A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

Morality and
the Law,
ed. R. A. Wasserstrom (Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 107–126.
219
39. Priority of Liberty Defined

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justice and what is known about the subject’s more permanent aims and
preferences, or by the account of primary goods. These restrictions on the
initiation and direction of paternalistic measures follow from the assump-
tions of the original position. The parties want to guarantee the integrity
of their person and their final ends and beliefs whatever these are. Pater-
nalistic principles are a protection against our own irrationality, and must
not be interpreted to license assaults on one’s convictions and character
by any means so long as these offer the prospect of securing consent later
on. More generally, methods of education must likewise honor these
constraints (§78).
The force of justice as fairness would appear to arise from two things:
the requirement that all inequalities be justified to the least advantaged,
and the priority of liberty. This pair of constraints distinguishes it from
intuitionism and teleological theories. Taking the preceding discussion
into account, we can reformulate the first principle of justice and conjoin
to it the appropriate priority rule. The changes and additions are, I be-
lieve, self-explanatory. The principle now reads as follows.
FIRST PRINCIPLE
Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total sys-
tem of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty
for all.
PRIORITY RULE
The principles of justice are to be ranked in lexical order and therefore
liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty. There are two
cases: (a) a less extensive liberty must strengthen the total system of
liberty shared by all, and (b) a less than equal liberty must be accept-
able to those citizens with the lesser liberty.
It perhaps bears repeating that I have yet to give a systematic argument
for the priority rule, although I have checked it out in a number of
important cases. It appears to fit our considered convictions fairly well.
But an argument from the standpoint of the original position I postpone
until Part Three when the full force of the contract doctrine can be
brought into play (§82).
220
Equal Liberty

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40. THE KANTIAN INTERPRETATION
OF JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS
40. The Kantian Interpretation
For the most part I have considered the content of the principle of equal
liberty and the meaning of the priority of the rights that it defines. It
seems appropriate at this point to note that there is a Kantian interpreta-
tion of the conception of justice from which this principle derives. This
interpretation is based upon Kant’s notion of autonomy. It is a mistake, I
believe, to emphasize the place of generality and universality in Kant’s
ethics. That moral principles are general and universal is hardly new with
him; and as we have seen these conditions do not in any case take us very
far. It is impossible to construct a moral theory on so slender a basis, and
therefore to limit the discussion of Kant’s doctrine to these notions is to
reduce it to triviality. The real force of his view lies elsewhere.
29
For one thing, he begins with the idea that moral principles are the
object of rational choice. They define the moral law that men can ratio-
nally will to govern their conduct in an ethical commonwealth. Moral
philosophy becomes the study of the conception and outcome of a suit-
ably defined rational decision. This idea has immediate consequences.
For once we think of moral principles as legislation for a kingdom of
ends, it is clear that these principles must not only be acceptable to all but
public as well. Finally Kant supposes that this moral legislation is to be
agreed to under conditions that characterize men as free and equal ra-
tional beings. The description of the original position is an attempt to
interpret this conception. I do not wish to argue here for this interpreta-
tion on the basis of Kant’s text. Certainly some will want to read him
29. Especially to be avoided is the idea that Kant’s doctrine provides at best only the general, or
formal, elements for a utilitarian or indeed for any other moral conception. This idea is found in
Sidgwick,