John Rawls

John Rawls was born February 21, 1921, in Baltimore, Maryland, as the second of five children of William Lee Rawls and Anna Abell Stump. His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother was a chapter president of the League of Women Voters. It has been noted that when he was young, he contracted and passed on infectious diseases to two of his brothers, who would die from these infections. Rawls attended an Episcopalian preparatory school in Connecticut, Kent School, in Connecticut before he entered Princeton University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in moral philosophy in 1943. While studying there, he was known to be influenced by Wittgenstein's student, Norman Malcolm. During this time, he briefly considered entering an Episcopal seminary to study for the priesthood, which he would later ditch to join the United States Army during the Second World War.

During his academic career, John Rawls taught at Princeton University from 1950 to 1952, and in which year1952, he won a Fulbright fellowship to Oxford, where he described the first ideas for his later theories. He taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1960 to 1962, and he finally joined Harvard University in 1962 and was appointed James Bryant Conant University Professor in 1979 and taught for more than thirty years.

Rawls presents what he sees as four roles for political philosophy in a society's public culture. The first is practical, in that political philosophy can propose grounds for reasoned agreement when political divisions threaten to lead to violent conflict. The second role is to help citizens to orient themselves within their own social and political worldworlds. The third is to probe the limits of political philosophy, which can be achieved by describing workable political arrangements and seeing what does and does not gain support. And the fourth role is reconciliation, such as calming frustration against a society by showing individuals the way in which history and institutions are rational and can be developed over time.

Rawls does not see political philosophy as applied moral philosophy, as it had previously been seen. He does not see political philosophy as having a universal principle. Rather, he does not see political philosophy as having a universal principle. He sees there being a corrective regulative principle for anything dependent on the nature of that thing, which means the correct principle for any domain depends on its sub-domain, and in particular the agents and constraints of that sub-domain. This means each sub-domain carries its own potential morality, which is dependent on the society it is embedded in and those individuals and institutions that exist in the sub-domain.

With this principle, political power can only be used in ways that all citizens can be reasonably expected to agree with. While also satisfying a criterion of reciprocity, which suggests citizens must reasonably believe all citizens can accept the enforcement of a set of basic laws. Citizens must be able to endorse the society's fundamental political arrangements freely, not because they are dominated, manipulated, or kept ill-informed or uninformed. Nor should citizens be coerced by the law to endorse to the society. This brings up another problem, especially as democracies are pluralistic, which is what constitution could citizens be reasonably expected to endorse, which Rawls answers by explaining what it means for a citizen to be reasonable.

To solveSolving the challenges of legitimacy in a liberal society, according to Rawls, requires a society to exercise political power in accordance with what Rawls called the political conception of justice. This is further laid out below, where Rawls expands upon the ideas in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice, but a political conception of justice is an interpretation of the fundamental ideas implicit in a society's public political culture. Any political conception cannot be derived from a particular, comprehensive doctrine, nor can it be a compromise of worldviews that exist in a soceitysociety. Rather, the political conception is freestanding where the contents are set out independent of any comprehensive doctrines citizens may freely affirm for themselves.

For stability, the question is the following: why will a citizen willingly obey a law that is imposed upon them by a collective body whothat will undoubtedly have members with beliefs and values different from their own. And? whileWhile some of the questions are resolved above in the legitimate use of power, the challenge of stability remains. Rawls's answer to the concern of stability is on overlapping consensus. In overlapping consensus, citizens endorse a core set of laws for different reasons, or,; in other terms, each citizen supports a political conception of justice internal to their own comprehensive doctrine.

Each political consensus, as noted above, is similar to a "module" of ideas or beliefs whichthat fit into any number of worldviews. In overlapping consensus, reasonable citizens affirm the common "module" from within their own point of view. For example, people of different, or no, faith beliefs may all agree and support the right to religious freedom in a society, and their reasons for doing so may all be different.

John Rawls saw an overlapping consensus as the most desirable form of stability in a free society. and Muchmuch better than a mere balance of power among citizens who hold contending worldviews. Especially as power shifts often, which would reusltresult in a loss of stability. Whereas, in an overlapping consensus citizens affirm a political conception within their own perspectives, and so will continue to affirm those concepts whether one or the other group gains or loses political power. The overlapping consensus is stable for the right reasons: each citizen affirms a moral doctrine for moral reasons, and abiding by a basic law is not a citizen's second-best option in the face of power, but is the citizen's first-best option based on their beliefs.

Rawls did not assert an overlapping consensus as achievable in every society, nor did he foresee such a consensus as enduring forever once achieved. Citizens in some societies might have too little in common to converge on any kind of consensus. In other societies, unreasonable doctrines may spread until they overwhelm any kind of consensus or the societiessocietes' institutions. However, Rawls did show that, historically, it is possible to show convergence in beliefs and deepening trust among citizens in liberal societies. And where an overlapping consensus can be achieved, Rawls held that it is the best support for social stability in a free society.

Rawls's 1971 publication, A Theory of Justice, lays out what has been called an anti-perfectionist liberalism, which resurrected the social contract theory while offering a more egalitarian form to the idea. The work draws on Immanuel Kant to provide a foundation for liberal rights than previous dominant forms of liberal thoughts - especiallythoughts—particularly utilitarianism.

Rawls's work includes some conceptions he considers implicit in modern democracies: namely that citizens are free and equal persons, with a capacity to understand and act on principles regulating a scheme of social cooperation, and a capacity to develop, revise, and pursue rationally a conception of good; another is that society as a fair system of cooperation among free and equal citizens who can arrive a political conception of justice where those persons can relate to one another politically within a basic structure.

To arrive at the system of these principles is achieved through a thought experiment John Rawls described as the "veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance." The veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance is an attempt to remove or mitigate the bias people hold in any given situation to help people agree on how to govern. The veil is a thought experiment where the individual imagines a veil whichthat keeps them from knowing who they are, who they identify as, and their personal circumstances. By being ignorant of these circumstances, the individual is intended to more objectively consider a way of working out the basic institutions and structures of a just society. It further demands the society being built can be accepted by all reasonable people.

As a thought experiment, the veil includes the concept of the Original Position: which is the situation before a particular society exists. John Rawls does not think anyone can return to the original position, let alone that it ever existed, but it is a hypothetical idea in which the individual who is thinking about justice in society should imagine designing the society from scratch. The idea is that whatever decision is made in this situtationsituation could be agreed upon by reasonable people, and once a policy is designed in the Original Position, behind the veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance, it can then be applied to a given society. However, Rawls points out that the concept of the Original Position does not work without the Veil of Ignorance and the principles of a free and just society noted above.

Because the veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance creates a challenge with a complete absence of probabilities, Rawls believes anyone would play it safe and maximize the minimum any person could get. He calls this policy Maximin, which when translated into a society means any policy ensures the worst-off people in society do as well as possible. In this discussion of the veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance are two further principles: the liberty principle and the difference principle.

The more famous, or infamous, part of the formation of the veil of ignorance is the difference principalprinciple. The difference principalprinciple, as formulated by John Rawls, requires a kind of inequality in which some members of society are better off but no one is worse off. This is intended to reward the especially productive and those that achieve great results in a society. But John Rawls formulates the difference principalprinciple as the second principle coming out of the veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance because it requires the liberty principle to ensure equality of opportunity (to allow any person in society to achieve more) and to ensure that those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid are still taken care offof. Which means, the difference principalprinciple, in simple terms, is only justified if the inequalities serve to raise the standard of living of the worst offworst-off class.

Although this is the intuitive understanding of the difference principle, Rawls, in his construction and expression of the principle, is more careful. He refines the difference principle in that it pertains to the basic structure of society and pertains to representatives members of broad social classes rather than those of particular people. Rawls also made a technical assumption that let him focus on the least-well-off representative class in a given society, allowing him to ignore some more technical problems, such as the possibility of an increasing inequality between the wealthy class and the middle-class because it does not affect the least advantaged social class.

The third part of the refinements of the difference principle holds that social rules that allow for inequalities in income and wealth are acceptable in the case where those who are least well off under those rules are better off than the least-well-off representative persons under alternative sets of social rules. This takes into account that people who are worst off under one set of social arrangements may not be the same people as those who are worst off under some other set of oscialsocial arrangements.

At its simplest, the difference principle is intended to allow a society to take care of the least well offwell-off while also allowing the society to reward those who benefit the society. In doing so, Rawls departs from an earlier liberal-utilitarian vision characterized by Harsanyi which would see the difference principle as irrational because, according to Harsanyi, parties would choose a principle that would maximize their utility expectation.

However, Rawls departs from this, in that the difference principle attributes a determinate motivation to parties, in that their motivation can be rewarded by what Rawls calls primary goods. Primary goods are often interpreted as income or wealth, but Rawls never fullfully defines the primary goods (other than to suggest it can be wealth, income, self-respect, or more) nor does he defend them except to say these primary goods facilitate the pursuit by persons in a society of their conception of the good. So if a society rewards respect for good deeds, then respect becomes the primary good. If those good deeds are rewarded with income, then income becomes the primary good. But the difference principalprinciple holds that the society should be able to reward those persons who pursue the "good deeds" as the society sees fit, with the primary goods as facilitating the pursuit of these persons of their conceptions of the good.

Rawls further asserts that the difference principle only works in participation with the "maximin" rule; which suggestsuggests that making choices under the veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance, one should make a choice where the minimum place is higher than an alternative. This has also been referred to as an approach where an individual plans a society in which their enemy assigns them a place.

In Political Liberalism, sometimes thought of as a sequel in thought to A Theory of Justice, John Rawls suggestsuggests the earlier book did not sufficiently distinguish between moral and political philosophy. And to do so, Rawls states that a moral doctrine of justice general in scope is not distinguished from a strictly political conception of justice. Further, in the revised work, the distinction between philosophical and moral doctrines and political conceptions becomes a fundamental distinction. Justice as fairness is further held to embody conceptions of the good, but Rawls denies that it entails a comprehensive conception of the good. He does not describe justice as fairness as an entirely neutral concept, but recognizes that it tends to foster some ways of life - forlife—for example, those thatwho value tolerance, civility, a sense of fairness, and the ability to compromise - while undermining others.

In Political Liberalism and later articles, John Rawls further elaborated on his concept of "public reason.". The concept of public reason, in brief, looked at the concepts of constitutional essentials and questions of basic justice and how citizens can be ready to justify to each other their political actions in reference to the public political conception of justice and to the values and ideals they sincerely believe other citizens can be reasonably expected to endorse.

When returning to the problem of legitimacy and the criterion of reciprocity, Rawls held that citizens must reasonably believe that all citizens can reasonably accept the enforcement of a particular set of basic laws. It is unreasonable, in this way, for citizens to attempt to impose what they see as true on others, with political power required tobeto be used in ways that all citizens can be reasonably expected to endorse. Rawls extends this requirement of reciprocity through his doctrine of public reason, applying to how citizens to justify political decisiondecisions using availbelavailable values and standards.

For example, if a Supreme Court justice is deciding on a gay marriage law, their argument would violate public reason werewhere they are to base their opinion on the Christian God's forbidding of gay sex in the book of Leviticus, or on a personal spiritual revelation, because not all members of the society can be reasonlyreasonably expected to accept Leviticus or personal revelation as an authoritative set of political values or as a common standard for evaluating public policy.

Rawls's doctinedoctrine of public reason has been summarized as follows: citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards. The public values citizens mutmust be able to appeal to are the values of a political conception of justice;, especially those related to freedom and equality and society as a fair system of cooperation. Similarly, citizens should be able to justify political decisions by public standards of inquiry. These public standards are principles of reasoning and rules of evidence that all citizens can resaonablyreasonably endorse.

The duty to abide by public reason, laid out by Rawls, applies when the fundamental political issues are at stake. These issues can include who has the right to vote, which religions are toleratetolerated, who is eligible to own property, and what are suspect classifications for discrimination in hiring decisions. These are also what Rawls calls constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. Further, citizens have to constrain decisions by public reason when engaged in certain political activities, such as the exercise of public office, but otherwise, they can engage in personal decisions based on their personal beliefs and morals.

And the duty to justify one's political decisions with public reasonsreason is, according to Rawls, a moral rather than a legal duty. Rawls characterizes it as a duty of civility, where citizens have full legal rights to free speech, where overstepping the bounds of public reason is never in itself a crime, but citizens have a moral duty of respect and civic friendship not to justify political decisions on fundamental issues by an appeal to partisan values.

In Rawls's work, he focuses on utilitarianism as an alternative to his contract-based theory. This is because heHe does not believe any alternative theory, other than utilitarianism, because they do not have comparable virtues of clarity and systems;. goingHe goes further to say intuitionism is not constructive and perfectionism is unacceptable. This led some to question his stance on perfectionism, which includes natural law theories, and how it could be unacceptable. Rawls responded to this, suggesting that perfectionism-based regimes had an insecurity of freedom, lacked the logic of the original position, and that perfectionism creates a stultifying homogeneity of a single dominant end it works toward.

Rawls argues further that the basic liberties of a democratic society are best or most firmly secured by his liberal conception of justice, rather than any form of perfectionism. This is because, inIn Rawls's opinion, perfectionism relies on the weak and widely heldwidely-held presumption whichthat may win general acceptance but not the consensus and acceptance that Rawls's theory intends to find through a society. Further, Rawls holds that perfectionism, in its attempt to reach a set of perfectionist ends, can lead to a loss of freedom for citizens as the society pushes toward that end. And whileWhile some consider that a necessary cost to reach those ends, Rawls points out through his original position concept and liberal concept of justice, that this style of perfectionism can harm minority groups in favor of a majority belief encapsulated in the set of perfectionist beliefs.

John Rawls has also been considered, from one perspective, to be a natural law thinker. This tends to be because he holds that there are certain primary social goods whichthat are things a rational person wants regardless of anything else. These include the primary goods of rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth, and a sense of one's own worth, or self-respect. Further to that, Rawls holds that there is a relative value of social peace and a value to the pursuit of a social order based on some conception of truth that can entail some theory of human nature.

Some also consider Rawl's political philosophy "conventional," which can be understood to mean based on common agreement, not nature. Meaning, based on this interpretation of Rawls's theory, his political philosophy is not natural. Further, some consider Rawls's theory to take the democracticdemocratic regime for granted, presupposing the validity, truth, and excellence of democratic principles and institutions, and; so Rawls does not do more than tinker with parochial details, rather than making a thorough analysis of political life within the human world as part of his political philosophy.

John Rawls''s ideas have stretched beyond their original political philosophical realm, and from the ideas of Rawls''s liberal neutrality comecomes the idea of legal perfectionism. Legal perfectionism is a doctrine according to which officials may adopt and enforce laws according to the officials' understanding of a good life. The intention of legal perfectionism is that people governed by such laws will lead better lives; or, in other words, legal perfectionism enshrines the broad notion that the government has, or should have, the power to reflect ideas of good and evil - orevil—or the conentcontent of the good life or good projects - inprojects—in framing laws.

As with any philosopher who has reached the level of influence as John Rawls has, there will be a healthy amount of criticism levelledleveled at the thinkersthinker's ideas. Some have argued that Rawls did not allow enough tolerance for different religions or other strongly held beliefs; some have claimed that his ideas are rooted in the era they were written in; and others have found the Differencedifference Principleprinciple as a controversial idea, especially one that suggests tehthe most-advantaged people should redistribute a portion of their earnings to the benefit of the less fortunate.

Critics have noted that Rawls makes several assumptions that shape the nature of the discussion behind the Veil of Ignorance, and the potential outcomes of that thought experiementexperiment. And here someSome have challenged the fairness or intuitiveness of Rawls's assumptions. One of the most famous of these criticscriticisms havehas been from Robert Nozick. Nozick notes, in his criticism, that most goods are already owned, and therefore Rawls's attempt to establish rules to govern the distribution of goods would not work, as, despite it looking fair, would require some kind of redistribution of those goods.

In Nozick's view, the people who own those goods already have rights. Commonly called ownership rights, this generally means those who own a good can do pretty much what they want to do with it, as long as it does not violate someone else's rights. Further, Nozick holds that taking money an individual earned to benefit another cannot be a basis for forcibly taking the money. A possible basis for Nozick's idea is "self-ownership," with which Nozick suggests people agree it would be wrong to force someone to work if they do not want to, because an individual's body is owned by themselves and nobody else. Nozick then extends the principle to include what an individual does with their body: their labor. And if they are awarded in money for their labor, then that should be the individual's and nobody else's and therefore the individual should be able to do with that as they wish. If that includes giving it away to the less fortunate, it is up to the individual.

A second criticism of Rawls and, largely, the concept of the Veil, worries aboutconcerns the coherence of reasoned discussion behind the veil, especially in thatas the veil hides the nature of the society people live in, and the resulting principles are supposed to be applicable in all societies, but may not be applicable in the society from which the individual comes from. There is a group of "communitarian" philosophers, such as Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre.

While their individual views differ, these thinkers tend to agree that what justice requires cannot be decided abstractly. Rather, the thinkers tend to hold that what justice requires should be informed by local considerations and culture. These thinkers also tend to suggest that Rawls's conception of the individuals is problematic because the veilVeil of ignoranceIgnorance reduces their defining features while also holding that much of the hypothetical thought experiment would lead an individual to act in their self-interest and in the interest of maintaining their social status in a given community. However, Rawls, through his philosophy, shows he did not think people were like this, and his interest was to formulate a neutral way to decide between neutral groups.

Another criticism is based on the real-world applicability of Rawls's principles. This criticism tends to come from scholars of race and gender, who believe Rawls's Veil of Ignorance ends up ignoring factors these critics hold are relevant to justice. The central criticism considerconsiders the motivation of Rawls's overall project in which they see an attempt to outline a theory of "ideal" justice that ignores that many injustices that have happened and continue to happen in most societies, such as racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. And, in these cases, these critics argue that Rawls's theory is at beastbest incomplete, as it does not help solve existing injustices.

This critique maps onto a more general question in political philosophy that: if a theory of justice does not offer others a clear action in actual societies, does it have value? Others continue to argue that Rawls's work can be used to draw concrete conclusions in the case of discrimination of any sort,; meanwhile, others reject that Rawls's theory of justice is concerned only with the ideal and ignores pressing issues of the day.

John Rawls was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition who developed a theoryoftheory of justice as fairness to describe a society of free citizens. His landmark work, A Theory of Justice, is often considered the most important work of political philosophy of the 20thtwentieth century. Similar to this, John Rawls is considered a titan of political philosophy, with one remembrance at the time of his death in 2002 noting that over 3,000 articles specifically about Rawls had been published during his lifetime, whileand A Theory of Justice had been cited nearly 60,000 times at that time.

John Rawls was born February 21, 1921, in Baltimore, Maryland, as the second of five children of William Lee Rawls and Anna Abell Stump. His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother was a chapter president of the League of Women Voters. It has been noted that when he was young, Rawlshe contracted and passed on infectious diseases to two of his brothers, who would die from these infections. AfterRawls attendingattended an Episcopalian preparatory school, Kent School, in Connecticut before he entered Princeton University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in moral philosophy in 1943. While studying herthere, he was known to be influenced by Wittgenstein's studenstudent, Norman Malcolm. During this time, he briefly consideringconsidered entering an Episcopal seminary to study for the priesthood, which he would later ditch to join the United States Army during the Second World War.

HeRawls enlisted in the army later that year, whereand he would serveserved with the infantry in the southSouth Pacific until discharged in 1945. There heHe saw direct combat in both New Guinea - whereGuinea—where he earned a Bronze Star - andStar—and the Philippines, before. heHe was then sent to Japan to assist in the occupation of the country after its surrender in 1945, whereand there he wouldsaw first-hand see the destruction of the nuclear bomb and woul dbecomebecame disenchanted with the military where he wouldand decidedecided to leave the military.

In 1946, he returned to Princeton where heand earned a Ph.D. in moral philosophy in 1950. His dissertation was "A Study in the Grounds of ethicalEthical Knowledge: Considered with Reference to Judgements on the Moral Worth of Character." He would taketook several graduate seminars outside the philosophy department, including classes in economics, American political thought, and constitutional law, during his first few years teaching philosophy at Princeton.

During his academic career, John rawls wouldRawls teachtaught at Princeton University, from 1950 to 1952 -, in which year John Rawlshe won a Fulbright fellowship to Oxford, where he described the first ideas for his later theories. He emergedtaught -at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1960 to 1962, and he finally he joined Harvard University in 1962 where he wouldand bewas appointed James Bryant Conant University Professor in 1979 and would teachtaught for more than thirty years.

In his political philosophy, Rawls presents what he sees as four roles for thepolitical philosophy in a society's public culture. The first is practical, in that political philosophy can propose grounds for reasoned agreement when political divisions threaten to lead to violent conflict. AThe second role is to help citizens of a society to orient themselves within their own social and political world. AThe third is to probe the limits of political philosophy, which can be achieved by describing workable political arrangements and seeing what does and does not gain support. And the fourth role is reconciliation, such as calming frustration against a society by showing individuals the way in which history and institutions are rational and can be developed over time.

In this way, Rawls does not see political philosophy as applied moral philosophy, as it had previously been seen. Rather, he does not see political philosophy as having a universal principle. He sees there being a corrective regulative principle for anything dependent on the nature of that thing, which means the correct principle for any domain depends on its sub-domain, and in particular the agents and constraints of that sub-domain. This means each sub-domain carries its own potential morality, which is dependent on the society it is embedded in, and those individuals and institutions whichthat exist in the sub-domain.

Within these sub-domains, Rawls also follows a sequence in his thinking: ideal theory before non-ideal theory. Ideal theory makes two types of idealizing assumptions: first, it assumes all actors - beactors—be they citizens or societies - aresocieties—are generally willing to comply with chosen principles (idealizing away the possibility of law-breaking, for example);. andSecond, second,it assumes reasonably favorable social conditions where citizens and societies and citizens therein cooperate politically (or thata citizenscitizen's capacity for moral reasoning is not diminished by hunger, for example).

But beginning with ideal theory, Rawls suggestsuggests, yields a systematic understanding of how to reform a non-ideal situation, and fixes a vision of what is the best that can be hoped for. Once andan ideal theory is completed for a sub-domain, than a non-ideal theory can be set out in reference to the ideal. Or, once the ideal is worked out, the non-ideal (or realities of a given sub-domain) can be dealt with. For example, if the ideal theory is to provide health care to all citizens, only then can a given community or society decide how best to achieve that.

John Rawls further considers the potential difficulties in a free society where citizens will invariably have disparate worldviews. This can include different,differing religious views (if any), religious views; differing conception of right and wrong; differing, ideas of how to live;, differingand ideas of what relationships to value. And yetYet that society has to have a single law. This, according to Rawls, means that to imposeimposing a unified law on a diverse citizenry raises two fundamental challenges. The first is the challenge of legitimacy, and the second is the challenge of stability. In answer to these questions, Rawls offers his theory of political liberalism.

For legitimacy, the question is how it can it be legitimate to have all citizens follow one law, given that citizens will hold divergent worldviews. Since powerPower in democracy is, ideally, the power of the people as a collective body;. and,And with greater diversity within a democracy, what would it mean for citizens to legitimately exercise political power over one another.? For this, Rawls developed a test for the acceptable use of political power in his "liberal principle of legitimacyliberal principle of legitimacy.." Per this principle, Rawls states that political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution in which all citizens are free and equal and those citizens may be expected to endorse or agree with in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to the common human reason.

With this principle, political power can only be used in ways that all citizens can be reasonably expected to agree with. While also satisfying a criterion of reciprocity:, which suggests citizens must reasonably believe all citizens can accept the enforcement of a set of basic laws. Citizens must be able to endorse the society's fundamental political arrangements freely, not because they are dominated, manipulated, or kept ill-informed or uninformed. Nor should citizens be coerced by the law to endorse to the society. And thisThis brings up another problem, especially as democracies are pluralistic, which is what constitution could citizens be reasonably expected to endorse, which Rawls answers by explaining what it means for a citizen to be reasonable.

According to Rawls, a reasonable citizen is one who wants to live in a society in which they can cooperate with their fellow citizens on terms that are acceptable to all. This means they will propose and abide by mutually acceptable rules, given the assurance others will do the same. And these citizens will honor these rules, even when it makes sacrificing their own particular interestinterests. In short, a reasonable citizen wants to belong to a society where political power is legitimately used. Each citizen has their own view, their own comprehensive self-doctrine, but because they are reasonable, they are willing to search for and agree to for mutually agreeable rules.

The reasonable citizen, according to Rawls, accepts a certain diversity of worldviews, accepts that people will answer the deepest questions of life in their own way based on their upbringing, and understand that these are issues inon which reasonable people with good willgoodwill can disagree on, and therefore are unwilling to push those beliefs on others, especially those who have reached conclusions different than their own. Many consider Rawls's account of the reasonable citizen as his own view of human nature. This view sees humans as not irredeemably self-centered, dogmatic, or driven by a perpetual and restless desire for power. But, ratherbut sees humans as having a capacity for genuine tolerationtolerance and mutual respect. This human capacity is Rawls's hope that a democratic society may represent not just pluralism but reasonable pluralism, in which citizens endorse tolerance and accept the essentials of a democratic regime.

For Rawls, there is no alternative to the reasonable citizen and reasonable pluralism. To force any citizen to live to a set of beliefs, or enforcehave those sets of beliefs enforced, or to organize a society around any comprehensive doctrine, requires the oppressive use of state power;, even when the doctrine could be considered empathetic or conscientious, such as the comprehensive liberalism of Kant or Mill.

John Rawls was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition who developed a theoryof justice as fairness to describe a society of free citizens. His landmark work A Theory of Justice is often considered the most important work of political philosophy of the 20th century. Similar to this, John Rawls is considered a titan of political philosophy, with one remembrance at the time of his death in 2002 that over 3,000 articles specifically about Rawls had been published during his lifetime, while A Theory of Justice had been cited nearly 60,000 times at that time.

John Rawls was born February 21, 1921 in Baltimore, Maryland as the second of five children of William Lee Rawls and Anna Abell Stump. His father was a prominent lawyer and his mother was a chapter president of the League of Women Voters. It has been noted that when he was young, Rawls contracted and passed on infectious diseases to two of his brothers who would die from these infections. After attending an Episcopalian preparatory school, Kent School, in Connecticut before he entered Princeton University where he earned his bachelor's degree in moral philosophy in 1943. While studying her he was known to be influenced by Wittgenstein's studen Norman Malcolm. During this time he briefly considering entering an Episcopal seminary to study for the priesthood, which he would later ditch to join the United States Army during the Second World War.

He enlisted in the army later that year where he would serve with the infantry in the south Pacific until discharged in 1945. There he saw direct combat in both New Guinea - where he earned a Bronze Star - and the Philippines, before he was sent to Japan to assist in the occupation of the country after its surrender in 1945, where he would first-hand see the destruction of the nuclear bomb and woul dbecome disenchanted with the military where he would decide to leave the military.

In 1946 he returned to Princeton where he earned a Ph.D. in moral philosophy in 1950. His dissertation was "A Study in the Grounds of ethical Knowledge: Considered with Reference to Judgements on the Moral Worth of Character." He would take several graduate seminars outside the philosophy department, including classes in economics, American political thought, and constitutional law during his first few years teaching philosophy at Princeton.

During his academic career, John rawls would teach at Princeton University, from 1950 to 1952 - in which year John Rawls won a Fulbright fellowship to Oxford where he described the first ideas for his later theories emerged - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1960 to 1962, and finally he joined Harvard University in 1962 where he would be appointed James Bryant Conant University Professor in 1979 and would teach for more than thirty years.

In his political philosophy, Rawls presents what he sees as four roles for the philosophy in a society's public culture. The first is practical, in that political philosophy can propose grounds for reasoned agreement when political divisions threaten to lead to violent conflict. A second role is to help citizens of a society to orient themselves within their own social and political world. A third is to probe the limits of political philosophy, which can be achieved by describing workable political arrangements and seeing what does and does not gain support. And the fourth is reconciliation, such as calming frustration against a society by showing individuals the way in which history and institutions are rational and can be developed over time.

In this way, Rawls does not see political philosophy as applied moral philosophy, as it had previously been seen. Rather, he does not see political philosophy as having a universal principle. He sees there being a corrective regulative principle for anything dependent on the nature of that thing, which means the correct principle for any domain depends on its sub-domain, and in particular the agents and constraints of that sub-domain. This means each sub-domain carries its own potential morality, which is dependent on the society it is embedded in, and those individuals and institutions which exist in the sub-domain.

Within these sub-domains, Rawls also follows a sequence in his thinking: ideal theory before non-ideal theory. Ideal theory makes two types of idealizing assumptions: first, it assumes all actors - be they citizens or societies - are generally willing to comply with chosen principles (idealizing away the possibility of law-breaking, for example); and, second, assumes reasonably favorable social conditions where citizens and societies and citizens therein cooperate politically (or that citizens's capacity for moral reasoning is not diminished by hunger, for example).

But beginning with ideal theory, Rawls suggest, yields a systematic understanding of how to reform a non-ideal situation, and fixes a vision of what is the best that can be hoped for. Once and ideal theory is completed for a sub-domain, than a non-ideal theory can be set out in reference to the ideal. Or, once the ideal is worked out, the non-ideal (or realities of a given sub-domain) can be dealt with. For example, if the ideal theory is to provide health care to all citizens, only then can a given community or society decide how best to achieve that.

John Rawls further considers the potential difficulties in a free society where citizens will invariably have disparate worldviews. This can include different, if any, religious views; differing conception of right and wrong; differing ideas of how to live; differing ideas of what relationships to value. And yet that society has to have a single law. This, according to Rawls, means that to impose a unified law on a diverse citizenry raises two fundamental challenges. The first is the challenge of legitimacy and the second is the challenge of stability. In answer to these questions, Rawls offers his theory of political liberalism.

For legitimacy, the question is how can it be legitimate to have all citizens follow one law given that citizens will hold divergent worldviews. Since power in democracy is, ideally, the power of the people as a collective body; and, with greater diversity within a democracy, what would it mean for citizens to legitimately exercise political power over one another. For this, Rawls developed a test for the acceptable use of political power in his liberal principle of legitimacy. Per this principle, Rawls states that political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution in which all citizens are free and equal and those citizens may be expected to endorse or agree with in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to the common human reason.

With this principle, political power can only be used in ways that all citizens can be reasonably expected to agree with. While also satisfying a criterion of reciprocity: which suggests citizens must reasonably believe all citizens can accept the enforcement of a set of basic laws. Citizens must be able to endorse the society's fundamental political arrangements freely, not because they are dominated, manipulated, or kept ill-informed or uninformed. Nor should citizens be coerced by the law to endorse to the society. And this brings up another problem, especially as democracies are pluralistic, which is what constitution could citizens be reasonably expected to endorse, which Rawls answers by explaining what it means for a citizen to be reasonable.

According to Rawls, a reasonable citizen is one who wants to live in a society in which they can cooperate with their fellow citizens on terms that are acceptable to all. This means they will propose and abide by mutually acceptable rules, given the assurance others will do the same. And these citizens will honor these rules, even when it makes sacrificing their own particular interest. In short, a reasonable citizen wants to belong to a society where political power is legitimately used. Each citizen has their own view, their own comprehensive self-doctrine, but because they are reasonable, they are willing to search for and agree to for mutually agreeable rules.

The reasonable citizen, according to Rawls, accepts a certain diversity of worldviews, accepts that people will answer the deepest questions of life in their own way based on their upbringing, and understand that these are issues in which reasonable people with good will can disagree on, and therefore are unwilling to push those beliefs on others, especially those who have reached conclusions different than their own. Many consider Rawls account of the reasonable citizen as his own view of human nature. This view sees humans as not irredeemably self-centered, dogmatic, or driven by a perpetual and restless desire for power. But rather sees humans having a capacity for genuine toleration and mutual respect. This human capacity is Rawls hope that a democratic society may represent not just pluralism but reasonable pluralism, in which citizens endorse tolerance and accept the essentials of a democratic regime.

For Rawls, there is no alternative to the reasonable citizen and reasonable pluralism. To force any citizen to live to a set of beliefs, or enforce those sets of beliefs, or to organize a society around any comprehensive doctrine, requires the oppressive use of state power; even when the doctrine could be considered empathetic or conscientious, such as the comprehensive liberalism of Kant or Mill.

To solve the challenges of legitimacy in a liberal society, according to Rawls, requires a society to exercise political power in accordance with what Rawls called the political conception of justice. This is further laid out below, where Rawls expands upon the ideas in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice, but a political conception of justice is an interpretation of the fundamental ideas implicit in a society's public political culture. Any political conception cannot be derived from a particular, comprehensive doctrine, nor can it be a compromise of worldviews that exist in a soceity. Rather, the political conception is freestanding where the contents are set out independent of any comprehensive doctrines citizens may freely affirm for themselves.

This concept once again relies on the reasonable citizen to work, as a reasonable citizen wants to cooperate on mutually acceptable terms, and based on concepts and ideas that a reasonable citizen can be expected to endorse. And if reasonable citizens can endorse those views, the political conception of justice can be legitimate. The three most fundamental ideas that Rawls finds in the public political culture of a society are that citizens are free and equal and that the society they participate in should be a fair system of cooperation. While there may be various shades of these concepts, all liberal conceptions of justice, according to Rawls, should share certain basic features:

• Justice will ascribe to all citizens familiar individual rights and liberties, such as rights of free speech, liberty of conscience, and free choice of occupation
• The political conception will give special priority to these rights and liberties, especially over demands to further the general good or perfectionist values
• A political concept will assure all citizens sufficient all-purpose means to make effective use of their freedom

For stability, the question is why will a citizen willingly obey a law that is imposed upon them by a collective body who will undoubtedly have members with beliefs and values different from their own. And while some of the questions are resolved above in the legitimate use of power, the challenge of stability remains. Rawls answer to the concern of stability is on overlapping consensus. In overlapping consensus, citizens endorse a core set of laws for different reasons, or, in other terms, each citizen supports a political conception of justice internal to their own comprehensive doctrine.

Each political consensus, as noted above, is similar to a "module" of ideas or beliefs which fit into any number of worldviews. In overlapping consensus, reasonable citizens affirm the common "module" from within their own point of view. For example, people of different, or no, faith beliefs may all agree and support the right to religious freedom in a society, and their reasons for doing so may all be different.

John Rawls saw an overlapping consensus as the most desirable form of stability in a free society. Much better than a mere balance of power among citizens who hold contending worldviews. Especially as power shifts often which would reuslt in a loss of stability. Whereas, in an overlapping consensus citizens affirm a political conception within their own perspectives, and so will continue to affirm those concepts whether one or the other group gains or loses political power. The overlapping consensus is stable for the right reasons: each citizen affirms a moral doctrine for moral reasons, and abiding by a basic law is not a citizen's second-best option in the face of power, but is the citizen's first-best option based on their beliefs.

Rawls did not assert an overlapping consensus as achievable in every society, nor did he foresee such a consensus as enduring forever once achieved. Citizens in some societies might have too little in common to converge on any kind of consensus. In other societies, unreasonable doctrines may spread until they overwhelm any kind of consensus or the societies institutions. However, Rawls did show that, historically, it is possible to show convergence in beliefs and deepening trust among citizens in liberal societies. And where an overlapping consensus can be achieved, Rawls held that it is the best support for social stability in a free society.

Rawls's 1971 publication A Theory of Justice lays out what has been called an anti-perfectionist liberalism which resurrected the social contract theory while offering a more egalitarian form to the idea. The work draws on Immanuel Kant to provide a foundation for liberal rights than previous dominant forms of liberal thoughts - especially utilitarianism.

Rawls work includes some conceptions he considers implicit in modern democracies: namely that citizens are free and equal persons, with a capacity to understand and act on principles regulating a scheme of social cooperation, and a capacity to develop, revise, and pursue rationally a conception of good; another is that society as a fair system of cooperation among free and equal citizens who can arrive a political conception of justice where those persons can relate to one another politically within a basic structure.

The fair system is based on social cooperation, which can be achieved, according to Rawls, through two principles of justice. The first principle is that each person has an equal right to fully adequate scheme of equal liberties, such as freedom of thought and conscience, political liberties, freedom of association, liberty and integrity of the person, and the rule of law. The second principle is that social and economic inequalities must satisfy two conditions: one, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and two, they are to be the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.

To arrive at the system of these principles is achieved through a thought experiment John Rawls described as the "veil of ignorance." The veil of ignorance is an attempt to remove or mitigate the bias people hold in any given situation to help people agree on how to govern. The veil is a thought experiment where the individual imagines a veil which keeps them from knowing who they are, who they identify as, and their personal circumstances. By being ignorant of these circumstances, the individual is intended to more objectively consider a way of working out the basic institutions and structures of a just society. It further demands the society being built can be accepted by all reasonable people.

As a thought experiment, the veil includes the concept of the Original Position: which is the situation before a particular society exists. John Rawls does not think anyone can return to the original position, let alone that it ever existed, but it is a hypothetical idea in which the individual who is thinking about justice in society should imagine designing the society from scratch. The idea is that whatever decision is made in this situtation could be agreed upon by reasonable people, and once a policy is designed in the Original Position, behind the veil of ignorance, it can then be applied to a given society. However, Rawls points out that the concept of the Original Position does not work without the Veil of Ignorance and the principles of a free and just society noted above.

Because the veil of ignorance creates a challenge with a complete absence of probabilities, Rawls believes anyone would play it safe and maximize the minimum any person could get. He calls this policy Maximin, which when translated into a society means any policy ensures the worst-off people in society do as well as possible. In this discussion of the veil of ignorance are two further principles: the liberty principle and the difference principle.

The liberty principle, as expressed by John Rawls, says that each person in a society has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, compatible with the same liberties for all. This means the most advantaged and the least advantaged members of a society would have no inequalities in their basic liberties and rights in the society; it means not designing economic, political, and social institutions that favor the most advantaged members of society, or the least advantaged members. This is intended to help all members of a society rationally agree that equal rights, liberties, opportunities, and self-respect for all would be just.

The more famous, or infamous, part of the formation of the veil of ignorance is the difference principal. The difference principal, as formulated by John Rawls, requires a kind of inequality in which some members of society are better off but no one worse off. This is intended to reward the especially productive and those that achieve great results in a society. But John Rawls formulates the difference principal as the second principle coming out of the veil of ignorance because it requires the liberty principle to ensure equality of opportunity (to allow any person in society achieve more) and to ensure that those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid are still taken care off. Which means, the difference principal, in simple terms, is only justified if the inequalities serve to raise the standard of living of the worst off class.

Although this is the intuitive understanding of the difference principle, Rawls, in his construction and expression of the principle, is more careful. He refines the difference principle in that it pertains to the basic structure of society and pertains to representatives members of broad social classes rather than those of particular people. Rawls also made a technical assumption that let him focus on the least-well-off representative class in a given society, allowing him to ignore some more technical problems, such as the possibility of an increasing inequality between the wealthy class and the middle-class because it does not affect the least advantaged social class.

The third part of the refinements of the difference principle holds that social rules that allow for inequalities in income and wealth are acceptable in the case where those who are least well off under those rules are better off than the least-well-off representative persons under alternative sets of social rules. This takes into account that people who are worst off under one set of social arrangements may not be the same people as those who are worst off under some other set of oscial arrangements.

At its simplest, the difference principle is intended to allow a society to take care of the least well off while also allowing the society to reward those who benefit the society. In doing so, Rawls departs from an earlier liberal-utilitarian vision characterized by Harsanyi which would see the difference principle as irrational because, according to Harsanyi, parties would choose a principle that would maximize their utility expectation.

However, Rawls departs from this, in that the difference principle attributes a determinate motivation to parties, in that their motivation can be rewarded by what Rawls calls primary goods. Primary goods are often interpreted as income or wealth, but Rawls never full defines the primary goods (other than to suggest it can be wealth, income, self-respect, or more) nor does he defend them except to say these primary goods facilitate the pursuit by persons in a society of their conception of the good. So if a society rewards respect for good deeds, then respect becomes the primary good. If those good deeds are rewarded with income, then income becomes the primary good. But the difference principal holds that the society should be able to reward those persons who pursue the "good deeds" as the society sees fit, with the primary goods as facilitating the pursuit of these persons of their conceptions of the good.

Rawls further asserts that the difference principle only works in participation with the "maximin" rule; which suggest that making choices under the veil of ignorance, one should make a choice where the minimum place is higher than an alternative. This has also been referred to as an approach where an individual plans a society in which their enemy assigns them a place.

In Political Liberalism, sometimes thought of as a sequel in thought to A Theory of Justice, John Rawls suggest the earlier book did not sufficiently distinguish between moral and political philosophy. And to do so, Rawls states that a moral doctrine of justice general in scope is not distinguished from a strictly political conception of justice. Further, in the revised work, the distinction between philosophical and moral doctrines and political conceptions becomes a fundamental distinction. Justice as fairness is further held to embody conceptions of the good, but Rawls denies that it entails a comprehensive conception of the good. He does not describe justice as fairness as an entirely neutral concept, but recognizes that it tends to foster some ways of life - for example, those that value tolerance, civility, a sense of fairness, and the ability to compromise - while undermining others.

In Political Liberalism and later articles, John Rawls further elaborated on his concept of "public reason". The concept of public reason, in brief, looked at the concepts of constitutional essentials and questions of basic justice and how citizens can be ready to justify to each other their political actions in reference to the public political conception of justice and to the values and ideals they sincerely believe other citizens can be reasonably expected to endorse.

When returning to the problem of legitimacy and the criterion of reciprocity, Rawls held that citizens must reasonably believe that all citizens can reasonably accept the enforcement of a particular set of basic laws. It is unreasonable, in this way, for citizens to attempt to impose what they see as true on others, with political power required tobe used in ways that all citizens can be reasonably expected to endorse. Rawls extends this requirement of reciprocity through his doctrine of public reason, applying to how citizens to justify political decision using availbel values and standards.

For example, if a Supreme Court justice is deciding on a gay marriage law, their argument would violate public reason were they to base their opinion on the Christian God's forbidding of gay sex in the book of Leviticus, or on a personal spiritual revelation, because not all members of the society can be reasonly expected to accept Leviticus or personal revelation as an authoritative set of political values or a common standard for evaluating public policy.

Rawls doctine of public reason has been summarized as: citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards. The public values citizens mut be able to appeal to are the values of a political conception of justice; especially those related to freedom and equality and society as a fair system of cooperation. Similarly, citizens should be able to justify political decisions by public standards of inquiry. These public standards are principles of reasoning and rules of evidence that all citizens can resaonably endorse.

The duty to abide by public reason, laid out by Rawls, applies when the fundamental political issues are at stake. These issues can include who has the right to vote, which religions are tolerate, who is eligible to own property, and what are suspect classifications for discrimination in hiring decisions. These are also what Rawls calls constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. Further, citizens have to constrain decisions by public reason when engaged in certain political activities, such as the exercise of public office, but otherwise they can engage in personal decisions based on their personal beliefs and morals.

And the duty to justify one's political decisions with public reasons is, according to Rawls, a moral rather than a legal duty. Rawls characterizes it as a duty of civility, where citizens have full legal rights to free speech, where overstepping the bounds of public reason is never in itself a crime, but citizens have a moral duty of respect and civic friendship not to justify political decisions on fundamental issues by an appeal to partisan values.

In Rawls work, he focuses on utilitarianism as an alternative to his contract-based theory. This is because he does not believe any alternative theory, other than utilitarianism, because they do not have comparable virtues of clarity and systems; going further to say intuitionism is not constructive and perfectionism is unacceptable. This led some to question his stance on perfectionism, which includes natural law theories, and how it could be unacceptable. Rawls responded to this, suggesting that perfectionism-based regimes had an insecurity of freedom, lacked the logic of the original position, and that perfectionism creates a stultifying homogeneity of a single dominant end it works toward.

Rawls argues further that the basic liberties of a democratic society are best or most firmly secured by his liberal conception of justice, rather than any form of perfectionism. This is because, in Rawls opinion, perfectionism relies on weak and widely held presumption which may win general acceptance but not the consensus and acceptance that Rawls theory intends to find through a society. Further, Rawls holds that perfectionism, in its attempt to reach a set of perfectionist ends, can lead to a loss of freedom for citizens as the society pushes toward that end. And while some consider that a necessary cost to reach those ends, Rawls points out through his original position concept and liberal concept of justice, that this style of perfectionism can harm minority groups in favor of a majority belief encapsulated in the set of perfectionist beliefs.

John Rawls has also been considered, from one perspective, to be a natural law thinker. This tends to be because he holds that there are certain primary social goods which are things a rational person wants regardless of anything else. These include the primary goods of rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth, and a sense of one's own worth, or self-respect. Further to that, Rawls holds that there is a relative value of social peace and a value to the pursuit of a social order based on some conception of truth that can entail some theory of human nature.

Some also consider Rawl's political philosophy "conventional" which can be understood to mean based on common agreement, not nature. Meaning, based on this interpretation of Rawls theory, his political philosophy is not natural. Further, some consider Rawls's theory to take the democractic regime for granted, presupposing the validity, truth, and excellence of democratic principles and institutions, and so Rawls does not do more than tinker with parochial details, rather than making a thorough analysis of political life within the human world as part of his political philosophy.

John Rawls' ideas have stretched beyond their original political philosophical realm, and from the ideas of Rawls' liberal neutrality come the idea of legal perfectionism. Legal perfectionism is a doctrine according to which officials may adopt and enforce laws according to the officials' understanding of a good life. The intention of legal perfectionism is that people governed by such laws will lead better lives; or, in other words, legal perfectionism enshrines the broad notion that the government has, or should have, the power to reflect ideas of good and evil - or the conent of the good life or good projects - in framing laws.

As with any philosopher who has reached the level of influence as John Rawls has, there will be a healthy amount of criticism levelled at the thinkers ideas. Some have argued that Rawls did not allow enough tolerance for different religions or other strongly held beliefs; some have claimed that his ideas are rooted in the era they were written in; and others have found the Difference Principle as a controversial idea, especially one that suggests teh most-advantaged people should redistribute a portion of their earnings to the benefit of the less fortunate.

Critics have noted that Rawls makes several assumptions that shape the nature of the discussion behind the Veil of Ignorance, and the potential outcomes of that thought experiement. And here some have challenged the fairness or intuitiveness of Rawls assumptions. One of the most famous of these critics have been from Robert Nozick. Nozick notes, in his criticism, that most goods are already owned, and therefore Rawls's attempt to establish rules to govern the distribution of goods would not work, as, despite it looking fair, would require some kind of redistribution of those goods.

In Nozick's view, the people who own those goods already have rights. Commonly called ownership rights, this generally means those who own a good can do pretty much what they want to do with it, as long as it does not violate someone else's rights. Further, Nozick holds that taking money an individual earned to benefit another cannot be a basis for forcibly taking the money. A possible basis for Nozick's idea is "self-ownership" with which Nozick suggests people agree it would be wrong to force someone to work if they do not want to, because an individual's body is owned by themselves and nobody else. Nozick then extends the principle to include what an individual does with their body: their labor. And if they are awarded in money for their labor, then that should be the individual's and nobody else's and therefore the individual should be able to do with that as they wish. If that includes giving it away to the less fortunate is up to the individual.

But that argument has problems, especially as the individual's ability to work and gain property depends on their education, their health, a stable society with opportunities for employment, and employing others. These cannot be achieved without cooperation and participation from the wider society, suggesting the distribution of goods already occurs to the benefit of some and, in some cases, not others.

A second criticism of Rawls and, largely, the concept of the Veil, worries about the coherence of reasoned discussion behind the veil, especially in that the veil hides the nature of the society people live in and the resulting principles are supposed to be applicable in all societies, but may not be applicable in the society from which the individual comes from. There is a group of "communitarian" philosophers, such as Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre.

While their individual views differ, these thinkers tend to agree that what justice requires cannot be decided abstractly. Rather, the thinkers tend to hold that what justice requires should be informed by local considerations and culture. These thinkers also tend to suggest that Rawls's conception of the individuals is problematic because the veil of ignorance reduces their defining features while also holding that much of the hypothetical thought experiment would lead an individual to act in their self-interest and in the interest of maintaining their social status in a given community. However, Rawls, through his philosophy, shows he did not think people were like this, and his interest was to formulate a neutral way to decide between neutral groups.

Another criticism is based on the real-world applicability of Rawls's principles. This criticism tends to come from scholars of race and gender, who believe Rawls's Veil of Ignorance ends up ignoring factors these critics hold are relevant to justice. The central criticism consider the motivation of Rawls's overall project in which they see an attempt to outline a theory of "ideal" justice that ignores that many injustices that have happened and continue to happen in most societies, such as racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. And, in these cases, these critics argue that Rawls theory is at beast incomplete, as it does not help solve existing injustices.

This critique maps onto a more general question in political philosophy that if a theory of justice does not offer others a clear action in actual societies, does it have value? Others continue to argue that Rawls's work can be used to draw concrete conclusions in the case of discrimination of any sort, meanwhile others reject that Rawls's theory of justice is concerned only with the ideal and ignores pressing issues of the day.