A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,
ed. and trans. E. M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby
(Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1967), esp. the sixth and twenty-seventh letters. Nor, I think, in
Marx’s early writings, particularly the 
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.
See 
Karl Marx:
Early Writings,
trans. and ed. T. B. Bottomore (London, C. A. Watts, 1963), pp. 126–129, 154,
156–157, 189, 202f. However, Marx is interpreted to hold a notion like this by Shlomo Avineri, 
The
Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx
(Cambridge, The University Press, 1969), pp. 231f. Yet
Marx tends, I think, to view full communist society as one in which each person completely realizes
his nature, in which he himself expresses all of his powers. In any event, it is important not to confuse
the idea of social union with the high value put upon human diversity and individuality, as found in
Mill’s 
On Liberty,
ch. III, and in German Romanticism—see A. O. Lovejoy, 
The Great Chain of
Being
(Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1936), ch. X; or with the conception of the good as the
harmonious fulfillment of natural powers by (complete) individuals; nor, finally, with gifted individu-
als, artists, and statesmen, and so on, achieving this for the rest of mankind. Rather, in the limiting
case where the powers of each are similar, the group achieves, by a coordination of activities among
peers, the same totality of capacities latent in each. Or when these powers differ and are in suit-
able ways complementary, they express the sum of potentialities of the membership as a whole in
activities that are intrinsically good and not merely cooperation for social or economic gain. (On this
last, see Smith, 
Wealth of Nations,
bk. I, chs. I–II.) In either case, persons need one another since it is
only in active cooperation with others that one’s powers reach fruition. Only in a social union is the
individual complete.
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rules, say to score the most runs; the various motives of the players in
playing the game, the excitement they get from it, the desire for exercise,
and so on, which may be different for each person; the social purposes
served by the game which may be unintended and unknown to the play-
ers, or even to anyone in the society, these being matters for the reflective
observer to ascertain; and then finally, the shared end, the common desire
of all the players that there should be a good play of the game. This
shared end can be realized only if the game is played fairly according to
the rules, if the sides are more or less evenly matched, and if the players
all sense that they are playing well. But when this aim is attained, every-
one takes pleasure and satisfaction in the very same thing. A good play of
the game is, so to speak, a collective achievement requiring the coopera-
tion of all.
Now the shared end of a social union is clearly not merely a common
desire for the same particular thing. Grant and Lee were one in their
desire to hold Richmond but this desire did not establish community be-
tween them. Persons generally want similar sorts of things, liberty and op-
portunity, shelter and nourishment, yet these wants may put them at odds.
Whether individuals have a shared end depends upon the more detailed
features of the activity to which their interests incline them as these are
regulated by principles of justice. There must be an agreed scheme of con-
duct in which the excellences and enjoyments of each are complementary
to the good of all. Each can then take pleasure in the actions of the others
as they jointly execute a plan acceptable to everyone. Despite their com-
petitive side, many games illustrate this type of end in a clear way: the
public desire to execute a good and fair play of the game must be regula-
tive and effective if everyone’s zest and pleasure are not to languish.
The development of art and science, of religion and culture of all
kinds, high and low, can of course be thought of in much the same way.
Learning from one another’s efforts and appreciating their several contri-
butions, human beings gradually build up systems of knowledge and be-
lief; they work out recognized techniques for doing things and elaborate
styles of feeling and expression. In these cases the common aim is often
profound and complex, being defined by the respective artistic, scientific,
or religious tradition; and to understand this aim often takes years of
discipline and study. The essential thing is that there be a shared final end
and accepted ways of advancing it which allow for the public recognition
of the attainments of everyone. When this end is achieved, all find satis-
faction in the very same thing; and this fact together with the complemen-
tary nature of the good of individuals affirms the tie of community.
461
79. The Idea of Social Union

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I do not wish to stress, however, the cases of art and science, and high
forms of religion and culture. In line with the rejection of the principle of
perfection and the acceptance of democracy in the assessment of one
another’s excellences, they have no special merit from the standpoint of
justice. Indeed the reference to games not only has the virtue of simplic-
ity but in some ways is more appropriate. It helps to show that the
primary concern is that there are many types of social union and from the
perspective of political justice we are not to try to rank them in value.
Moreover these unions have no definite size; they range from families and
friendships to much larger associations. Nor are there limits of time and
space, for those widely separated by history and circumstance can never-
theless cooperate in realizing their common nature. A well-ordered soci-
ety, and indeed most societies, will presumably contain countless social
unions of many different kinds.
With these remarks as a preface, we can now see how the principles of
justice are related to human sociability. The main idea is simply that a
well-ordered society (corresponding to justice as fairness) is itself a form
of social union. Indeed, it is a social union of social unions. Both charac-
teristic features are present: the successful carrying out of just institutions
is the shared final end of all the members of society, and these institu-
tional forms are prized as good in themselves. Let us consider these
features in turn. The first is quite straightforward. In much the same way
that players have the shared end to execute a good and fair play of the
game, so the members of a well-ordered society have the common aim of
cooperating together to realize their own and another’s nature in ways
allowed by the principles of justice. This collective intention is the conse-
quence of everyone’s having an effective sense of justice. Each citizen
wants everyone (including himself) to act from principles to which all
would agree in an initial situation of equality. This desire is regulative, as
the condition of finality on moral principles requires; and when everyone
acts justly, all find satisfaction in the very same thing.
The explanation of the second feature is more involved, yet clear
enough from what has been said. We have only to note the various ways
in which the fundamental institutions of society, the just constitution and
the main parts of the legal order, can be found good in themselves once
the idea of social union is applied to the basic structure as a whole. Thus
first of all, the Kantian interpretation enables us to say that everyone’s
acting to uphold just institutions is for the good of each. Human beings
have a desire to express their nature as free and equal moral persons, and
this they do most adequately by acting from the principles that they
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The Good of Justice

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would acknowledge in the original position. When all strive to comply
with these principles and each succeeds, then individually and collec-
tively their nature as moral persons is most fully realized, and with it their
individual and collective good.
But further, the Aristotelian Principle holds for institutional forms as
well as for any other human activity. Seen in this light, a just constitu-
tional order, when adjoined to the smaller social unions of everyday life,
provides a framework for these many associations and sets up the most
complex and diverse activity of all. In a well-ordered society each person
understands the first principles that govern the whole scheme as it is to be
carried out over many generations; and all have a settled intention to
adhere to these principles in their plan of life. Thus the plan of each
person is given a more ample and rich structure than it would otherwise
have; it is adjusted to the plans of others by mutually acceptable princi-
ples. Everyone’s more private life is so to speak a plan within a plan, this
superordinate plan being realized in the public institutions of society. But
this larger plan does not establish a dominant end, such as that of reli-
gious unity or the greatest excellence of culture, much less national
power and prestige, to which the aims of all individuals and associations
are subordinate. The regulative public intention is rather that the constitu-
tional order should realize the principles of justice. And this collective
activity, if the Aristotelian Principle is sound, must be experienced as a
good.
We have seen that the moral virtues are excellences, attributes of the
person that it is rational for persons to want in themselves and in one
another as things appreciated for their own sake, or else as exhibited in
activities so enjoyed (§§66–67). Now it is clear that these excellences are
displayed in the public life of a well-ordered society. Therefore the com-
panion principle to the Aristotelian Principle implies that men appreciate
and enjoy these attributes in one another as they are manifested in cooper-
ating to affirm just institutions. It follows that the collective activity of
justice is the preeminent form of human flourishing. For given favorable
conditions, it is by maintaining these public arrangements that persons
best express their nature and achieve the widest regulative excellences of
which each is capable. At the same time just institutions allow for and
encourage the diverse internal life of associations in which individuals
realize their more particular aims. Thus the public realization of justice is
a value of community.
As a final comment, I should note that a well-ordered society does not
do away with the division of labor in the most general sense. To be sure,
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79. The Idea of Social Union

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the worst aspects of this division can be surmounted: no one need be
servilely dependent on others and made to choose between monotonous
and routine occupations which are deadening to human thought and sen-
sibility. Each can be offered a variety of tasks so that the different ele-
ments of his nature find a suitable expression. But even when work is
meaningful for all, we cannot overcome, nor should we wish to, our
dependence on others. In a fully just society persons seek their good in
ways peculiar to themselves, and they rely upon their associates to do
things they could not have done, as well as things they might have done
but did not. It is tempting to suppose that everyone might fully realize his
powers and that some at least can become complete exemplars of human-
ity. But this is impossible. It is a feature of human sociability that we are
by ourselves but parts of what we might be. We must look to others to
attain the excellences that we must leave aside, or lack altogether. The
collective activity of society, the many associations and the public life of
the largest community that regulates them, sustains our efforts and elicits
our contribution. Yet the good attained from the common culture far
exceeds our work in the sense that we cease to be mere fragments: that