A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

parties return to their place in society and henceforth judge their claims
on the social system by these principles. But if several intermediate
stages are imagined to take place in a definite sequence, this sequence
may give us a schema for sorting out the complications that must be
faced. Each stage is to represent an appropriate point of view from which
certain kinds of questions are considered.
1
Thus I suppose that after the
parties have adopted the principles of justice in the original position, they
move to a constitutional convention. Here they are to decide upon the
justice of political forms and choose a constitution: they are delegates, so
to speak, to such a convention. Subject to the constraints of the principles
of justice already chosen, they are to design a system for the constitu-
tional powers of government and the basic rights of citizens. It is at
this stage that they weigh the justice of procedures for coping with di-
verse political views. Since the appropriate conception of justice has been
agreed upon, the veil of ignorance is partially lifted. The persons in the
convention have, of course, no information about particular individuals:
they do not know their own social position, their place in the distribution
of natural attributes, or their conception of the good. But in addition to an
understanding of the principles of social theory, they now know the rele-
vant general facts about their society, that is, its natural circumstances and
1. The idea of a four-stage sequence is suggested by the United States Constitution and its history.
For some remarks as to how this sequence might be interpreted theoretically and related to procedural
justice, see K. J. Arrow, 
Social Choice and Individual Values,
2nd ed. (New York, John Wiley and
Sons, 1963), pp. 89–91.
172
Equal Liberty

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resources, its level of economic advance and political culture, and so on.
They are no longer limited to the information implicit in the circum-
stances of justice. Given their theoretical knowledge and the appropriate
general facts about their society, they are to choose the most effective just
constitution, the constitution that satisfies the principles of justice and is
best calculated to lead to just and effective legislation.
2
At this point we need to distinguish two problems. Ideally a just con-
stitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome. The
procedure would be the political process governed by the constitution, the
outcome the body of enacted legislation, while the principles of justice
would define an independent criterion for both procedure and outcome. In
pursuit of this ideal of perfect procedural justice (§14), the first problem
is to design a just procedure. To do this the liberties of equal citizenship
must be incorporated into and protected by the constitution. These liber-
ties include those of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, liberty
of the person, and equal political rights. The political system, which I
assume to be some form of constitutional democracy, would not be a just
procedure if it did not embody these liberties.
Clearly any feasible political procedure may yield an unjust outcome.
In fact, there is no scheme of procedural political rules which guarantees
that unjust legislation will not be enacted. In the case of a constitutional
regime, or indeed of any political form, the ideal of perfect procedural
justice cannot be realized. The best attainable scheme is one of imperfect
procedural justice. Nevertheless some schemes have a greater tendency
than others to result in unjust laws. The second problem, then, is to select
from among the procedural arrangements that are both just and feasible
those which are most likely to lead to a just and effective legal order.
Once again this is Bentham’s problem of the artificial identification of
interests, only here the rules (just procedure) are to be framed to give
legislation (just outcome) likely to accord with the principles of justice
rather than the principle of utility. To solve this problem intelligently
2. It is important to distinguish the four-stage sequence and its conception of a constitutional
convention from the kind of view of constitutional choice found in social theory and exemplified by
J. M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock,