Rawls’s A Theory of Justice was published at a time when American political and social milieu was covered with issues related to the Civil Rights and Black Liberation movements, Women Rights and Liberation movements, Anti–Vietnam War movements, etc. On the other hand, within the discipline of political science, behavioural and post-behavioural debate has also tilted towards relevant and action-oriented political science. Rawls’s proposition of distributive justice and his work were considered as a welcome beginning in normative and value-oriented political theory. Rawls relates argument for liberties and equality to provide basis and justification for a liberal welfare state. Recognizing his contribution to political theory, Marshall Cohen says, ‘All the great political philosophies of the past—Plato’s, Hobbes’s, Rousseau’s—have responded to the realities of contemporary politics, and it is therefore not surprising that Rawls’s penetrating account of the principles to which our public life is committed should appear at a time when these principles are persistently being obscured and betrayed.’34 However, writers and thinkers such as C. B. Macpherson and Norman Daniel put him and his theory in the category of what Macpherson calls revisionist liberal, and Daniel calls a theory of liberal democratic justice. Though Rawls puts forward a formidable normative proposition on distributive justice, it has been responded to from many quarters with equal force. We can discuss the response from Brain Barry, Macpherson’s evaluation of Rawls, the communitarian perspective of common good, Marxian perspective offered by Milton Fisk and Richard Miller and Nozick’s libertarian reply.
After two years of publication of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, Brian Barry in his book, The Liberal Theory of Justice (1973) doubted Rawls’s assumptions regarding rational persons choosing the two principles in the original position. Barry argued that ‘what he (Rawls) is doing is invoking a particular conception of rationality which is contestable’.35 However, it would be appropriate to point out that Rawls does not renegade on the liberal assumption of individual rationality and assumes that given a particular original situation as he portrays where the individuals decides behind the veil of ignorance, individual rationality would settle to choose an egalitarian society.
Crawford Brough Macpherson, who is considered as a radical democrat and who has criticized liberalism as ‘possessive individualism, offered a critique of Rawls’s conception of distributive justice in his essay ‘Revisionist Liberalism’.36 He terms Rawls as ‘revisionist liberal’ and his model of distributive justice as ‘not adequate as a liberal-democratic theory’. Macpherson does not reject Rawls’s argument of replacing Utilitarian justice with contractarian justice. He says, ‘I want chiefly to consider the adequacy of the model of a liberal–democratic society which he constructs from and justifies by his principles of justice’.37 Then, Macpherson goes on to dissect and criticize Rawls’s basic premises, which accept inevitability of institutionalised inequalities within a class-divided society. Macpherson says Rawls accept that institutionalizsed inequalities, which affect life-prospects, are inevitable in any society. He is also critical of Rawls treating inequalities between classes by income and wealth. Macpherson feels that Rawls’s model of a liberal–democratic society and two principles of justice are designed to deal with inequalities. But Rawls also accepts class division as inevitable. Having accepted the inevitability of class division, Rawls second principle tends to show or justify when class inequality in life prospects is justified. Macpherson ruefully comments, ‘Principles of justice designed to show when class inequalities are just do not go very deep.’38 Macpherson rejects Rawls’s assumption that distributive justice is possible even within a class divided society. Macpherson in his books, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962) and The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (1977) has argued that a class divided society or a society with capital as the extractive power is inimical to the developmental power or moral freedom of those who do not own capital.
With respect to Brian Barry’s reservation about Rawls promoting or assuming a particular conception of rationality in the original position, it appears that notion of rationality varies within the individualist fold. The Communitarian perspective advocated by Alasdair Maclntyre, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer and others maintains that due conflict within individualism it would not be possible to generate ‘uncontestable conclusions regarding just organization of society’. This impossibility arises due to varying conception of rationality that individualism promotes with competing social groups promoting their own interests. A just society would not be possible if groups compete to promote their respective conceptions of rationality and interests. The Communitarian perspective argues that a more reliable criterion is needed that provides the basis for ‘a conception of state and society founded on a recognition of the common good in relation to which public policy must be justified …’39 The Communitarian argument is that a just society will not be possible unless conception of a common good is taken into recognition instead of individual rationality.
Macpherson criticizes Rawls for assuming inevitability of class division and finds his conception of distributive justice limited by this assumption. Two other writers, Milton Fisk and Richard Miller have criticized Rawls’s theory from the Marxian perspective.40 Rawls’s conception of original position seeks to abstract man as if there is no social and material reality that determines what one can choose. Further, his theory remains grounded in individual rationality and reflects liberal ideology. The equality assumption which Rawls adopts distorts the fact that individuals in real terms are unequal. Rawls does accept the inevitability of inequalities but constructs his model on equality assumptions. It has also been argued that Rawls’s theory assumes ‘that societies have only moderate class conflict, no ruling class and no class differentiated basic desires …’ But it would not be difficult to show the naivety of this presumption in capitalist societies.
Notwithstanding the criticisms that Rawls’s doctrine of justice as fairness invokes, he is considered to have laid grounds for a welfare state and an egalitarian distributive principle. He employs the notions of natural rights, state of nature (original position), social contract to provide a new basis for justice as an alternative to the Utilitarian conception that Rawls feels uncomfortable with. Earlier to Rawls, J. W. Chapman had also advocated the cause of distributive justice in his article, ‘Justice and Fairness’ (1963). He seeks to relate idea of justice and equal moral freedom with economic rationality (capitalist oriented) of an individual, same as Rawls does in terms of fairness and rational choice in original position. However, T. H. Marshal who argues for a comprehensive concept of citizenship that should be based on social rights such as right to basic economic welfare, social security etc.41 This means provision of social rights that require development of a welfare state with economic and social responsibilities. Rawls model does seek to find such a solution.
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