Rawls' Difference Principle
Rawls’ Difference Principle
Rawls believed in the ideal of perfect equality. This meant, to him, that everyone should have equal opportunity and receive the same treatment. To Rawls, there was only one reason why anyone should be treated differently to any other person – to help the worst off members of society. He called this reason the difference principle, and in conjunction with his “Justice as Fairness” ideal it formed the basis of his claims about distributive justice.
Rawls’ natural lottery was the biological limitations that one is born with. For example, some people are simply not capable of the intelligence and skill required to be a doctor. Rawls suggests a counter to this natural phenom, asserting that the difference principle is needed to counter the effects of the natural lottery (“The Law Of Peoples” p.114, On Distributive Justice Among People). People who are biologically less able than others would be provided for to the same level as others, but it would take more of society’s resources, so they would need a larger amount than the average person. This would create an inequality in terms of natural assets, but it would create equality in social order. The person who was disadvantaged would be brought to the same level as everyone else because of the excess money given to them.
The difference principle makes sense in a cut and dry hypothetical situation like giving more resources to someone who is biologically disinclined to be successful, but I feel that it fails in a few key areas. Throughout history, society has believed many different things to be biologically inferior to the norm at the time. A prime example is the discrimination that natives of basically any country in the world faced when confronted by settlers. When settlers arrived in Australia, they believed that the natives were biologically incapable of being “civilised”. Applying Rawls’ theory to a situation such as this would not be appropriate, because the resources would be
Rawls believed in the ideal of perfect equality. This meant, to him, that everyone should have equal opportunity and receive the same treatment. To Rawls, there was only one reason why anyone should be treated differently to any other person – to help the worst off members of society. He called this reason the difference principle, and in conjunction with his “Justice as Fairness” ideal it formed the basis of his claims about distributive justice.
Rawls’ natural lottery was the biological limitations that one is born with. For example, some people are simply not capable of the intelligence and skill required to be a doctor. Rawls suggests a counter to this natural phenom, asserting that the difference principle is needed to counter the effects of the natural lottery (“The Law Of Peoples” p.114, On Distributive Justice Among People). People who are biologically less able than others would be provided for to the same level as others, but it would take more of society’s resources, so they would need a larger amount than the average person. This would create an inequality in terms of natural assets, but it would create equality in social order. The person who was disadvantaged would be brought to the same level as everyone else because of the excess money given to them.
The difference principle makes sense in a cut and dry hypothetical situation like giving more resources to someone who is biologically disinclined to be successful, but I feel that it fails in a few key areas. Throughout history, society has believed many different things to be biologically inferior to the norm at the time. A prime example is the discrimination that natives of basically any country in the world faced when confronted by settlers. When settlers arrived in Australia, they believed that the natives were biologically incapable of being “civilised”. Applying Rawls’ theory to a situation such as this would not be appropriate, because the resources would be
References: “The Difference Principle”, Political Philosophy . info http://www.politicalphilosophy.info/differenceprinciple.html “The Original Position”, Political Philosophy . info http://www.politicalphilosophy.info/originalposition.html “Justice and Bad Luck” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Jun 20, 2005) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-bad-luck/#2 (“The Law Of Peoples” p.114, On Distributive Justice Among People) John Rawls, 1993 (“A Theory Of Justice”, p.162, Distributive Justice) John Rawls, 1971