Rawls

18 Pages 4394 Words

settle for fairness - that is the best any of them can do. But their motive is not concern for fairness, but a concern for their own interests. In later expositions of the theory Rawls avoids saying that these people are selfish, he says that they have their own purposes (selfish or not), and that each is trying to do the best for his or her purposes without being concerned for the purposes of others. Anyway, when we are thinking about rules of justice, Rawls suggests, we are thinking about situations in which people are potentially in conflict, in which each presses claims on the others. Rawls says that these are 'the circumstances of justice', the circumstances to which rules of justice are relevant.
In later versions ('The Justification of Civil Disobedience', and A Theory of Justice), Rawls says that the rules of justice are chosen in an Original Position, behind a 'veil of ignorance' that conceals from the parties facts about themselves (sex, age, physical strength etc) that might be envisaged in attempts to tailor the rules to give som...