Rawls: A Therory of Justice

Throughout John Rawls reading on A Theory of Justice, he speaks about his idea of “justice as fairness”.

Rawls came up with this “justice as fairness” through the principles of justice. These principles of justice “…are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established.” (Rawls 199).

Another of Rawls explanation to “justice as fairness” is “…it conveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation that is fair. The name does not mean that the concepts of justice and fairness are the same, any more than the phrase “poetry as metaphor” means that the concept of poetry and metaphor are the same” (Rawls 200). I like this explanation of what he means by “justice as fairness” because when first reading this I did not understand exactly what he meant by this phrase.

This is how I think he articulates his idea of “justice as fairness”. Rawls starts off with the idea of the principles of justice and makes them into his idea of “justice as fairness”. As he says where it begins is “...with the choice of the first principle of a conception of justice which is to regulate all subsequent criticism and reform of institutions” (Rawls 200). To me his way of explaining “justice as fairness is taking the ideas of the principle of justice and applying it to explain his idea of “justice as fairness”.

Works Cited

Rawls, John. “A Theory of Justice.” A World of Ideas: Essential Reading for College Writers. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. New York; Bedford St. Martins, 2006. pp 195-206.