PHIL 462 – Political Philosophy
Professor Zwolinski
Study Questions #17
Rawls’ Theory of Justice
Section 1
1) What does Rawls mean when he writes that “justice is the first virtue of social institutions”?
2) In what sense does justice hold that persons are “inviolable”?
3) What does it mean to say that society is a cooperative system for mutual advantage? In what
way is there a conflict as well as an identity of interests in it? How does this fact give rise to a
need for principles of justice?
Section 3
Note: This section is a very quick run-through of the core argument of Part I of the book. Subsequent
chapters will come back to this argument and explain its key concepts and moves in greater detail.
4) What is the object of the ‘original contract’ that Rawls discusses? (In other words, what are the
parties to that contract trying to agree about?)
5) What is the name which Rawls gives to his way of regarding the principles of justice?
6) What role does the idea of an “original position” play in Rawls’ theory?
7) What does Rawls mean by the phrase “veil of ignorance”? What sort of knowledge is precluded
by this veil, and why?
8) Under what conditions is a social system just, according to Rawls’ theory?
9) What does Rawls say about the motivations of parties in the original position?
10) What does Rawls say about the possibility of parties in the original position choosing the
principle of utility as a principle of justice?
11) Which two principles does Rawls think that parties to the original position will choose?
Section 4
12) What are some of the “commonly shared presumptions” about the way in which principles of
justice should be chosen that Rawls incorporates into his description of the original position?
13) In what sense are the parties in the original position equal? What justifies this equality,
according to Rawls?
14) What is the second process by which Rawls purports to justify his description of the original
position? What is the state of affairs to which Rawls hopes this second process will lead?
15) If Rawls’ contract was never in fact agreed to, why should we care what principles would be
chosen in it? Do you think the answer Rawls gives to this question be used to defend a Lockean
or Hobbesian contract theory as well?
Section 5
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16) What does Rawls mean when he describes one way of thinking about utilitarianism’s conception
of social justice as “the principle of rational prudence applied to an aggregative conception of
the welfare of the group” ?
17) How does Rawls define the structure of teleological theories? Note: ‘teleological’ in this context
means roughly the same as ‘consequentialist.’
18) What ‘striking feature’ of utilitarianism’s view of justice does Rawls note?
19) Rawls writes that according to utilitarianism, “there is no reason in principle why … the violation
of the liberty of a few might not be made right by the greater good shared by many.” Is this true
of Mill’s utilitarianism? If so, is this a problem?
20) Rawls claims that “Utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons.” Why
does he say this, and is he correct?
Section 6
21) What is the first contrast that Rawls draws between the utilitarian conception of justice and his
own?
22) Have Rawls’ arguments so far been designed to show that parties in the original position would
not choose utilitarianism as one of their principles of justice? If not, what have his arguments
been designed to show vis-à-vis utilitarianism?
23) Is Justice as Fairness a teleological theory? If not, what is it?
24) According to utilitarianism, Rawls says, “the satisfaction of any desire has some value in itself
which must be taken into account in deciding what is right” (204). What does this mean, and
how does Justice as Fairness contrast?
Section 11
25) What is Rawls’ first and tentative statement of the two principles of justice? What are the two
ambiguous phrases in the second principle?
26) What are some of the ‘basic liberties’ referred to by the first principle?
27) Does Rawls’ second principle require that wealth and income be distributed equally?
28) What does Rawls mean in saying that the principles are to be arranged in ‘serial order’?
29) What is the moral general conception of justice of which the two principles are special cases?
30) What does Rawls mean by ‘primary goods’? What is the difference between social and natural
primary goods?
31) What roles do ‘representative persons’ play in Rawls’ theory, and what does he mean by this
phrase?
Section 12
32) What are the four possible interpretations of the two ambiguous phrases referred to in question
1 above? What are the four systems of justice that they give rise to?
33) What does Rawls mean by the principle of efficiency (Pareto Optimality)?
34) How does the principle of efficiency supply only a partial ordering of distributions?
35) How does the willingness to trade suggest that the current distribution is inefficient?
36) Why does Rawls think that it is unreasonable to be unconcerned with how the basic structure
distributes rights and responsibilities, as long as the distribution is efficient?
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37) How does the system of natural liberty select a distribution from among the set of all efficient
distributions?
38) In what way is the distribution of income and wealth in a system of natural liberty “strongly
influenced by natural and social contingencies”? What does Rawls conclude from this about the
justice of the system of natural liberty?
39) How does the system of liberal equality correct for the injustice of the system of natural liberty?
In what way(s) does it still not go far enough?
40) What does Rawls say about the arbitrariness of the natural lottery? Is he right?
41) Why does Rawls say that both the liberal conception of equality and the system of natural
aristocracy are unstable? Is he right?
Section 13
42) What is the “intuitive ide” behind the democratic interpretation of the difference principle?
Section 17
43) What is the principle of redress, and how does the difference principle give some weight to the
considerations singled out by it?
44) How are natural talents to be regarded under the difference principle, according to Rawls?
45) Is it unjust that some people are born smarter than others, or into better social circumstances,
according to Rawls?
46) How does Rawls answer the question of whether the better-off individuals have any grounds for
complaint regarding the scheme of social cooperation set up by the difference principle?
47) What is a meritocratic society, and why does Rawls worry about it? Would earlier liberals like
Locke and Mill have shared his concern?
Section 24
48) What sort of particular facts do parties not know under the veil of ignorance? What sort of
particular facts do they know?
49) What sort of general facts do they know?
50) What differences are there between the parties in the original position under the veil of
ignorance? How will they bargain to settle these differences?
Section 46
51) What is the final statement of Rawls’ two principles of justice?
For Discussion:
1) Is Rawls right that people don’t deserve their natural talents? Or the things that they obtain by
means of their natural talents?
2) Rawls is often regarded as an egalitarian philosopher. But notice that Rawls actually rejects strict
equality. Is he on sound footing in doing so?
3) Would parties in the original position really choose the difference principle? Would they really
choose to give the basic liberties a lexical priority over distributive considerations?
© Routledge 2014