Defending Rawls from behind the ‘veil of ignorance’: An attempt to salvage Rawls’ public conception of social justice

Abstract

The paper considers the question whether Rawls’ (1971) ‘public conception of justice’ can provide a guiding principle for legislation by institutions in governance. It argues that in order that Rawls’ principles would be universally acceptable to “rational, equal and free individuals”, they would have to be “thin” in content. However, the actual statement of Rawls’ principles cannot be interpreted as limiting entitlements to “social primary goods,” or even precisely, what these goods are, without regard to the diferent types of specifcities of individuals identifed by Amartya Sen (1999). In arguing thus, it purports to defend Rawls’ theory of justice from Sen’s (1999) criticism that in adopting the resourcist paradigm, Rawls’ theory fails to respond to the heterogeneity of individuals. Interpolating Rawls “presuppositions” about the original position in 12 conditions that underlie and determine the choice of the principles of justice, the paper argues that these conditions taken individually or collectively can provide a strong response to Sen’s criticisms. Citing relevant examples of institutional orders/schemes, the paper attempts to show how Rawls’ principles of justice can take into account heterogeneities that characterise individuals without compromising the objectivity of the principles themselves.