On Rawls' Criticism Of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism, after its emerging, has been praised highly in the west all the time, and has been regarded as one of the dominant ideas in western. But to Rawls' eyes, because of social progress, utilitarianism has been exposed many problems of itself not only in theory but also in reality, so the utilitarianism ought to be criticize, and Rawls try to put the justice as fairness to take place of it, In this page, I will discuss these from three parts. In the first part, I will discuss utilitarianism progress and its main content firstly; secondly, I will discuss that the utilitarianism can not answer the question from reality, so Rawls thought there should be a new theory; thirdly I will compare the justice as fairness to utilitarianism, and exposed the shortcoming of utilitarianism and the advantage of the justice as fairness. In the second part, I will emphatically discuss the criticism of Rawls to utilitarianism, and introduce the justice principle, discuss why the justice principle could take place the utilitarianism. At first, I will introduce the original position, which gave people the same condition, and in which people know nothing but they were in equality. At second, I will be in focus to criticize utilitarianism, the target of attack is the shortcoming of utilitarianism, all of these can show that it is inevitable choice that the justice theory substitutes utilitarianism, At third, I will discuss the probability that justice principle take place of the utilitarianism, and try to improve that the justice principle should be the dominant ideas. In the third part, I will take some simple praise on the criticism of Rawls to the utilitarianism, and the response of other scholar, though Rawls could not totally get rid of utilitarianism because of the environment that is in, but he has still surmounted utilitarianism in many aspects. We know Rawls take more emphasis on equality, which has transformed the direction of the social political philosophy, and gives us many important significance not only in theory, but also in reality.