ Original Position and Veil of Ignorance Pertaining to Same Sex Unions The in class Rawls assignment focused on justice, and the fairness of how people are treated throughout society. The class, after being broken down into groups, tackled the subjects of why people disagree about what is right, and what is not, and how morals and ethics guides a person’s interest as to what is fair and what is just. As with many things in life, there are two sides to every story. There are people that accentuate the outcome, and those that accentuate the process. Those that put emphasis on the outcome, more than likely see inequality as unjustifiable. However, when the process is emphasized, although the system may seem unequal, it provides everyone with a fair chance.

A Theory of Justice John Rawls was a philosopher who held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University. Rawls published several books and many articles. In one of his most remarkable works, A Theory of Justice, Rawls depicts his views on the utilitarian position taken by many Western democracies; Ralws believed this method of social justice was unfair to the least advantaged. In fact, this method could do as much to harm those minorities. Rawls position in regard to social fairness and utilitarianism is precise to a certain extent. The argument of utilitarianism has a number of problems, including, especially, that it seems to be consistent with the idea of the tyranny of majorities over minorities. However,

This essay discusses Rawls’ formal constraints of publicity and universality for theorising about justice. I will explain what these constraints are and how they feature in Rawls’ theory of justice. I will argue that they are reasonable constraints given certain assumptions Rawls makes concerning the conception of a person as

Since getting rid of segregation in the 1950’s, the U.S. has still portrayed an obvious amount of racism through the U.S. criminal justice system through racial biases. As of 2014, “Black Americans constitute roughly twelve percent of the American population, but nearly forty percent of incarcerated Americans are black” (Clemons). In his article Racism Undermines the US Criminal Justice System, expert Paul Street states “On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males ages 20 to 29 are ‘under correctional supervision’[...]a young black man age sixteen in 1996 faces a 29 percent chance of spending time in prison during his life. The corresponding statistic for white men in the same age group is 4 percent” (Street). Young

According to statistics, Blacks have a disproportionate representation in the prison system. Some say that Blacks and Latinos and more likely to be charged for a crime because of their race (Blumstein p.39). Incarceration rates between Blacks and Whites are disproportionate, with a ratio of seven blacks to one white. This is a profound example of racial discrimination (Gabbidon, and Greene). Most say that the main cause of wrongful conviction is corruption in the justice system. The Justice System may convict an innocent of a crime just so someone is held liable for said crime, and in order for them to move on to the next case. We have all heard or read, whether on the news or in the paper, about criminal cases where individuals are convicted of crimes and sometimes even given the death penalty; and in most of these cases they were given a public lawyer, that may have been inexperienced with these types of cases, or did not put as much work into the case as they should have. Which led to a clearly innocent individual being held liable for a crime. Such incompetency on the part of a defense attorney undoubtedly results in some wrongful convictions (Warner). Lives have been known to be torn apart by prosecutorial misconduct.

Introduction In this paper we will look at the original position as a constructive procedure for recognizing the principles of justice, and I will defend such a procedure from the arguments made by G.A. Cohen in Rescuing Justice and Equality. Rawls’s constructivism is characterized by the use of the concept of the original position. Rawls is a constructivist in the sense that the principles of justice are products of a choice made in the original position. The procedure for making the decision of which principles are to obtain is central in Rawls’s account – the substance of these procedures are therefore, according to Rawls, determined neither by human psychology nor a system of conceiving-independent values. The basis for such principles are constructed by equal and free persons under fair conditions, and so is referred to as “justice as fairness” (Theory of Justice 11).

Rawls’ attempt to define justice as fairness within the confines of the original position in A Theory of Justice establishes a deontological ethic. Rawls’ theory prioritizes individual liberty with equality to illustrate the deficiencies of utilitarianism. Despite criticism from Sandel, Rawls’ justice as fairness theory adequately defends a redistributive system for the entire society while addressing the inequality of luck.

John Rawls was a man who played an influential role in shaping political thought in the late 20th century. Rawls is accredited for writing two major contributions that has helped influence political ideology of those even today. His first piece was published in 1971, A Theory of Justice, which argues his belief of justice on the domestic level and also that reconciliation between liberty and equality must occur in order to have a just society . Rawls’s belief of what justice should be is extremely controversial, and helped put Rawls on the map. Later, after Rawls gained a reliable reputation he published another piece called, Law of the Peoples, which was his application of justice towards international affairs and what he believes