Position
Rawls's Difference Principle
Social and economic inequalities are just only when fair institutions arrange them to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.
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 only justification available is that, among the arrangements compatible with equal liberties and fair opportunity, this one makes the least advantaged as well off as they can be. Rawls calls the arrangement that does this perfectly just. An inequality that helps them, but less than another arrangement would, can still be just, though not the best just arrangement; it becomes unjust only when cutting the better-off's share would leave the worst off better off.
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
Broader position
Rival 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, §2.2.3 (the difference principle as a leading egalitarian distributive criterion)