Theory of Justice

RAWLS V. NOZICK (ON JUSTICE)

By ROMA MUKHERJEE

In our current society, the study of philosophy tends to be written off quite easily. Philosophy does not provide tangible results like engineering or science. It doesn't build bridges or cure diseases. It doesn't feed us or clothe us. It doesn't even make us laugh. Philosophers are rarely cited in the world by the media or asked to comment on specific issues. This seems to fuel the perception that philosophers are stuck in ivory towers (or at least behind the crumbling walls of sandstone universities), tucked away from the real world and hidden in a realm of abstract thinking.

However while questions of knowledge are once again popular, I would like to argue that the philosophies of government and politics are central to political debate. How should governments work? What is their purpose? These questions underpin democracy itself and are of vast importance to society as a whole. It should also be borne in mind that not all philosophies are scorned or ignored and the impact that they leave on ore minds is overwhelming.

Whenever we talk about distributive justice whether as a philosophy or as a policy adopted by the same the name that strikes are minds is that of John Rawls, an American philosopher who published his seminal work A Theory of Justice in 1975.

This work was groundbreaking in many ways. Not only did it help to wrench philosophy away from its self indulgent preoccupation with language, but it also showed how philosophy could have a real impact on the way society was arranged. The purpose of Rawls work was to create a system of justice from first principles, creating a philosophical basis for a just society.

Rawls accomplished this by grounding his theory in a type of social contract which began with a veil of ignorance. He argued that to work out the basic principles of a society, each of us should pretend that we know nothing about our own social class,...