Justice as fairness

John Rawls held that the principles governing a society's basic structure should be those that free and equal citizens would agree to from a fair starting position, not one tilted by their own advantages.

In the original position, representatives of citizens choose principles behind a veil of ignorance that hides race, class, gender and similar facts. Rawls argued they would choose two principles: equal basic liberties, which take priority; and, second, fair equality of opportunity plus the difference principle, under which inequalities must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. A Theory of Justice (1971) was restated in Political Liberalism (1993) and Justice as Fairness (2001).

It is a standard of assessment rather than a regime. Rawls argued that it favours either a property-owning democracy, with widespread ownership of productive assets and education, or liberal socialism with worker-managed firms.

Robert Nozick argued that patterned redistribution violates individual rights. Communitarians such as Sandel, MacIntyre, Taylor and Walzer disputed its picture of persons and of government's main task. Others question whether parties in the original position would choose the difference principle.

Rawls is credited with reviving social-contract theory in the late twentieth century. The theory remains a central benchmark in debates on distributive justice and constitutional design.