Justice As Equality-Further Researching On Rawls' Theory Of Justice

The problem of the institution and the value of liberty had been solved ultimately after the publication of John Stuart Mill's (1859) and (1860), and it seems that there was not any of contribution to western political philosophy at the next one hundred years. This condition had not been altered until John Rawls'great work came out in 1971. Rawls' theory of justice generally solves the problem of"equality", which makes the theme of western political philosophy transfer from the"liberty"into"equality", and it is of epoch-making significance. This paper tries to explain and comment Rawls' around the issues of"equality", and interpret it as"justice as equality".This paper is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the issues of liberty and equality argued by the main western philosophers and philosophical schools from the age of Enlightenment to Rawls'epoch, and it focuses on two schools– the classical theory of contract and utilitarianism. At the first section, there is an overview of Hobbes', Locke's and Rousseau's classical theory of contract, which is inherited and developed by Rawls. Rawls accepts from the classical theory of the contract the idea that we can reach"consensus"through"choice", this provides foundation for the condition in which one will choose the two the principle of justice in"original position". Rawls also says that what he is trying to do is to generalize the classical theory of contract that was represented by Locke, Rousseau and Kant, and to push it to a higher level of abstraction. The second section mainly talks about Rawls' criticisms of utilitarianism which is the first object that was reflected by Rawls. Rawls mainly argues utilitarianism as intuitionism and teleological theory which only emphasize on"the greatest happiness of most people", and even one can sacrifice someone's or some group's interests for adding social well-being. Rawls considers that just treats one person as a means to maximize the well-being of the community, but neglects the distribution of wealth between individuals. It naturally draws Rawls'attention on"equality"and the social redistribution.It describes the Rawls'argument of the problem"equality"in Chapter 2. Rawls gives his two principles of justice under the premise of"original position". The core issue that is to be resolved by Rawls'two principles of justice is"equality", that is, things that can be equally distributed such as liberty and rights should be resolved by the first principle of justice; things that can not be distributed equally like opportunity, income and wealth should be resolved by"difference principle"of the second principle of justice, it means that the distribution of social wealth should help"the least advantaged class"for the max interests. In his , Rawls considers that his two principles of justice are of universal significance beyond the limit of history, but increasingly he recognizes the limit of this universal theory when it comes across multicultural values. Thus, Rawls brings forward"public rationality"and"overlapping consensus"and so to supply and amend his theory of justice. He thinks that the most rational form of social consensus in a liberal and democratic society should be"overlapping consensus". Bringing forward"overlapping consensus"makes him transform from ethical construction of the principle of justice into political liberalism. Chapter 3 focuses on the criticisms that were put forward on Rawls'theory by Communitarianism and Robert Nozick. The controversy between Rawls and Nozick comes from the conception of"equality", that Rawls considers that justice always means equality, and inequality in each sphere of society should be settled. Instead, Nozick does not agree with Rawls, and he believes that inequality does not imply injustice; he confers"right"to the maximum value, and insists that other values including equality can not be extended beyond the boundary of"right". Generally speaking, Rawls pays more attention to the justice of results, but the justice of process is more important to Nozick. Communitarianism passes criticism on neo-liberalism (that contains Rawls and Nozick), because the conceptions, such as"rights"and"fairness", which are used by Rawls and Nozick are just fictive theories, especially that the social equality can not be actually achieved with the foundation of individualism. The criticisms of Neo-liberalism (also includes Rawls) delegated by Nozick and communitarianism promote the production of Rawls'later thought.In Chapter 4, I mainly talk about the shortage of neo-liberalism and communitarianism, as their solutions to the problem of"equality"are not good enough, so that they should be exceeded. Otherwise, we still have a long way to go in order to solve the issues of equality. We should fully understand the fact of"reasonable pluralism"and"cultural pluralism", and critically inherit Rawls'thought of"public reason"and"overlapping consensus". In addition, in order to realize the equality of the whole human being, we have to get"Tianxia"as the primary elements when we analyze the political and economic benefits, and understand the world from the perspective of "Tianxia", that is, it is necessary to get"the world"as a basal unit to analyze and beyond western states'and national way of thinking. This requires us to responsible for the whole world, and to create a new idea of the world. It has more significance to China when it growing up in the area of economic and politic. China can not reconstruct its image of cultural country and rediscover the motivity of its development, until we"reflect China"– China restores its own ability to reflect– and responsible for"Tianxia"when we think of the issum of equality.