ABSTRACT
Since the publication of his Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls (1921-2002) has been the dominant theorist of justice in the English-speaking world and in Western Europe. In Rawls’s view justice is, or should be, a virtue of society, specifically of the political and social and economic arrangements that constitute its “basic structure.” Justice requires of these basic institutions that, as a set, they exhibit (i) the principle of equal basic rights and liberties and (ii) that of equality of opportunity; in addition they must work together in such a way as to encourage contributions that provide for the production of goods and services, which in turn are so distributed as to (iii) improve, or at least not lower, the level of income and wealth of all the various income groups involved, when considered from the perspective of a representative person’s whole life, a normal life. The principle of mutual benefit, (iii), is itself adequately fulfilled only where principles (i) and (ii) are respected. In a just or well-ordered society, inequalities in economic or social positions and attendant inequalities in income and wealth can be allowed-indeed, should be allowed-subject to meeting these three conditions. Since the third of the conditions allows for differences in income and wealth Rawls refers to it as the “difference principle” (for this first formulation of his principles of justice see Rawls 1971: 60-61, 75/1999: 53, 65). The present chapter focuses on Rawls’s difference principle.
