100 must-read books for college students

Chapter 99 Masterpieces of the Rawls Era

Chapter 98 The masterpiece of Rawls' era: "A Theory of Justice"

"A Theory of Justice" is called "the most important theoretical work in the field of ethics and political philosophy after World War II", the United States
Philosophy, politics, law and other related disciplines in general universities list it as one of the required readings.The development of Anglo-American political philosophy is due to "Positive
"On Deontology" re-established deontological ethics, and entered a "Rawls era" or "Rawls-centered era"

. "

The book "A Theory of Justice" is praised as "a master of thought"

John Rawls, a famous American philosopher and ethicist, was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1921.

In 1951, Rawls first published his first work "Outline of a Decision Procedure Applicable to Ethics".
Wrote "Justice Is Fairness" (1958), "Constitutional Liberty and the Concept of Justice" (1963), "A Sense of Justice" (1963)
,"No
Violent Resistance" (1966), "Distributive Justice" (1967), etc. From 1969 to 1970, Rawls was at Stanford University

level research center
It has become the collation and processing of "A Theory of Justice".John Rawls is hailed by some critics for his book A Theory of Justice
Plato, Aquinas, and Hegel are the masters of thought.

The time when the author wrote this book coincided with the changing times of American society.Contradictions and conflicts inherent in capitalist society follow

And then, one after another.Economic crisis, inflation, racism, civil rights movement, women's rights movement, poverty, boycott

The wave of the Vietnam War, the student rebellion... happened one after another.This will undoubtedly cause people to reflect on social justice issues.Rawls set

Living in such an era, think carefully and observe these phenomena, and pin your hope of getting out of the predicament on the clarification of the concept of justice
A Theory of Justice is the product of Rawls's research under the atmosphere of the times.

Justice is Fairness in Rawls' Era

The book "A Theory of Justice" is divided into three parts and nine chapters. The first part "Theory" discusses the definition of justice, the historical development of justice, and the

The role of justice, the content of justice, and the original position; Part II, "Institutions," analyzes how the

Principles to dissect socio-political institutions, economic institutions, and civic life; Part III, "Purpose," explores issues in the realm of ethics and morality.
The topics involve a series of topics such as goodness, self-esteem, virtue, sense of justice, moral feelings, and self-discipline.the principle of justice
Theory is the basis and core of Rawls's political thought.This book focuses on "what is justice".author thinks justice

It is the primary value of the social system and an important means to adjust the conflicts of people's interests, and its theme is the basic structure of society.exactly
More precisely, it is the main social system that distributes basic rights and duties and determines the distribution of benefits arising from social cooperation.
.Rawls divides the existing theories that dominate Western society into two categories: the utilitarian conception of justice.base of utilitarianism

This point of view is to seek the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.The idea of ​​utilitarian thinking is: everyone is realizing his own interests
We always measure our own losses according to our own gains. The happiness of society is composed of personal happiness, and the principle of personal is to try our best.

Maximize their own welfare, and maximize the realization of the total desire system composed of the desires of all members.Intuitionism is
Righteous view.Intuitionism is to achieve some basic principles through self-reflection, and these basic principles are supreme

can be used to measure various conflicting principles of justice.Intuitionism does not include other measures, people rely on intuition

, measured by what appears closest to humans.Rawls disagreed with both, and especially against utilitarianism.exist
After negating the utilitarian concept of justice, Rawls put forward his own concept of justice, justice is fairness.

Since justice is fairness, how do people achieve principles?Rawls assumes another premise: in the original state
All parties are equal, and in the selection process, all have the same rights as moral agents with their own
With regard to the idea of ​​the good and the sense of justice, men are equal to each other.From this, Rawls deduced the general principle of justice

Da: All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the basis of self-esteem—should be equally distributed unless

Any inequality of value is good for everyone.

At the same time, Rawls divided the concept of justice into two famous principles of justice: first, everyone has an equal right to
the possession of the broadest range of fundamental liberties that can coexist with similar liberties of others; second, the security of social and economic inequality

This inequality should not only be reasonably expected to be in everyone's interest, but also be related to the status and position open to all.
services linked together.Here, the first principle is used to determine and guarantee the equal freedom of citizens, and the second principle is used to stipulate

And build

Social and economic inequality.The first principle includes principles such as the basic liberties of citizens, and the second applies roughly to income and
distribution of wealth.

Rawls pointed out that society is a mutually beneficial cooperative enterprise, and its basic structure is a public rule system, which stipulates a
An activity design that enables

People act together to produce the greatest amount of benefits, and to assign certain recognized rights to the

everyone.After the principle of justice is established, it is necessary to implement its spirit into specific systems.

In this regard, Rawls proposed a "sequence of four stages", the first stage is that people accept the choice of two principles of justice; and then

Convocation system

Constituent Assembly, to determine the justice of the political structure and choose a constitution, set the system, this is the second stage, this stage is mainly to determine

Establish equal citizenship and various liberties; the third stage is the legislative stage, especially the second-stage principle of justice must be brought into play

the main role; the final stage is the specific application of norms. Judges and administrative officials apply the formulated norms to specific affairs,

Citizens generally follow norms.

Rule of precedence: the principles of justice should be arranged in lexical order, so that liberty can be limited only for liberty itself
system.

Rawls judged Western democracies according to the above criteria. He pointed out that a major shortcoming of constitutional government is that it

A fair value for liberty cannot be ensured, and corrective measures have never been taken.Distinctions in the distribution of property and wealth

Beyond the level that can coexist with the right to political liberty, but is tolerated by the law.The defect is that the democratic political process is full of

Its quantity is only a controlled competition, the influence of justice in the political system is much more serious than the imperfection of the market, and the accumulation of political power

, become unequal, and those who benefit use the coercive instruments of the state and the laws of the state to secure their powerful position.through
Inequalities in economic and social systems quickly undermine any political equality, and universal suffrage is insufficient to counteract such inequalities as long as political
When party and election funding comes from private donations, the political pulpit is dominated by dominant forces.

For the second principle, Rawls argues as follows: first is the anti-efficiency principle; second is the difference principle; and then is the chain relationship.

The difference principle contains a certain egalitarianism, and it also reflects some tendencies of liberalism. The most basic tendency is

"Equal tendencies".The difference principle implies the following points: First, the principle of compensation.That is, we should face differences in background and talent
The principle of difference is not equal to the principle of compensation, but it tries to achieve the purpose of the principle of compensation; second, there should be mutual
Hui's view

The concept of the difference principle is to pursue the principle of mutual benefit; third, the difference principle shows a kind of civic friendship and social solidarity.These

For some idealistic principles, Rawls believes that Western society has not implemented these principles, or that they have not followed this direction
development of.

In Chapter 5 of the book, Rawls focuses on the issue of social and economic systems, and its original intention is to point out the direction of social improvement in the West
.He first determined the "background system of distributive justice", which includes: distribution department, stabilization department, allocation department, distribution department
.responsible for keeping the price system effectively competitive; responsible for achieving reasonably full employment; responsible for maintaining a minimum
Social Security; responsible for maintaining, through taxation and necessary adjustments to property rights, an approximate justice in the distribution of shares.society
The principles of justice will be realized through the activities of the above departments.

After a comprehensive inspection of the political and economic systems, Rawls made a complete statement of the principles of justice in the West:

First principle of justice: that every person shall have an equal right to enjoy similar liberties for all, consistent with a system of
A broad and equal collection of fundamental liberties.The second principle of justice: social

social and economic inequality so that they) are in the best interest of the most disadvantaged, consistent with the principle of just savings,
As well as being associated with offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equal opportunity.

First Priority Rule (Liberty Priority): The principles of justice should be arranged in lexical order, so liberty is for liberty only

itself can be limited.There are two cases here: first, less extensive liberties should allow the totality of liberties enjoyed by all

second, less equal liberties must be acceptable to those with lesser liberties.Article [-]
First rule (justice takes precedence over efficiency and welfare): the second principle of justice takes precedence in lexical order over the principle of efficiency and maximum
The principle of increasing the aggregate of benefits: while equal opportunity takes precedence over the difference principle.There are two cases here: one case is that the opportunity
Equality must expand the opportunities of those who have fewer opportunities; the other is that excessive saving rates are mitigated on the whole by

A burden for those who suffer because of it.

General concept: Justice is fairness.Rawls stated several times in A Theory of Justice that the two principles of justice define an ideal
social structure or profile, the reform process should develop in this direction.proposed in the book

Many of the problems are closely related to the intricate contradictions and conflicts in the real life of the United States and even the West, but the author often
Speculation turns these questions into abstract theories.

However, a concept of justice cannot be produced out of thin air, and its production requires objective material conditions. If there are no mature social conditions

There is no way to talk about changes in the concept of justice.Rawls puts the foundation of justice on individual moral value, self-discipline, self-unity

One and consistency, etc., he uses the concept of justice based on individualism to explain social values, explain the system, community

and the inherent goodness in our interactions.He believes that the choice of the principle of justice makes people have a sense of justice, and the sense of justice is related to

Moral sentiment is the condition for the continuation of the principle of justice, which becomes a kind of moral argument of reciprocal causation.

A theory of justice

The book "A Theory of Justice", since its publication in 1971, has attracted widespread attention in Western countries and is regarded as a post-World War II book.

One of the most important works in Western political philosophy, jurisprudence, and moral philosophy.After the book was published, it received heated discussions and was listed as

One of the must-read books for many university courses.All kinds of debates or research articles triggered by it are even more numerous and dizzying
.The famous American political scientist Rawls Dahl said: Rawls's works were immediately recognized in English-speaking countries as an important contribution to political philosophy.
a fundamental contribution to learning. The key to the book "A Theory of Justice" being able to strike water like a rock is that it breaks the Western

The deserted situation where all parties are silent in political philosophy.The decline of Western political philosophy is well known, and scholars specializing in political theory

Amy Burns said: There is not much new under the sun of political doctrine.This fully demonstrates the traditional Western speculative method
The dilemma of the theoretical system constructed.Rawls's "A Theory of Justice" is unique and speculative, giving people a refreshing feeling.

feel.

"A Theory of Justice" is a work rich in academic content and very difficult to speculate.

The main problem of the theory, and profoundly reflects the inner contradictions of Western society.In sum, Rawls's political theory is highly speculative
, with rigorous logic, explains the principles of justice that should be established in an ideal society, and has broad enlightening significance for political practice
(End of this chapter)