Recent emphasis in evaluation of political institutions and policies has shifted from the conceptual analysis of the meaning of power or the nature of law to the ideals of justice, freedom and community. In 1971, moral and political philosopher John Rawls presented one of the first systematic projects that endeavoured to structure moral intuition into a theory that balances equality and liberty for all. Ronald Dworkin, a philosopher and jurist, responded to this with a similar theory that attempted to resolve some of its flaws. While both political systems present viable suggestions for a fair societal distribution scheme, and each have their shortcomings, the latter’s ultimate yield to the Rawls’ difference principle leads it to fall short of the intuitive conditions of fairness described in the scheme it seeks to improve.
While some left-wing modern theories are quite radical in their conception of equality, Rawls suggests a distribution scheme that allows for inequality conditionally - so long as it does not disadvantage anyone. Equal concern allows for any inequality that promotes the interests of all parties. In this way, the least well off in society are given the power to reject unfair distribution. This general conception, however, does not adequately answer the question of justice because it does not address the potential conflict of what is being distributed. Rawls’ solution comes in the form of rules that aim to provide the structure that pure intuition cannot: each person is to have equal right to basic liberties; social and economic liberties must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged; the principle of liberty can only be restricted for the sake of liberty; and justice takes priority over efficiency and utility.
These principles are supported by two major arguments. The first is Rawls’ version of equality of opportunity; but contrasted against the more common conception, being that so long as every person has the same opportunity to succeed, the inequalities that result are just. The idea that social success is determined solely by one’s choices, and not their arbitrary circumstances, is attractive in a society which places emphasis on earnings and merit. Rawls’ theory supports equal opportunity insofar as that society should provide equal opportunity to its members, but denies that anyone is entitled to a greater share of society’s resources regardless of what they do with that opportunity. Common equality of opportunity assumes that one deserves to benefit from their natural talents, but Rawls disagrees.
“…no one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favourable starting place in society… it does not follow that one should eliminate these distinctions. There is another way to deal with them. The basic structure can be arranged so that these contingencies work for the good of the least fortunate. Thus we are led to the difference principle if we wish to set up the social system so that no one gains or loses from his arbitrary place in the distribution of natural assets or his initial position in society without giving or receiving compensating advantages in return.” (Rawls, 1971)
Every person is born into a social situation that is out of their control, but also with natural abilities that were not able to be chosen. As such, no one deserves to benefit from their natural abilities any more than they deserve to benefit from being born into a financially well-off family. Yet, if those benefits are also to the advantage of those who were less fortunate, then they are acceptable - this is Rawl’s Difference Principle, and he believes it is the best way to treat everyone equally as a moral individual.
This leads to Rawls’ social contract argument. He imagines an ‘original position’ in which people decide how their society will be run without any knowledge or ability to promote their own good, in the hopes of determining a truely unbiased account of a just system. A ‘veil of ignorance’ acts to prevent them from knowing what social or natural circumstances they will have because they are the perpetrators that allow for biased judgments. Rawls believes that such a state of nature will leave want and need for only the fundamental necessities to lead a good life.
“There is something like pursuing a conception of the good life that all people, even those with the most diverse commitments, can be said to be engaged in… although people do not share one another’s ideals, they can at least abstract from their experience a sense of what it is like to be committed to an ideal of the good life.” (Waldron, 1987)
Those fundamental necessities are both distributed by social institutions; such as income, opportunities and rights, and affected by access to them; such as health, intelligence, and well-being. Rawls argues that from behind the veil of ignorance, one would vote for any rules that would result in securing oneself a position in society where no matter what life they are born into they have the resources and opportunity to pursue the good life they desire. They would accept to grant a greater share of resources to the more fortunately talented if it also advantaged them.
Dworkin shares much of the same sentiment, but subscribes to the common conception of equality of opportunity Rawls disagrees with, extending only to what one starts life with - thus, his theory is not one of distribution, but of subsidisation, for those disadvantaged by arbitrary circumstance. As such Dworkin believes that Rawls’ theory ultimately does not give enough significance to the responsibility one has for the choices they make and is ambition-insensitive. He expresses his version of an ‘original position’ as a world in which society’s resources are repossessed and auctioned. Each person has an equal amount of resources with which to make bids, and if the auction ends with dissatisfaction, it can be rerun until every participant is happy - dubbed the ‘envy-test’. In this way, people are treated with equal consideration because the differences between what they receive simply reflect what they believe will give them a good life. He addresses natural disadvantages by adding a theoretical insurance scheme to his original position. One’s bidding resources can be used in part to pay for insurance; any rational person would put aside a portion for this purpose. If in the event that one is born handicapped in some way, the insurance that everyone rationally agreed to pay beforehand can be used to make sense of a tax system to duplicate the results of what is fair to take from the wealthy to subsidise the disadvantaged.
The distinction between the two theories comes from a discrepancy in how both philosophers consider what people are entitled to. While Rawls holds that personal traits are a matter of luck in the same way that social circumstance is - thus one cannot be entitled to what these traits enable them to earn - Dworkin believes that every person must take responsibility in choosing what they make or become with the attributes they are granted. This conflict is problematic, as it appeals to opposing beliefs that become more intractable the more they are rationally compared. Instead of attempting to determine which theory is the best, it is easier to resolve by saying that one better achieves its aim to discover the conditions of fairness.
Neither theory is perfect by any means. Rawls acknowledges that both social and natural inequalities are equally undeserved, yet his scheme only caters to the equal distribution for people born into unfortunate social situations - he does not address the significant financial impact of being born naturally disadvantaged. Dworkin’s theory relies on the idea that we are able to measure the extent to which people are responsible for their income, which is nonsensical.
“The idea that we might adjust our distributive-justice system based on our estimation of persons’ overall deservingness or responsibility seems entirely chimerical. Individuals do not display responsibility scores on their foreheads, and the attempt by institutions or individuals to guess at the scores of people they are dealing with would surely dissolve in practice into giving vent to one’s prejudices and piques.” (Arneson, 2000)
To be fair to Dworkin, he does acknowledge that his proposal is quite radical and would not be realised. What he thinks is that his philosophy shows the ambitions of the welfare state in implementing taxes as perfectly rational. Practically executing his theory would result in some attempt to shuffle societal goods to give every person equal access to some stake in the country that can provide them with the same opportunity as everyone else. Possibilities of application are hotly debated in current politics, such as the idea of a universal basic income.
However, no matter how Dworkin’s theory is realised, it is always at the mercy of Rawls’ difference principle. If it turned out that universal basic income made everybody so poor that the least well off were actually disadvantaged by the rates scheme, it would not be considered acceptable to justice. All the egalitarian excesses of Dworkin would be rejected if they were to the disadvantage of the least well off because from behind the veil of ignorance, no one would accept the possibility of disadvantaging themselves. One cannot ever understand exactly what anyone else feels because they are only themselves, but this is how one achieves equal concern - by imagining how they would like to be treated in the same situation. With this consideration in a situation in which there is no means for bias to exist, an impartial and just decision can be made to give everyone the best opportunity to find the good life they seek - all other theories must yield to Rawls’ difference principle of fairness.
John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin both contributed influential and important works to the field of political philosophy. In many ways, their arguments created the foundation for all political discussions and views that followed. Each presents a well-constructed account of an ideal theory of justice and societal distribution, and each are able to be achieved to respective extent in the societies that exist today. Yet the Rawls’ difference principle’s prevailing ability to appeal to intuitive conditions of fairness in the face of other theories leads it to better discover how a just society can be realised.
S O U R C E S R E F E R E N C E D
Arneson, R. (2000). Luck Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism. Ethics, 110(2), pp.339-349.
Kymlicka, W. (2001). Contemporary Political Philosophy. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Waldron, J. (1987). Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 37(147), p.127.
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