Comparing John Rawls And Nozick's View Of Justice

John Rawls and Robert Nozick views on Justice do have several opposing differences; however, they both do have similar context in some ways. Some of the major differences addressed in the reading are the issue of a legitimate distribution of wealth by the government. In John Rawls Second principal, the difference principle, Rawls basically explains that inequalities, socially and economically, are acceptable if they promote the well-being of the poor. Basically, John Rawls believes that the poor should have some compensation, through the taxation of the wealth. Rawls believes in order to enact this principle, there needs to be “justice of fairness”. In order to get “justice of fairness”, Rawls states that people who are born rich, poor, or
middle class have a “veil or ignorance” which is the theory of taking away a individuals knowledge of what social class they belong to, and have them evaluate each different social class. Rawls believe if an individual were to have a “veil of ignorance”, they would have a better understanding of the different social classes. With this better understanding, Rawls believed that people would choose the outcome where the poor would benefit economically. Nozick disagrees with the difference principle, because he believes that the poor shouldn’t be given help off the benefit of the successes of the rich. Nozick believes that Rawls difference principle infringes on the liberty of individuals, and that people should be allowed to benefit from their own successes, not off of the successes of others. Unlike the difference principle, the concept of the liberty principle is something that Nozick and Rawls seem to agree on. The liberty principle states there should be a maximization of equality of basic freedoms, for example: the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and right to vote.
Both John Rawls and Robert Nozick believed that every individual has a right to their own freedom; however their views on how those liberties could be issued, differ. Rawl’s views on the proper function of government is that people could live in a society where they can live their own way, with their own interests in mind, and justice is only used to limit those interests that pose a threat on others. Nozick’s view on the proper function of government is that everyone should be free to be able to do what they want, with a “minimal state” involvement unless it is pertained to protecting their citizens from crimes. Nozick’s entitlement theory is a theory on the distribution of property when viewed from his theory on principle of justice. The Entitlement Theory is broken up into 3 principles. The first principle is the principle of justice in acquisition, which deals with how people come to get their own property. The second principle is the principle of justice in transfer, which states that if the person come to own property in a justifiable way, using the methods of the principle of justice in acquisition, then if that person was to give their property to someone, than the new owner is justified to that property. The last principle is the principle of rectification of injustice, which talks about the process that would be taken if someone comes into property unjustly (without going through the first two
principles). If I had to choose whose principles I agreed on, I would say I lean more towards John Rawls methods because I think his idea of “veil of ignorance” is a good theory. I do think that people that are born within a certain class are ignorant to what goes around them, because they don’t know any better. I believe if people did not know about their social status they would be able to see the injustices that are happening among the other classes. It’s hard for people that does have it easier than most, to truly understand what people who are born with less go through. They could sympathize, but they would most of the time they would never try and help, unless they would be put in that situation. However, I do not agree with Rawls idea of taking money from the rich to give back to the poor, because some people that have money did not always come from money. A lot of people worked from the bottom to become successful.