Justice as Fairness

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JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS BY RALWS Rawls describes two principles of justice. The second one which is known as the difference principle is that inequalities are allowed only if they benefit everyone. The problem with this principle is that it represents a prescription that will only be seen as satisfying by people who are already biased in favor of greater equality in society. While his logic is sound enough it is only valid insofar as one accepts his axiom: that society exists for the betterment of all its members, and that individual benefit at some point has to be sacrificed for the sake of others. I personally think that most of the people are never ready to give up their rights for the betterment of the society. in some ways Rawls is a Lockeian because I think, that he is influenced by lockeian view of social contract that society exists for the betterment of society and to benefit every one. On Rawls view, the least well off position is defined only in terms of social goods. Kymlicka gives a very good example which is stated below to show that Rawls does not recognize the bad side of his principle. He says, suppose we have two people of equal natural endowments, but one is entrepreneurial and the other is a bystander. The bystander because of his choices may end up in the least well off position economically. So it looks as if removing inequalities requires that the entrepreneur get a greater income only by subsidizing the bystander. Surely this is a bad result. Inequalities are allowed only if they benefit everyone. But how can we figure out the common good. How can we know that a certain thing is good for the society and what is not. People have different desires and interests. How inequalities benefit anyone? We can see so many inequalities but none of them benefit anyone. Rawls says that it is just to make someone better-off by not doing anything that will
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