Reflection And Critique Of Rawls' Viewpoint Of Justice

"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought."After utilitarianism occupied in the field of political philosophy for about a hundredyears, American philosopher John Rawls carried on and developed the theory ofclassical social contract constructed by Hobbes. He set up the "original position" asthe logical starting point, and applied the principle of justice to the basic structure ofsociety, guaranteeing the priority of freedom and then stressing of equality. Rawlsconcerned about the prospect of the least fortunate group which was regarded asreference point for principles of justice choosing, reconciling the contradictionbetween freedom and equality, giving a significant solution to the problem of equality.Rawls'theory of justice as fairness criticized the utilitarianism, transcended theclassical liberalism, which made the subject of the political philosophy convertcorrespondingly.Rawls theory of justice received waves of praise, but also attracted criticism andchallenges to the parties, these criticisms came from within liberalism,communitarianism, and other schools. In theoretical debate with the parties, Rawlscompleted his own theory and made supplement to it, turning the comprehensiveliberalism to the political liberalism. He acknowledged that the social reality ofmultiple reasons, emphasizing the concept of justice is the political consensus. Ofcourse, Political Liberalism does not deviate from the theme——"justice as fairness"pursued in A Theory of Justice, it is still an extension of A Theory of Justice. InPolitical Liberalism, Rawls made a new explanation to a well-ordered society in ATheory of Justice. Rawls thought that in a society of multiple reasons the well-orderedsociety was unrealistic. So "justice as fairness" in the Political Liberalism wasconsidered as "political justice", namely, "overlapping consensus" of comprehensivetheory, a well-ordered society was an unified society by the concept of politicaljustice.Rawls concerned about equality and justice in his life, paying attention to the livesof people at the bottom of the society, seeing social structure as the theme of justice,and advocating the establishment of a reasonable social system to achieve socialjustice, which was to some degree similar to Marxist critique of society. But Marxbased his theory on historical materialism, starting from the real perceptual activity ofthe individual, starting off from practice, which was different from Rawls'abstractindividuals who did not know their own particular information in hypothetical"original position". Rawls wanted to reform capitalist society, contrary to that, Marxcalled for to overthrow the capitalist society of labor alienation through the proletariatrevolution, and overthrow the capitalist system of private ownership of production,with eliminating classes and exploitation as well as polarization, thus makingindividuals get full and free development. This society was one in which justice wasto be transcended, freedom and equality was to be achieved, namely, a communistsociety. This paper explores Marx'viewpoint of justice from the perspective of justice andhuman nature,justice and production relations, justice and communist society. On thisbasis, this paper reflects the meaning of justice of Western political philosophy,especially the viewpoint of Rawls'justice, pointing out the defects of his constructingsocial system. "An advice from others may help one's defects." Drawing on someideas of Western political philosophy, particularly Rawls'concern about equalityissues, can be guidance in constructing Marxist political philosophy which willinstruct the construction of market economy, democratic law and democratic politicsin China.