A THEORY OF JUSTICE

JOHN RAWLS

THE ROLE OF JUSTICE

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory how­ever elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and in­stitutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolabil­ity founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights se­cured by justice are not subject to political bar­gaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injus­tice. Being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising.

These propositions seem to express our in­tuitive conviction of the primacy of justice. No doubt they are expressed too strongly. In any event I wish to inquire whether these con­tentions or others similar to them are sound, and if so how they can be accounted for. To this end it is necessary to work out a theory of jus­tice in the light of which these assertions can be interpreted and assessed. I shall begin by con­sidering the role of the principles of justice. Let us assume, to fix ideas, that a society is a more or less self-sufficient association of persons who in their relations to one another recognize certain rules of conduct as binding and who tor the most part act in accordance with them. Suppose further that these rules specify a system of co- operation designed to advance the good of those taking part in it. Then, although a society is a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, it is typically marked by a conflict as well as by an identity of interests. There is an identity of interests since social cooperation makes possible, a better life for all than any would have if each were to live solely by his own efforts. There is conflict of interests since persons are not indifferent as to how the greater benefits produced by their collaboration are distributed, for in order to pursue their ends they each prefer a larger to a lesser share. A set of principles is required for choosing among the various social arrangements which determine this division of advantages and for underwriting an agreement on the proper distributive shares. These principles are the principles of social justice: they provide a way of assigning rights and duties in the basic institutions of society, and they define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation....

THE MAIN IDEA OF THE
THEORY OP JUSTICE

My aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.' In order to do this we are not to think of the original contract as one to enter a particu- lar society or to set up a particular form of government. Rather, the guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structur^e  of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of quality as defining the fundamental terms of their association. These principles are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established. This way of regarding the principles of justice I shall call justice as fairness. Thus we are to imagine that those who engage in social cooperation choose together, in one joint act, the principles which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the di­vision of social benefits. Men are to decide in advance how they are to regulate their claims against one another and what is to be the foundation charter of their society. Just as each person must decide by rational reflection what constitutes his good, that is, the system of ends which it is rational for him to pursue, so a group of persons must decide once and for all what is to count among them as just and unjust. The choice which rational men would make in this hypothetical situation of equal liberty, assuming for the present that this choice problem has a solution, determines the principles of justice.

In justice as fairness the original position of equality corresponds to the state of nature in the traditional theory of the social contract. This original position is not, of course, thought of as actual historical state of affairs, much less as Primitive condition of culture. It is understood 'a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as to lead to a certain conception of justice.

Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not how their conceptions of the good or their pedal psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain. For given the circumstances of the origi­nal position, the symmetry of everyone's relations to each other, this initial situation is fair between individuals as moral persons, that is, as rational beings with their own ends and capa­ble, I shall assume, of a sense of justice. The original position is, one might say, the appropri­ate initial status quo, and thus the fundamental agreements reached in it are fair. This explains the propriety of the name "justice as fairness": it conveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation that is fair, The name does not mean that the concepts of justice and fairness are the same, any more than the phrase "poetry as metaphor" means that the concepts of poetry and metaphor are the same.

Justice as fairness begins, as I have said, with one of the most general of all choices which persons might make together, namely, with the choice of the first principles of a con­ception of justice which is to regulate all subse­quent criticism and reform of institutions. Then, having chosen a conception of justice, we can suppose that they are to choose a constitution arid a legislature to enact laws, and so on, all in accordance with the principles of justice initially agreed upon. Our social situation is just if it is such that by this sequence of hypothetical agreements we would have contracted into the general system of rules which defines it. More­over, assuming that the original position does determine a set of principles (that is, that a par­ticular conception of justice would be chosen), it will then be true that whenever social institu­tions satisfy these principles those engaged in them can say to one another that they are coop­erating on terms to which they would agree if they were free and equal persons whose rela­tions with respect to one another were fair. They could all view their arrangements as meeting the stipulations which they would acknowledge in an initial situation that embodies widely ac­cepted and reasonable constraints on the choice of principles. The general recognition of this fact would provide the basis for a public acceptance of the corresponding principles of justice. No so­ciety can, of course, be a scheme of cooperation which men enter voluntarily in a literal sense; each person finds himself placed at birth in some particular position in some particular so­ciety, and the nature of this position materially affects his life prospects. Yet a society satisfying the principles of justice as fairness comes as close as a society can to being a voluntary scheme, for it meets the principles which free and equal persons would assent to under cir­cumstances that are fair. In this sense its mem­bers are autonomous and the obligations they recognize self-imposed.

One feature of justice as fairness is to think of the parties in the initial situation as rational and mutually disinterested. This does not mean that the parties are egoists, that is, individuals with only certain kinds of interests, say in wealth, prestige, and domination. But they are conceived as not taking an interest in one an-other's interests. They are to presume that even their spiritual aims may be opposed, in the way that the aims of those of different religions may be opposed. Moreover, the concept of ra­tionality must be interpreted as far as possible in the narrow sense, standard in economic the­ory, of taking the most effective means to given ends. I shall modify this concept to some ex­tent... , but one must try to avoid introducing into it any controversial ethical elements. The initial situation must be characterized by stipu­lations that are widely accepted.

In working out the conception of justice as fairness one main task clearly is to determine which principles of justice would be chosen in the original position. To do this we must de­scribe this situation in some detail and formu­late with care the problem of choice which it presents.... It may be observed, however, that once the principles of justice are thought of as arising from an original agreement in a situationof equality, it is an open question whether this principle of utility would be acknowledged. Offhand it hardly seems likely that persons who views themselves as equals, entitled to press their claims upon one another, would agree to a principle which may require lesser life prospects, for some simply for the sake of a greater sum of advantages enjoyed by others. Since each desires to protect his interests, his capacity to ad-, vance his conception of the good, no one has a  reason to acquiesce in an enduring loss for him. self in order to bring about a greater net balance of satisfaction. In the absence of strong and lasting benevolent impulses, a rational man would not accept a basic structure merely because

maximized the algebraic sum of advantages ir­respective of its permanent effects on his own ! basic rights and interests. Thus it seems that the, principle of utility is incompatible with the conception of social cooperation among equals for mutual advantage. It appears to be inconsistent with the idea of reciprocity implicit in the no-. tion of a well-ordered society. Or, at any rate, so I shall argue.

I shall maintain instead that the persons in the initial situation would choose two rather different principles: the first requires equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties, while the second holds that social and economic in; equalities, for example inequalities of wealth. and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society. These principles rule out justifying in­stitutions on the grounds that the hardships of some are offset by a greater good in the aggregate. It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may, prosper. But there is no injustice in the greater benefits earned by a few provided that the situ­ation of persons not so fortunate is thereby improved. The intuitive idea is that since every one's well-being depends upon a scheme of co­operation without which no one could have a satisfactory life, the division of advantages should be such as to draw forth the willing co-

operation of everyone taking part in it, including those less well situated. Yet this can be expected only if reasonable terms are proposed. The two principles mentioned seem to be a fair agreement on the basis of which those better endowed, or more fortunate in their social position, neither of which we can be said to deserve, could expect the willing cooperation of others when some workable scheme is a necessary condition of the welfare of all. Once we decide to look for a conception of justice that nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social circumstance as counters in quest for political and economic advantage, we are led to these principles. They express the result of leaving aside those aspects of the social world that seem arbitrary from a moral point of view.

The problem of the choice of principles, however, is extremely difficult. I do not expect the answer I shall suggest to be convincing to everyone. It is, therefore, worth noting from the outset that justice as fairness, like other contract views, consists of two parts: (1) an inter­pretation of the initial situation and of the problem of choice posed there, and (2) a set of principles which, it is argued, would be agreed to. One may accept the first part of the theory (or some variant thereof), but not the other, and conversely. The concept of the initial contractual situation may seem reasonable al­though the particular principles proposed are rejected. To be sure, I want to maintain that the most appropriate conception of this situation does lead to principles of justice contrary to utilitarianism and perfectionism, and therefore that the contract doctrine provides an alterna­tive to these views. Still, one may dispute this contention even though one grants that the contractarian method is a useful way of studying ethical theories and of setting forth their underlying assumptions....

TWO PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE
I shall now state in a provisional form the two principles of justice that I believe would be chosen in the original position. In this section I wish to make only the most general comments, and therefore the first formulation of these principles is tentative....

The first statement of the two principles reads as follows.

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's ad­vantage, and (b) attached to positions and of­fices open to all....

By way of general comment, these princi­ples primarily apply, as I have said, to the basic structure of society. They are to govern the as­signment of rights and duties and to regulate the distribution of social and economic advan­tages. As their formulation suggests, these prin­ciples presuppose that the social structure can be divided into two more or less distinct parts, the first principle applying to the one, the sec­ond to the other. They distinguish between those aspects of the social system that define and secure the equal liberties of citizenship and those that specify and establish social and economic inequalities. The basic liberties of cit­izens are, roughly speaking, political liberty (the right to vote and to be eligible for public office) together with freedom of speech and as­sembly; liberty of conscience and freedom of thought; freedom of the person along with the right to hold (personal) property; and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law. These liberties are all required to be equal by the first princi­ple, since citizens of a just society are to have the same basic rights.

The second principle applies, in the first ap­proximation, to the distribution of income and wealth and to the design of organizations that make use of differences in authority and responsibility, or chains of command. While the distribution of wealth and income need not be equal, it must be to everyone's advantage, and at the same time, positions of authority and offices of command must be accessible to all. One applies the second principle by hold­ing positions open, and then, subject to the constraint, arranges social and economic in­equalities so that everyone benefits.

These principles are to be arranged in a se­rial order with the first principle prior to the second. This ordering means that a departure from the institutions of equal liberty required by the first principle cannot be justified by, or compensated for, by greater social and eco­nomic advantages. The distribution of wealth and income, and the hierarchies of authority, must be consistent with both the liberties of equal citizenship and equality of opportunity.

It is clear that these principles are rather specific in their content, and their acceptance rests on certain assumptions that I must even­tually try to explain and justify. A theory of justice depends upon a theory of society in ways that will become evident as we proceed. For the present, it should be observed that the two principles (and this holds for all formula­tions) are a special case of a more general con­ception of justice that can be expressed as follows:

All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone's advantage.

Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are not to the benefit of all. Of course, this conception is extremely vague and requires interpretation.

As a first step, suppose that the basic struc­ture of society distributes certain primary goods, that is, things that every rational man is pre­sumed to want. These goods normally have a use whatever a person's rational plan of life. For simplicity, assume that the chief primary goods at the disposition of society are rights and liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth.. .. These are the social primary goods.

Other primary goods such as health and vigor, intelligence and imagination, are natural goods; although their possession is influenced by the. basic structures, they are not so directly under its control. Imagine, then, a hypothetical initial arrangement in which all the social primary goods are equally distributed: everyone has similar rights and duties, and income and wealth are evenly shared. This state of affairs provides a benchmark for judging improve­ments. If certain inequalities of wealth and orga­nizational powers would make everyone better off than in this hypothetical starting situation; then they accord with the general conception.

Now it is possible, at least theoretically, that by giving up some of their fundamental liberties men are sufficiently compensated by the resulting social and economic gains. The general conception of justice imposes no re­strictions on what sort of inequalities are permissible; it only requires that everyone's position be improved. We need not suppose anything so drastic as consenting to a condition of slavery. Imagine instead that men forego cer­tain political rights when the economic returns are significant and their capacity to influence the course of policy by the exercise of these rights would be marginal in any case. It is this kind of exchange which the two principles as stated rule out; being arranged in serial order they do not permit exchanges between basic liberties and economic and social gains. The se­rial ordering of principles expresses an underly­ing preference among primary social goods. When this preference is rational so likewise is the choice of these principles in this order.. ..

Another thing to bear in mind is that when principles mention persons, or require that everyone gain from an inequality, the reference is to representative persons holding the various social positions, or offices, or whatever, estab­lished by the basic structure. Thus in applying the second principle I assume that it is possible to assign an expectation of well-being to repre­sentative individuals holding these positions. This expectation indicates their life prospects as viewed from their social station. In general, the expectations of representative persons depend upon the distribution of rights and duties throughout the basic structure. When this changes, expectations change. I assume, then, that expectations are connected: by raising the prospects of the representative man in one po­sition we presumably increase or decrease the prospects of representative men in other posi­tions. Since it applies to institutional forms, the second principle (or rather the first part of it) refers to the expectations of representative indi­viduals. . [N]either principle applies to distri­butions of particular goods to particular individuals who may be identified by their proper names. The situation where someone is considering how to allocate certain commodi­ties to needy persons who are known to him is not within the scope of the principles. They are meant to regulate basic institutional arrange­ments. We must not assume that there is much similarity from the standpoint of justice be­tween an administrative allotment of goods to specific persons and the appropriate design of society. Our common sense intuitions for the former may be a poor guide to the latter.

Now the second principle insists that each person benefit from permissible inequalities in the basic structure. This means that it must be reasonable for each relevant representative Man defined by this structure, when he views it, as a going concern, to prefer his prospects with the inequality to his prospects without it. One is not allowed to justify differences in in­' come or organizational powers on the ground that the disadvantages of those in one position are outweighed by the greater advantages of those in another. Much less can infringements 'of liberty be counterbalanced in this way. Applied to the basic structure, the principle of utility would have us maximize the sum of expectations of representative men (weighted by the number of persons they represent, on the classical view); and this would permit us to compensate for the losses of some by the gains of others. Instead, the two principles require that everyone benefit from economic and so­cial inequalities. It is obvious, however, that there are indefinitely many ways in which all may be advantaged when the initial arrange­ment of equality is taken as a benchmark. How then are we to choose among these possibili­ties? The principles must be specified so that they yield a determinate conclusion. I now turn to this problem.

INTERPRETATIONS OF THE SECOND PRINCIPLE

... The first interpretation ... I shall refer to as the system of natural liberty....  I assume in all interpretations that the first principle of equal liberty is satisfied and that the economy is roughly a free market system, although the means of production may or may not be pri­vately owned. The system of natural liberty as­serts, then, that a basic structure satisfying the principle of efficiency [that is, which it is im­possible to change so as to make some persons better off without at the same time making other persons worse off] and in which posi­tions are open to those able and willing to strive for them will lead to a just distribution. Assigning rights and duties in this way is thought to give a scheme which allocates wealth and income, authority and responsibil­ity, in a fair way whatever this allocation turns out to be. The doctrine includes an important element of pure procedural justice which is carried over to the other interpretations....

In the system of natural liberty the initial distribution is regulated by the arrangements implicit in the conception of careers open to talents. . These arrangements presuppose a background of equal liberty (as specified by the first principle) and a free market economy, They require a formal equality of opportunity in that all have at least the same legal rights of access to all advantaged social positions. But since there is no effort to preserve an equality, or similarity, of social conditions, except insofar as this is necessary to preserve the requisite background institutions, the initial distribution of assets for any period of time is strongly in­fluenced by natural and social contingencies. The existing distribution of income and wealth, say, is the cumulative effect of prior distribu­tions of natural assets—that is, natural talents and abilities—as these have been developed or left unrealized, and their use favored or disfa­vored over time by social circumstances and such chance contingencies as accident and good fortune. Intuitively, the most obvious in­justice of the system of natural liberty is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by these factors so arbitrary from a moral point of view.

The liberal interpretation, as I shall refer to it, tries to correct for this by adding to the requirement of careers open to talents the fur­ther condition of the principle of fair equality of opportunity The thought here is that positions are to be not only open in a formal sense, but that all should have a fair chance to attain them. Offhand it is not clear what is meant, but we might say that those with similar abilities and skills should have similar life chances. More specifically, assuming that there is a distribution of natural assets, those who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same willing­ness to use them, should have the same prospects of success regardless of their initial place in the social system, that is, irrespective of the income class into which they are born: In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal. prospects of culture and achievement for every­one similarly motivated and endowed. The ex­pectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.

The liberal interpretation of the two princi­ples seeks, then, to mitigate the influence of so­cial contingencies and natural fortune on distributive shares. To accomplish this end it is necessary to impose further basic structural conditions on the social system. Free market arrangements must be set within a framework of political and legal institutions which regulates the overall trends of economic events and preserves the social conditions necessary for fair equality of opportunity. The elements of this framework are familiar enough, though it may be worthwhile to recall the importance of preventing excessive accumulations of property and wealth and of maintaining equal opportu­nities of education for all. Chances to acquire cultural knowledge and skills should not de­pend upon one's class position, and so the school system, whether public or private, should be designed to even out class barriers.

While the liberal conception seems clearly preferable to the system of natural liberty, intu­itively it still appears defective. For one thing, even if it works to perfection in eliminating the influence of social contingencies, it still permits the distribution of wealth and income to be de­termined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents. Within the limits allowed by the background arrangements, distributive shares are decided by the outcome of the natural lot­tery; and this outcome is arbitrary from a moral perspective. There is no more reason to permit the distribution of income and wealth to be set­tled by the distribution of natural assets than by historical and social fortune. Furthermore, the principle of fair opportunity can be only imperfectly carried out, at least as long as the institution of the family exists. The extent to which natural capacities develop and reach fruition is affected by all kinds of social condi­tions and class attitudes. Even the willingness to make an effort, to try, and so to be deserving in the ordinary sense is itself dependent upon happy family and social circumstances. It is im­possible in practice to secure equal chances of achievement and culture for those similarly en­dowed, and therefore we may want to adopt a principle which recognizes this fact and also mitigates the arbitrary effects of the natural lot­tery itself. That the liberal conception fails to do this encourages one to look for another inter pretation of the two principles of justice....

The democratic interpretation ... is arrived at by combining the principle of fair equality of opportunity with the difference principle. This principle…singl[es] out a particular position from which the social and economic inequalities of the basic structure are to be judged. As­suming the framework of institutions required by equal liberty and fair equality of opportu­nity, the higher expectations of those better sit­uated are just if and only if they work as part of a scheme which improves the expectations of the least advantaged members of society. The intuitive idea is that the social order is not to establish and secure the more attractive prospects of those better off unless doing so is to the advantage of those less fortunate....

To illustrate the difference principle, con­sider the distribution of income among social classes. Let us suppose that the various income groups correlate with representative individuals by reference to whose expectations we can judge the distribution. Now those starting out as members of the entrepreneurial class in property-owning democracy, say, have a better prospect than those who begin in the class of unskilled laborers. It seems likely that this will be true even when the social injustices which now exist are removed. What, then, can possi­bly justify this kind of initial inequality in life prospects? According to the difference principle, it is justifiable only if the difference in expecta­tion is to the advantage of the representative man who is worse off, in this case the represen­tative unskilled worker. The inequality in ex­pectation is permissible only if lowering it would make the working class even more worse off. Supposedly, given the rider in the second principle concerning open positions, and the principle of liberty generally, the greater expectations allowed to entrepreneurs encourages them to do things which raise the long-term prospects of laboring class. Their bet­ter prospects act as incentives so that the eco­nomic process is more efficient, innovation proceeds at a faster pace, and so on. Eventually the resulting material benefits spread through­out the system and to the least advantaged. I shall not consider how far these things are true. The point is that something of this kind must be argued if these inequalities are to be just by the difference principle....

THE REASONING LEADING TO THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE

In this ... section . I take up the choice be­tween the two principles of justice and the principle of average utility. Determining the ra­tional preference between these two options is perhaps the central problem in developing the conception of justice as fairness as a viable al­ternative to the utilitarian tradition. I shall begin in this section by presenting some intu­itive remarks favoring the two principles. I shall also discuss briefly the qualitative struc­ture of the argument that needs to be made if the case for these principles is to be conclusive.

It will be recalled that the general concep­tion of justice as fairness requires that all pri­mary social goods be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution would be to every­one's advantage. No restrictions are placed on exchanges of these goods and therefore a lesser liberty can be compensated for by greater so­cial and economic benefits. Now looking at the situation from the standpoint of one person se­lected arbitrarily, there is no way for him to win special advantages for himself. Nor, on the other hand, are there grounds for his acquiesc­ing in special disadvantages. Since it is not rea­sonable for him to expect more than an equal share in the division of social goods, and since it is not rational for him to agree to less, the sensible thing for him to do is to acknowledge as the first principle of justice one requiring an equal distribution. Indeed, this principle is so obvious that we would expect it to occur to anyone immediately.

Thus, the parties start with a principle es­tablishing equal liberty for all, including equal­ity of opportunity, as well as an equal distribution of income and wealth. But there is no reason why this acknowledgement should be final. If there are inequalities in the basic structure that work to make everyone better off in comparison with the benchmark of initial equality, why not permit them? The immediate gain which a greater equality might allow can be regarded as intelligently invested in view of its future return. If, for example, these inequali­ties set up various incentives which succeed in eliciting more productive efforts, a person in the original position may look upon them as necessary to cover the costs of training and to encourage effective performance. One might think that ideally individuals should want to serve one another. But since the parties are as­sumed not to take an interest in one another's interests, their acceptance of these inequalities is only the acceptance of the relations in which men stand in the circumstances of justice. They have no grounds for complaining of one an-other's motives. A person in the original posi­tion would, therefore, concede the justice of these inequalities. Indeed, it would be short­sighted of him not to do so. He would hesitate to agree to these regularities only if he would be dejected by the bare knowledge or percep­tion that others were better situated; and I have assumed that the parties decide as if they are not moved by envy. In order to make the prin­ciple regulating inequalities determinate, one looks at the system from the standpoint of the least advantaged representative man. Inequali­ties are permissible when they maximize, or at least all contribute to, the long-term expecta­tions of the least fortunate group in society

Now this general conception imposes no constraints on what sorts of inequalities are al­lowed, whereas the special conception, by putting the two principles in serial order (with the necessary adjustments in meaning), forbids exchanges between basic liberties and eco­nomic and social benefits. I shall not try to jus­tify this ordering here.... But roughly, the idea underlying this ordering is that if the parties assume that their basic liberties can be effec­tively exercised, they will not exchange a lesser liberty for an improvement in economic well­being. It is only when social conditions do not allow the effective establishment of these rights that one can concede their limitation; and these restrictions can be granted only to the extent that they are necessary to prepare the way for a free society. The denial of equal liberty can be defended only if it is necessary to raise the level of civilization so that in due course these freedoms can be enjoyed. Thus in adopting a serial order we are in effect making a special assumption in the original position, namely, that the parties know that the condi­tions of their society, whatever they are, admit the effective realization of the equal liberties. The serial ordering of the two principles of jus­tice eventually comes to be reasonable if the general conception is consistently followed. This lexical ranking is the long-run tendency of the general view. For the most part I shall as­sume that the requisite circumstances for the serial order obtain.

It seems clear from these remarks that the two principles are at least a plausible concep­tion of justice. The question, though, is how one is to argue for them more systematically. Now there are several things to do. One can work out their consequences for institutions and note their implications for fundamental social policy. In this way they are tested by a comparison with our considered judgments of justice.. . But one can also try to find arguments in their favor that are decisive from the standpoint of the original position. In order to see how this might be done, it is useful as a heuristic device to think of the two principles as the maximin solution to the problem of social justice. There is an analogy between the two principles and the maximin rule for choice under uncertainty. This is evident from the fact that the two principles are those a person would choose for the design of a society in which his enemy is to assign him his place. The maximin rule tells us to rank alternatives by their worst possible outcomes: we are to adopt the alternative the worst outcome of which is superior to the worst outcomes of the others. The persons in the original position do not, of course, assume that their initial place in society is decided by a malevolent opponent.... [T]hey 'should not reason from false premises. The veil of ignorance does not violate this idea, since an absence of information is not misinformation. But that the two principles of justice would be chosen if the parties were forced to protect themselves against such a contingency explains the sense in which this conception is the max­imin solution. And this analogy suggests that if the original position has been described so that it is rational for the parties to adopt the conser­vative attitude expressed by this rule, a conclu­sive argument can indeed be constructed for these principles. Clearly the maximin rule is not, in general, a suitable guide for choices under uncertainty. But it is attractive in situa­tions marked by certain special features. My aim, then, is to show that a good case can be made for the two principles based on the fact that the original position manifests these fea­tures to the fullest possible degree, carrying them to the limit, so to speak.

Consider the gain-and-loss table below. It represents the gains and losses for a situation which is not a game of strategy. There is no one playing against the person making the de­cision; instead he is faced with several possible circumstances which may or may not obtain. Which circumstances happen to exist does not depend upon what the person choosing de­cides or whether he announces his moves in advance. The numbers in the table are mone­tary values (in hundreds of dollars) in compari­son with some initial situation. The gain (g) depends upon the individual's decision (d) and the circumstances (c). Thus g = f (d, c). Assum­ing that there are three possible decisions and three possible circumstances, we might have this gain-and-loss table.

Now there appear to be three chief fea­tures of situations that give plausibility to this unusual rule. First, since the rule takes no ac­count of the likelihoods of the possible circum­stances, there must be some reason for sharply discounting estimates of these probabilities. Offhand, the most natural rule of choice would seem to be to compute the expectation of monetary gain for each decision and then to adopt the course of action with the highest prospect.... Thus it must be, for example, that the situation is one in which a knowledge of likelihoods is impossible, or at best extremely insecure. In this case it is unreasonable not to be skeptical of probabilistic calculations unless there is no other way out, particularly if the decision is a fundamental one that needs to be justified to others.

The second feature that suggests the max­imin rule is the following: the person choosing has a conception of the good such that he cares very little, if anything, for what he might gain above the minimum stipend that he can, in fact, be sure of by following the maximin rule. It is not worthwhile for him to take a chance for the sake of a further advantage, especially when it may turn out that he loses much that is impor­tant to him. This last provision brings in the third feature, namely, that the rejected alterna­tives have outcomes that one can hardly accept. The situation involves grave risks. Of course these features work most effectively in combi­nation. The paradigm situation for following the maximin rule is when all three features are realized to the highest degree. This rule does not, then, generally apply, nor of course is it self-evident. Rather, it is a maxim, a rule of thumb, that comes into its own in special cir­cumstances. Its application depends upon the qualitative structure of the possible gains and losses in relation to one's conception of the good, all this against a background in which it is reasonable to discount conjectural estimates of likelihoods.

It should be noted, as the comments on the gain-and-loss table say, that the entries in the table represent monetary values and not utilities. This difference is significant since for one thing computing expectations on the basis of such objective values is not the same thing as computing expected utility and may lead to different results. The essential point though is that in justice as fairness the parties do not know their conception of the good and cannot estimate their utility in the ordinary sense. In any case, we want to go behind de facto prefer­ences generated by given conditions. Therefore expectations are based upon an index of pri­mary goods and the parties make their choice accordingly. The entries in the example are in terms of money and not utility to indicate this aspect of the contract doctrine.

Now, as I have suggested, the original po­sition has been defined so that it is a situation in which the maximin rule applies. In order to see this, let us review briefly the nature of this situation with these three special features in mind. To begin with, the veil of ignorance ex­cludes all but the vaguest knowledge of like­lihoods. The parties have no basis for determining the probable nature of their soci­ety, or their place in it. Thus they have strong reasons for being wary of probability calcula­tions if any other course is open to them. They must also take into account the fact that their choice of principles should seem reasonable to others, in particular their descendants, whose rights will be deeply affected by it. .. . [T]hese considerations are strengthened by the fact that the parties know very little about the gain and-loss table. Not only are they unable to conjecture the likelihoods of the various possible circumstances, they cannot say much about what the possible circumstances are, much less enumerate them and foresee the outcome of each alternative available. Those deciding are much more in the dark than the illustration by a numerical table suggests. It is for this reason that I have spoken of an analogy with the maximin rule.

Several kinds of arguments for the two principles of justice illustrate the second fea- ture. Thus, if we can maintain that these princi­ples provide a workable theory of social justice, and that they are compatible with reasonable demands of efficiency, then this conception guarantees a satisfactory minimum. There may be, on reflection, little reason for trying to do better. Thus much of the argument . . . is to show, by their application to the main ques­tions of social justice, that the two principles are a satisfactory conception. These details have a philosophical purpose. Moreover, this line of thought is practically decisive if we can establish the priority of liberty, the lexical or­dering of the two principles. For this priority implies that the persons in the original position have no desire to try for greater gains at the expense of the equal liberties. The minimum assured by the two principles in lexical order is not one that the parties wish to jeopardize for the sake of greater economic and social ad­vantages....

Finally, the third feature holds if we can assume that other conceptions of justice may lead to institutions that the parties would find intolerable. For example, it has sometimes been held that under some conditions the utility principle (in either form) justifies, if not slavery or serfdom, at any rate serious infractions of liberty for the sake of greater social benefits. We need not consider here the truth of this claim, or the likelihood that the requisite con­ditions obtain. For the moment, this contention is only to illustrate the way in which conceptions of justice may allow for outcomes which the parties may not be able to accept. And having the ready alternative of the two princi­ples of justice which secure a satisfactory mini­mum, it seems unwise, if not irrational, for them to take a chance that these outcomes are not realized.

So much, then, for a brief sketch of the features of situations in which the maximin rule comes into its own and of the way in which the arguments for the two principles of justice can be subsumed under them....