John Rawls

Justice as Fairness behind the Veil of Ignorance

Abstract

John Rawls is one of the most prominent American political and
ethical philosophers of the 20th century. His major work is ‘’A Theory of
Justice’’ where he set the foundations of his most discussed conception
of justice as fairness. Rawls projects a society consisted of free citizens
that hold equal basic rights and cooperate within the framework of an
egalitarian economic system. The citizens are under “the veil of
ignorance’ in the ‘original position’ when they access the hypothetical
social contract and when the principles of justice are created. Rawls’s
construction of the original position considers that the people or
hypothetical contractors of the social contract are placed behind a ‘veil
of ignorance’, which makes them unaware of their particular
circumstances. Justice as fairness is a sophisticated version of the wellknown idea of social contract, presented by Rawls. His ideas were
considered highly ambitious and progressive. They won enormous praise
and inspired many authors to generate literature based on his texts.
Besides that, critics have followed Rawls’ works, detecting weaknesses
on certain aspects of his theory of justice.