A Theory of Justice by John Rawls has been the most classical work in the field of contemporary political and moral philosophy. In this book, Rawls tries to build a system of normative ethics in which justice is placed as the first virtue of social institutions and the problem of justice can be settled through the social contract instead of a total utility maximizing utilitarianism. This leads to his two famous principles of justice: The Greatest Equal Liberty Principle and the Difference principle.
Rawls aims to construct a workable and systematic moral conception to oppose dominant utilitarianism and intuitionism by giving a more persuasive and comprehensive account of justice. Since there are too many complicated and morally irrelevant conditions like natural and social contingencies in the real world, he justifies his two principles by a hypothetical original position (OP). Everyone is allowed to experience this purely hypothetical experiment. And because the conditions of OP, in accordance with Rawls, is fair, weak and widely shared, any agreement derived from this initial status quo would be purely procedurally just. It is found that the individuals in OP would only choose Rawls¡¦ theory of justice as fairness to be their ¡¥contract¡¦. As a result, the hypothetical choice chosen is the representation of consent. Differs from traditional contract theories, the relevant agreement is not to enter a given society or to adopt a given form of government, but to accept certain moral principles. Thus he succeeded in bringing a more general and universal view of moral concepts in subverting the utilitarian palace.
In this paper, I attempt to reconsider the elements and featu ...