Obama’s Health Care and the Rawls Theory of Justice Essay Example
The question presented here will be whether or not Barack Obama’s plan for health care reform follows the guidelines and principles of philosopher John Rawls’ theory of justice. John Rawls teachings and writings were and still are extremely relevant in the world of political philosophy. Now, the view of many opposing philosophers is that justice should be given based on merit, and this is also the tendency in modern society. Rawls, however, proposed a theory that justice should be based on fairness. He suggested that the laws and principles of society and government should provide equal opportunity to all people. This same philosophy should be used in creating the regulations fro our nations health care plan.
Before we discuss how Obama’s plan matches up in comparison to Rawls’ theory, let us first point the basic principles of said theory. As I said, Rawls’ theory of justice is that the principles and restrictions in a society should be considered fair an acceptable by all of its members. How can all the different people in society agree upon what is fair? The different social standings of people in society and other circumstances of this nature, make this act seem impossible. Rawls has a simple answer. He came up with an experiment in which he encourages us to imagine that we are all just coming together to form a new society and that we are all perfectly equal in every sense of the word. By imagining this, Rawls proposes that we will be able to accurately determine what is truly just and fair for everyone. He calls this experiment the “original position”. In order to make the original position approach more effective, Rawls proposes that we all masked by a “veil of ignorance”. Under this veil, we do not have any knowledge that might hinder our decisions about what is just or unjust, not our social position, our natural abilities and assets, nothing. This creates an even playing field for a people in society. Those who possess higher social standings are
Before we discuss how Obama’s plan matches up in comparison to Rawls’ theory, let us first point the basic principles of said theory. As I said, Rawls’ theory of justice is that the principles and restrictions in a society should be considered fair an acceptable by all of its members. How can all the different people in society agree upon what is fair? The different social standings of people in society and other circumstances of this nature, make this act seem impossible. Rawls has a simple answer. He came up with an experiment in which he encourages us to imagine that we are all just coming together to form a new society and that we are all perfectly equal in every sense of the word. By imagining this, Rawls proposes that we will be able to accurately determine what is truly just and fair for everyone. He calls this experiment the “original position”. In order to make the original position approach more effective, Rawls proposes that we all masked by a “veil of ignorance”. Under this veil, we do not have any knowledge that might hinder our decisions about what is just or unjust, not our social position, our natural abilities and assets, nothing. This creates an even playing field for a people in society. Those who possess higher social standings are