The Development Of Rawls's Theory Of Justice

The problem of justice is as complex as one Proteus face, so is the development of Rawls's theory of justice. Confronted with the complexity of the problem of justice, Rawls devotes his life on the justice project as if he is a hedgehog. He accepts comments from others, responds to them, reflects the real life and revises and then reconciles and develops his theory of justice. But no matter how to develop it, Rawls has the awe to justice, that is, if there is no justice, there is no value for human beings to live on the earth. Rawls tries to prove that liberalism has the moral reasonableness and the political legitimacy from the view of justice. The argumentation not only explains the crisis of legitimacy of liberalism, but responds to the fact of it, especially the reasonable pluralism. Then Rawls's theory of justice has developed from a comprehensive theory to a political justice that overlapps on the constitutionally profound matters and basic social justice and does not depend on any idea of good. So the development of Rawls's theory of justice can be summarized that it is the response to the theory and practice in the liberalism background. But the problem of the approach that resolves the significant matters as to man's life and development based on the presupposition that the right is prior to the good, lies in that the liberalism approach laying the matters of good that are more fundamental and important aside can not settle these problems and justice itself ultimately because the good can not commensurate with each other.While reflecting on the development of Rawls's theory of justice, we must recognize that the development of Rawls's theory of justice has great use of reference to resolving the current problem of justice in China. The problem of justice itself is complex and it is to develop with the development of the practice of politics, economy and culture. So the solution to the problem of justice is also a complex question. It not only deals with the justice itself, but the the practice of politics, economy and culture. The development of Rawls's theory of justice has given us one good model to study the problem of justice.The study of this paper goes along with the above-mentioned approach.The introduction proposes why to study the development of Rawls's theory of justice and explains the approach and sets the limit of the paper based on reviewing the existing studies of Rawls's theory of justice. That is to ask why Rawls develops his theory of justice and how he develops his theory of justice and discusses the relationship between the practice of politics, economy and culture and Rawls's theory of justice.The background of the practice of politics, economy and culture of the development of Rawls's theory of justice expands in the first four parts. Firstly, this paper analyzes the primary development of Rawls's theory of justice and the approximate statement in the background of the crisis of present liberalism, then regards Rawls's theory of justice as a project to the crisis of specific liberalism of America in the 1960s that justifies the liberalism from the view of the moral reasonableness in the bachground of the theory and the practice. The justification is open to reflection and it develops through the reflective equilibrium and the revisability of justice. So, A Theory of Justice and justice as fairness is only the primary stage during the development of Rawls's theory ofjustice.A Theory of Justice has a great influence in the fields of justice. So many legal philosophers join in the discussion of justice. During the process communitarianism as a theory comes up. But as far as the development of Rawls's theory of justice is concerned, the leading comments come from liberalism, especially from Hart on the basic liberties. Rawls responds to the comments through clarifying the obscurity and the presupposition of his theory such as his theory's specific application to the liberal constitution, then develops the discussion of liberties and rights. This is the second part.But the leading force that impulses the development of Rawls's theory is the interaction between the practice and the theory in the third part. Confronted with the fact of the reasonable pluralism Rawls has developed his theory as political justice resorting to the reflective equilibrium and the revisability of justice based on the reflectivity of liberalism. Political justice makes the idea of justice as fairness and the statement of justice develop, so, the theory of justice develops from the moral constructivism to the political constructivism and the idea of an overlapping consensus and the idea of the public reason come up, however, because political justice only applies to liberal constitution, then the subject develops from the moral person to citizens who are liberal and equal. But the project of Rawls's theory of justice has not changed at all because political justice is still a try to resolve the crisis of liberalism based on the reflectivity and the only chang is that the centre becomes the political legitimacy. Through reflection liberalism recognizes that the comprehensive conceptions such religion, philosophy and morality can have the ideas of good and even need not accept the priority of right, but they must obey the idea of public reason embodied in constitutional essentials and law in political domains so that citizens can not violate social justice because of his own conception of the good in spite that they can discuss publicly what is right in the light of your own conception of the good in modern liberal democratic states. So political justice shares a basic presupposition that the right is prior to the good with comprenhensive justice. Then Rawls's theory of justice reflects the capacity of rationality itself and he pays more attention to the reasonableness on this basis.Then Rawls's theory of justice is confronted with reconciliation during the course of the amendments and developments. The reconciliation can be generalized that justice as fairness is described as one conception of political justice and three aspects of justice as fairness change. They are the the principles and the contents of justice as fairness, the argumentation of the principles of his theory of justice from the original position and how to understand justice as fairness, that is, it is one conception of political justice but a part of one comprehensive moral conception. This is the fourth part.In the fifth part, on the basis of grasping the context of Rawls's theory of justice, this paper tries to appraise the development of Rawls's theory of justice and review how the theory of justice relates with social background, self-sufficiency of the development of Rawls's theory of justice, the feasibility of the legal consensus of the solution to the problem of justice and the limits of the development of Rawls's theory of justice as one liberalism project. Then combined with the background, especially the new challenge of globalization to liberalism, this paper prospects the development of Rawls's theory of justice and surveys the enlightenment of the development to the problem of justice in current China. The conclusion summarizes that the awing and searching for justice are Rawls's dream during all his life. On the one hand, his persistence in justice and his studies in justice deserves our learning; on the other hand, we should also know the limits of his theory of justice. So our research on justice should be based on the practice of current China and refer to other studies on justice, especially the liberalism theories of justice so that we can form our perspective of China and the view of the world on justice through communicating and dialogizing with them.