A Theory of Justice summary

What is fairness? What makes a just society? And how should resources and opportunities be distributed? Philosopher John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice attempts to answer these fundamental questions. 

Published in 1971, it’s one of the most widely discussed works of twentieth-century political philosophy. It gives us a framework for analyzing and critiquing social structures, and helps us sharpen our views about what’s fair and unfair.

In this very short Blink, we’ll focus on the book’s most influential idea – that a truly just society must be founded on principles that unbiased individuals would collectively accept.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

Imagine you’re writing a tax code, and you want it to be fair. You conduct a poll, asking who should pay and how much, and let people pick from various schemes. You get the answers back – and it’s discouraging. Rich people say the poor should pay. The poor say the rich should pay. Landowners say that stockholders should pay, and stockholders say the landowners should pay. In short, everybody picks the scheme that’s in their own best interest. Back to the drawing board. 

The phrase “justice is blind” conveys our basic intuition that a fair judgment is one that’s impartial and unbiased – one that puts aside personal interests and considers the bigger picture. Rawls draws on this. For him, the question is this: What principles would we use to organize a society if we didn’t know in advance what our place in it would be? 

Rawls calls this principle the “veil of ignorance.” Picture a statue of lady justice who holds a set of scales in one hand and wears a blindfold, representing impartiality. Or think about how we cut cake. One person holds the knife and determines how big the slices are; somebody else chooses. Since the person cutting doesn’t know which slice they’re getting, they’re incentivized to cut as fairly as possible. According to Rawls, they’re wearing a veil of ignorance. 

So what does this mean in terms of organizing society?

Imagine you’ve been given absolute power to determine how society is arranged. But here’s the catch: you haven’t been born yet. You have no idea what part of society you’ll occupy. Will you be rich? Poor? No idea. What gender? Ethnicity? Who knows! You don’t even know what talents or gifts you’ll have – if you’ll be born with a knack for music, words, athletics … or none at all. Rawls calls this the “original position,” and it’s the equivalent of Thomas Hobbes’s “state of nature.”

Alright, so say your veil of ignorance is firmly in place and you can’t see a thing. Now, how will you organize society? 

Rawls thinks the rational choice (and the fair one) is a society which ensures the best outcome for those who are worst off – those who happen to be unlucky in wealth, privilege, or talent. In other words, we should judge society based on how it treats its least fortunate members. So how does this play out in practice? Would you pick laissez-faire capitalism, which makes sure markets operate but otherwise lets the chips fall where they may? 

No, you wouldn’t, says Rawls. Such a system produces tremendous inequality. Some are born into wealth while others enter the world in poverty. And not everyone possesses the talents that could help them better their economic situation; it’s pure luck. From behind our veil of ignorance, laissez-faire capitalism is too risky a bet. 

So then, would you pick a communist system – one that guarantees equal outcomes for everyone? 

Rawls also says no to this option. Why? Total equality robs people of the incentive to work hard, and to apply their talents in the best way possible. Market systems, despite their inequality, generate wealth that can benefit everyone. Therefore, allowing some level of inequality makes the cake bigger, says Rawls. 

This means, if we go back to square one, that it’s rational to pick market societies over communist ones – as long as the wealth produced also benefits the least fortunate. The smallest slice of cake you get should still be bigger than what you get under perfect equality.

There you have it. It’s a defense of liberal capitalist societies, but not an unconditional one. Rawls’s contract, like every social contract, has two sides. The individual is compelled to accept the social order, yes – but society’s institutions are also morally compelled to substantially help those who are worst off. In the end, those who are better off can justify this inequality only by strongly helping and empowering the less fortunate.