A Theory of Justice
by John Rawls
Principles of justice are the ones people would choose behind a veil of ignorance — unaware of their own wealth, talents or position — because only that ignorance strips self-interest out of the choice.
What it teaches
Rawls asks what rules people would agree to if they had to choose them before knowing their own place in the resulting society. The device — an original position behind a veil of ignorance — is a thought experiment for removing special pleading: not knowing whether you will be rich or poor, gifted or not, majority or minority, you cannot rig the rules in your own favour. He argues that rational choosers in that position would not gamble on maximising the average, since they might land at the bottom, but would protect the worst position available. Two principles follow. Each person gets the most extensive basic liberties compatible with the same liberties for everyone, and this takes strict priority. Inequalities are permitted only where they attach to positions open to all and work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged — the difference principle. The structure is deliberately Kantian, testing rules by whether they could be chosen universally rather than by the outcomes they hand any particular person. Published in 1971, it reset political philosophy; the strongest objections to it — from desert, from liberty, from community — are part of what makes it worth reading.
The ideas this book explains
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