Download Study Questions, TJ, sections 10-14

Discussion Questions
A Theory of Justice: sections 10-14
10.Institutions and Formal Justice
(1) what does Rawls mean by describing an institution as a “public system of rules”: what does
he mean by “rules”? what is a “system of rules”? what does he mean by saying that such systems
are “public”?
(2) under what circumstances do institutions exist?
(3) why is it natural for the contractarian to assume that “principles of justice are chosen subject
to the knowledge that they are to be public”?
(4) explain the distinction between constitutive rules of an institution, and rules expressing
rational strategies and maxims. give examples. what, if any, philosophical significance might
there be to the distinction? (see John Rawls “Two Concepts of Rules” Philosophical Review 1952)
(5) why is it important to distinguish between institutions singly and the basic structure of
society as a whole?
(6) what is “formal justice”? is formal justice sufficient for substantive justice? why or why not?
11. Two Principles of Justice
(1) Rawls says there are two ambiguous phrases in his initial formulation of the second principle.
if they are ambiguous, then the phrases are each open to at least two plausible interpretations.
give two plausible interpretations of each.
(2) what does Rawls mean by saying that the two principles are in serial order? how does this
help him avoid the problem to which intuitionism falls prey?
(3) what is the general conception of justice of which the two principles are a special case. what,
if any, philosophical significance is there to the general conception?
(4) what are means of production? What is the right to contract? Why does Rawls exclude the
right to own the former, and the latter right, from the list of basic rights? Is he correct to do so?
(5) what are the primary goods and how is the list of them arrived at?
(6) is Rawls correct to distinguish primary from natural goods? why shouldn’t health be
considered a primary good? how about elements of proper human functioning -- say, the ability
to move about with reasonable ease, the freedom from unwanted pain, or the ability to reproduce
sexually (as opposed to cloning)?
(7) why should we take equal distribution as a benchmark, as Rawls suggests on p. 62? (note the
implication spelled out on p. 64: a social state with its attendant inequalities is justifiable if and
only if each prefers her prospects in that state to those in a state of equality.)
(8) Rawls says that the serial ordering of the principles “expresses an underlying preference
among primary social goods”. doesn’t the case he himself raises show that this preference is
irrational, or at any rate, not uniquely rational?
12. Interpretations of the Second Principle
(1) explain “natural liberty”.
(2) in light of Rawls’s explanation, why is “efficiency” a better term than “optimality”?
(3) explain figure 3. in particular, explain Rawls’s claim “each point on AB can be seen to satisfy
Pareto’s criterion ... this is shown by the fact that the line AB slopes downward to the right.”
(4) explain figure 4. in particular, prove that points D and E cannot be ordered.
(5) since there are many efficient distributions, how can the system of natural liberty single out
one as just?
(6) Rawls’s claim that natural liberty is unjust depends upon the claims that: it allows
distributions to be influenced by social circumstances and chance contingencies, and that these
are arbitrary from a moral point of view. what exactly does he mean by “arbitrary from a moral
point of view”? is he right that the things he cites are arbitrary? even if they are, does it follow
that a distribution influenced by them is unjust? (remember that the parties in the OP will be able
to consider the principle of natural liberty. at this point Rawls is only arguing for a different
interpretation of his own principle.)
(7) explain “liberal equality”.
(8) on what grounds does Rawls argue that liberal equality fails to mitigate the effects of the
natural lottery? is he right that “even the willingness to make an effort, to try ... is itself
dependent upon happy family and social circumstances”? even if he is right, can this claim bear
any philosophical weight?
(9) explain “natural aristocracy”.
(10) what does Rawls mean by saying that “both the liberal conception and that of natural
aristocracy are unstable”?
13. Democratic Equality and the Difference Principle
(1) how does democratic equality remove “the indeterminateness of the principle of efficiency”?
explain the difference between the way it does so and the way the system of natural liberty does
so.
(2) explain figures 5,6,7 and 8, and each sentence of the accompanying text.
(3) explain the difference between perfectly just schemes and those which are just throughout.
(4) why is a society in which the marginal contributions of the best off are negative worse than
one which is just throughout, assuming for the sake of argument that the lowest income in the
two societies are identical? what does Rawls mean by saying that the former violates the
principle of mutual advantage? why does this matter?
(5) imagine that the contribution curve in figure 6 becomes horizontal to the right of point a.
would the difference principle require that distribution be at point a or farther to the right?
would the lexical difference principle? would “stopping” at point a be unjust?
(6) imagine that the contribution curve in figure 6 had a one-degree downward slope to the right
of point a. would the difference principle require society to “stop” at point a? should it? (see
also pp. 136 in this connection)
(7) explain why “a perfectly just system is also efficient”.
(8) explain the chain connection.
(9) explain close-knittedness.
(10) why does Rawls feel it necessary to assume that the chain connection and close-knittedness
hold?
(11) what does Rawls mean by saying that “the general conception is simply the difference
principle applied to all primary goods including liberty and opportunity and so no longer
constrained by other parts of the special conception”?
(12) explain the difference between the difference principle and the maxi-min rule.
14. Fair Equality of Opportunity and Pure Procedural Justice
(1) why shouldn’t democratic equality permit the restriction of positions to some, provided this
leads to outcomes which are better for all?
(2) what are the two characteristics of perfect procedural justice?
(3) explain imperfect procedural justice.
(4) explain pure procedural justice. explain how it differs from perfect and imperfect procedural
justice; give examples which illustrate the difference. explain how it differs from formal justice.
(5) the remarks on pp. 76ff. suggest that Rawls wants the system of cooperation in a well-ordered
society to be a case of pure procedural justice; the principles of justice establish the requisite
conditions for this. suppose that at the end of a fiscal year, we determine that there are grave
inequalities which are not to the advantage of the least well-off. presumably the government will
then do two things: (a) reallocate through income transfers, and (b) change the preconditions of
future exchanges to that the problem does not arise. why doesn’t this show that the scheme of
social cooperation is a system of imperfect procedural justice, rather than pure procedural justice?
(6) the remarks on p. 77 suggest a certain priority for the general conception of justice. the special
conception, they suggest, is (intuitively) desirable because it allows us to operationalize the
general conception, rather than being attractive in their own right. is this an accurate reading of
the remarks in question? if so, why does the general conception have this priority?
(7) does “social wisdom consist in accepting the need for clear and simple principles”? are there
alternative conceptions of social wisdom to be found in the history of political thought?