John Rawls

         Rawls was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a prominent lawyer, his mother a chapter president of the League of Women Voters. Rawls studied at Princeton, where he was influenced by Wittgenstein's student Norman Malcolm; and at Oxford, where he worked with H. L. A. Hart, Isaiah Berlin, and Stuart Hampshire. His first professorial appointments were at Cornell and MIT. In 1962 Rawls joined the faculty at Harvard, where he taught for more than thirty years.

Rawls's adult life was a scholarly one: its major events occurred within his writings. The exceptions were two wars. As a college student Rawls wrote an intensely religious senior thesis and had considered studying for the priesthood. Yet Rawls lost his Christian faith as an infantryman in World War II on seeing the capriciousness of death in combat and learning of the horrors of the Holocaust. Then in the 1960s Rawls spoke out against America's military actions in Vietnam. The Vietnam conflict impelled Rawls to analyze the defects in the American political system that led it to prosecute so ruthlessly what he saw as an unjust war, and to consider how citizens could conscientiously resist their government's aggressive policies.

Rawls theory of justice revolves around the adaptation of two fundamental principles of justice which would, in turn, guarantee a just and morally acceptable society. The first principle guarantees the right of each person to have the most extensive basic liberty compatible with the liberty of others. The second principle states that social and economic positions are to be a) to everyone’s advantage and b) open to all.

A key problem to Rawls is to show how such principles would be universally adopted and here the work borders on general ethical issues.  He introduces a theoretical “veil of ignorance” in which all the “players” in the social game would be placed in a situation which is called the “original position”. Having only a general knowledge of the facts of “life and society”, each player is to abide based on their moral obligation. By denying the players any specific information about themselves it forces them to adopt a generalized point of view that bears a strong resemblance to the moral point of view.

Rawls proposes that the most reasonable principles of justice for a society are those that individuals would themselves agree to behind the “veil of ignorance”, in circumstances in which each is represented as a moral person, endowed with the basic moral powers. What this position supports is that while each person has different ends and goals, different backgrounds and talents, each ought to have a fair chance to develop his or her talents and to pursue those goals – fair equality for opportunity. It is not a race or contest where the talented or gifted prevail, it should be complete cooperation among all so that there may be reasonable life for all.

         Why should we accept these principles as principles of justice? Primarily, these principles promote equality among all. Each individual has the same basic liberties and opportunities. Each individual has a moral obligation to accept the existence of every other human being. In doing so, all people become equal in their position and desires. We are equal in that each has the basic powers of choice and on acting on a sense of justice. The responsibility of procedure and growth relies on each and every individual his/her self. By doing so we may create a level playing field. Is this a form of pure competition? It would seem so. Competition in that what is desired must be achieved by one and desired by many perhaps. A benefit of competitive circumstance is the betterment of all parties involved as they must evolve in order to surpass one another.

         Also, in fair equality for opportunity we may eliminate all forms of discrimination and discretion of races, ethnic origin, social standards and religious intolerance and beliefs. All of these characteristics are a component of the individual person thus making him/her “individual”. Justice is only succumbed when the liberties of an individual are affected because of an external opinion of these characteristics, and, in the oppression of these characteristics upon another. They are nothing more than components of a people.

I Understand Rawls Theory of Justice His theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding ... The Vietnam conflict impelled Rawls to analyze the defects in the American .... Similarly, once we understand the ideal principles of international relation,