Chapter 20 Summary

Rawls identifies justice as the social arrangement on which rationally self-interested, free individuals would agree if they were deliberating from a hypothetical starting point—the “original position”—of perfect equality. That equality is guaranteed by the “veil of ignorance” that prevents the deliberators from having any knowledge of their own social status, class positions, or natural abilities and inclinations. Thus, ignorant of what arrangements might be of special advantage to themselves, those in the original position would choose just, in the sense of fair, principles to organize their society. Rawls identifies two such principles: equality of basic rights and duties and the permission of only those social and economic inequalities that result in compensating benefits for everyone, especially the least advantaged members of society.