A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

particular problem of justice. There is a group of precepts which applies
to the question of fair wages, another to that of taxation, still another to
punishment, and so on. In arriving at the notion of a fair wage, say, we are
to balance somehow various competing criteria, for example, the claims
of skill, training, effort, responsibility, and the hazards of the job, as well
as to make some allowance for need. No one presumably would decide by
any one of these precepts alone, and some compromise between them
must be struck. The determination of wages by existing institutions also
represents, in effect, a particular weighting of these claims. This weight-
ing, however, is normally influenced by the demands of different social
interests and so by relative positions of power and influence. It may not,
therefore, conform to any one’s conception of a fair wage. This is particu-
larly likely to be true since persons with different interests are likely to
stress the criteria which advance their ends. Those with more ability and
education are prone to emphasize the claims of skill and training, whereas
those lacking these advantages urge the claim of need. But not only are
our everyday ideas of justice influenced by our own situation, they are
also strongly colored by custom and current expectations. And by what
criteria are we to judge the justice of custom itself and the legitimacy of
these expectations? To reach some measure of understanding and agree-
ment which goes beyond a mere de facto resolution of competing inter-
ests and a reliance on existing conventions and established expectations,
it is necessary to move to a more general scheme for determining the
balance of precepts, or at least for confining it within narrower limits.
31
7. Intuitionism

---

Thus we can consider the problems of justice by reference to certain
ends of social policy. Yet this approach also is likely to rely on intuition,
since it normally takes the form of balancing various economic and social
objectives. For example, suppose that allocative efficiency, full employ-
ment, a larger national income, and its more equal distribution are ac-
cepted as social ends. Then, given the desired weighting of these aims,
and the existing institutional setup, the precepts of fair wages, just taxa-
tion, and so on will receive their due emphasis. In order to achieve greater
efficiency and equity, one may follow a policy which has the effect of
stressing skill and effort in the payment of wages, leaving the precept of
need to be handled in some other fashion, perhaps by welfare transfers.
An intuitionism of social ends provides a basis for deciding whether the
determination of fair wages makes sense in view of the taxes to be
imposed. How we weigh the precepts in one group is adjusted to how we
weigh them in another. In this way we have managed to introduce a
certain coherence into our judgments of justice; we have moved beyond
the narrow de facto compromise of interests to a wider view. Of course
we are still left with an appeal to intuition in the balancing of the higher-
order ends of policy themselves. Different weightings for these are not by
any means trivial variations but often correspond to profoundly opposed
political convictions.
The principles of philosophical conceptions are of the most general
kind. Not only are they intended to account for the ends of social policy,
but the emphasis assigned to these principles should correspondingly
determine the balance of these ends. For purposes of illustration, let us
discuss a rather simple yet familiar conception based on the aggregative-
distributive dichotomy. It has two principles: the basic structure of society
is to be designed first to produce the most good in the sense of the
greatest net balance of satisfaction, and second to distribute satisfac-
tions equally. Both principles have, of course,