Introduction

Krushil Watene

What does a fully just society and a fully just world look like? What role do concepts like equality, community, freedom, and rights play in answering these questions? Who is responsible for pursuing and realizing justice? Are there limits to the nature and extent of these responsibilities? Theories of social and global justice have dominated political philosophy for over forty years — since the publication of John Rawls's seminal 1971 work A Theory of Justice.

The general aim of such theories is to determine how social institutions ought to be arranged such that benefits and burdens are fairly distributed between those who make claims upon them. The aim is to formulate principles that capture these ideal distributive arrangements. Within this way of framing justice, theories come together and pull apart on a number of inter-related concerns, including: 1) how principles of justice are grounded, 2) what the principles ought to be, 3) how just arrangements are measured, 4) what the scope of justice should be, 5) what the relevant units of concern are, and 6) where responsibilities for pursuing and realizing justice ought to lay (Robeyns 2011).

Rawls provides us with the single most influential contemporary theory of justice — one that charted a new course for justice theorizing. By placing the equal worth of all citizens, participatory fairness, and agreement at the forefront of justifiable political principles, Rawls initiated a move away from the dominate theory at the time (Utilitarianism) to create space for an approach to justice which revived the social contract tradition.

Rawls takes questions of justice to arise between contracting parties under conditions of moderate scarcity and limited generosity (Rawls 1971, 126–30; Barry 1978). Contracting parties are individuals in possession of the two moral powers — a capacity for a sense of justice and a conception of the good — and they are situated as equal, rational, mutually disinterested, normal cooperating members of a society over a complete life (Rawls 1971, 3–41; 1993, 40–46; 2001, 18). Contractors are charged with choosing principles to govern a society that they will occupy, and which will regulate the terms of social cooperation between them. The principles are chosen by way of a hypothetical decision-making procedure (the original position) that models contractors under fair conditions (Rawls 1971, ch. 3). These conditions are made possible by the impartiality generated by the veil of ignorance. Behind the veil, individuals are ignorant of their places in society, their natural talents, and their conceptions of the good (Rawls 1971, 136–42). The veil forces contractors to consider the principles from the perspectives of both the most and the least advantaged in society.

According to Rawls, contractors would choose two principles to govern the 'basic structure of society' — social institutions, political constitutions and the like (Rawls 1971, 3). The liberty principle secures basic liberties and freedoms for all (Rawls 1971, 60). The difference principle stipulates that the distribution of primary goods (basic liberties, freedom of movement and choice, powers and prerogatives, income and wealth, the social bases of self-respect), must be: 1) to the maximum benefit of the least advantaged in society, and 2) attached to positions and offices open to all (Rawls 1971, ch. 2). Both principles are constrained by a concern for including diverse and irreconcilable differences within the (modern liberal) state (Rawls 1971, 24; 1993, lectures iv and v). The primary goods are those things that individuals require regardless of their differences. The principles of justice are those which individuals, even with wide-ranging and diverse conceptions of the good life, would agree to. In such a way, Rawls presents a theory that is politically liberal. That is, belonging to a family of liberal theories that (among other things) do not entail or endorse a particular conception of the good, or what Rawls refers to as a 'comprehensive philosophical doctrine' (Rawls 1971, 24, 446–52; 1993, 10, lectures iv and v; Freeman 2007).

A Theory of Justice is concerned with justice as it arises within a single society. For Rawls, it differs in important ways from international justice and the work that he presents in The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999). Rawls's approach does not support the construction of a single original position that includes all members of the global community, but rather a second contract between representatives of 'peoples' (1971, 379). For Rawls, the domestic and international cases are different, and they require different contract situations (Freeman 2007). From this second hypothetical choice situation, different principles (to those in the domestic case) would be chosen to govern interactions between states. These principles broadly include: 1) respect for the freedoms and independence of peoples, 2) taking peoples as equal and party to their own agreements, 3) the right to self-defence but not war, 4) a duty of non-intervention, 5) to honour contracts made, 6) to conform to restrictions on the conduct of war, 7) to honour human rights, and 8) to assist peoples living under unfavourable conditions (Rawls 1999, 37). Rawls's approach to international justice is helpful for understanding his general strategy for dealing with other issues of justice that arise. Rawls first constructs a theory to deal with (what he takes to be) the fundamental case, and then extends the theory to issues that arise outside of that fundamental case at a later stage.

Of course, not all theories of justice take their lead from Rawls. Important and well known critiques of, and alternatives to, Rawls's theory come from libertarians (Nozick 1974), egalitarians (Anderson 1999; Cohen 1997), utilitarians (Harsanyi 1975; Singer 1972, 2002), communitarians (Sandel 1998; Taylor 1989), Marxists (Miller 1974; Nielsen 1980), and feminists (Okin 1987, 1989, 1994; see also Abbey 2013). Rawls's work does, however, remain the most prominent, with almost every aspect of his work built on, modified, and debated (see Freeman 2007, bibliography). Rawls's continuing prominence is most obvious in the recent rise in global justice theories that extend or modify his basic approach. Cosmopolitans remain at the forefront of these extensions and modifications (see, for instance, Beitz 1999; Brock 2009, 2015; Pogge 2008). Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge were the earliest to contend that the proper application of Rawls to issues of global justice required that the original position be applied to the world as a whole. The same reasons which Rawls used to justify justice at the domestic level apply globally, since nationality (like race, gender, and social class) is also morally arbitrary. Many cosmopolitans advocate global principles of justice on these general grounds — with some extending Rawls's own domestic principles globally (see, for instance, Moellendorf 2002), and others arguing for new or modified principles (see, for instance, Brock 2009; Pogge 2008).

While most of the literature is concerned with global justice, there has also been engagement with other challenges that Rawls did not consider, either at all or in full. These issues include our obligations to future generations...