Rawls's Difference Principle

Classification

Position level

specific

Domains

Political Philosophy

Overview

Rawls begins from the thought that the distribution of natural talent and social starting point is arbitrary from a moral point of view. Nobody earns the family or the aptitudes they are born with, so nobody is entitled to whatever those advantages happen to yield. Inequalities are not thereby forbidden, but they must be justifiable to the people who do worst under them, and the justification available is that the arrangement leaves those people better off than any more equal one would.

The principle is chosen, on Rawls's argument, by parties behind a veil of ignorance who do not know which position they will occupy. It ranks below equal basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity, so it governs income and wealth rather than licensing trades against those prior guarantees.

Position on

• Distributive Justice

Broader position

• Egalitarianism

Incompatible positions

• Utilitarian Distribution

  Question scope: Distributive Justice

• Entitlement Theory

  Question scope: Distributive Justice

References

• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, §§11–17
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, §5 and §30, which set out classical utilitarianism as the alternative justice as fairness rejects, on the ground that maximizing the aggregate does not respect the distinctness of persons
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, §§12-13, which names the principle 'democratic equality' and grounds it in the moral arbitrariness of the natural and social distribution of advantage
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Egalitarianism, §3.1 (the difference principle as a leading egalitarian distributive criterion)