JOHN RAWLS

How Does One Go about Building a Constitution in Rawls's Theory?

How Does One Go about Building a Constitution in Rawls's Theory?

Introduction

John Rawls was an American philosopher who had a significant impact on post-war political philosophy. He is credited with reviving a form of normative theorizing that had gone into decline in the course of the twentieth century and, more specifically, resuscitating the social contract tradition of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. The focus of his work is justice, more specifically, distributive justice. Accepting that human beings can benefit from coercively enforced social cooperation, he is concerned with the fair distribution of the costs and benefits of such cooperation. Although his most famous book, A Theory of Justice (first published in 1971), is primarily a discussion of justice between individuals under a state, he does address justice between states or people in his last substantively new work, The Law of Peoples (1999). Rawls reformulated his project and arguments in response to criticism, and the discussion will follow the development of his work from the publication of A Theory of Justice, in which he sets out the method for determining what is a just distribution and defends his “two principles of justice,” to his revisions of the theory in Political Liberalism (1993) and, finally, to his theory of international justice.

Discussion

Rawls has prioritized the Social justice and considered the justice as primary asset of social institutions. Thus, their approach does not value more than the institutions in this order, firm and proficient, fundamentally, be mentioned that they are fair and not be the case should follow to be amended or invalidated. This clears that his initiating point and focus of Social justice is the fundamental societal structure, and it distributes rights and duties in the society, in a way, in which social institutions distribute. Without any doubt, in case the concept of just society brings to mind its contrary, is unbelievable, may be Rawls develops the theory of justice as equality similar to complaint and unfair criticism of the society in his time. If this is not the case, it would make a little sense to contradict the existing society a theoretical project that embarks the conditions of possibility of a more fair society. However, Rawls declares its intention to make a fundamental premise of his theory by comparing it to the idea of justice applied to social institutions with the idea of truth behind such claim in any theory. "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions," he writes, as truth is of systems of thought. One theory, however attractive and enlightening as it is, must be rejected or revised if it is true, equally, no matter what the laws and institutions are ordered and are efficient: if they are unjust must be reformed or abolished. First premise, for: justice is the first virtue of social institutions, not only or primarily a single provision. Will be noted, first, what is meant by right and wrong, as did Plato in the ...