PHIL 120 · Ethics and Political Philosophy — The Two Principles and Their Rivals

Led by John Rawls

The seventh module of the Cambridge Part IA Ethics paper turns from the derivation of Rawls's principles to their content and their critics. It examines the basic liberties and the priority of liberty, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle — with its claim that undeserved natural talents are a common asset — then weighs justice as fairness against the libertarian (Nozick) and communitarian rivals.

1. Module 7 ○ Open

   The Two Principles and Their Rivals

   Led by John Rawls

   The question

   What does justice as fairness actually demand, and can it withstand its critics? Rawls's two principles secure equal basic liberties first and absolutely, then fair opportunity, then only those inequalities that benefit the least advantaged — on the ground that no one deserves the natural talents or the starting place the lottery of birth assigned them. From the right, Nozick objects that this tramples liberty and treats people's talents as if they belonged to everyone; from the communitarian side, critics object that the self imagined behind the veil, with no attachments or community, is no real person at all. The module asks the student to assess both the theory and the objections — and so to locate justice as fairness against its rivals and against the Aristotelian view that the good is prior to the right.

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