The Second Principle: The Equality Principle
The Equality Principle is the component of Justice as Fairness establishing distributive justice.
Rawls presents it as follows in A Theory of Justice:
- "Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:
- (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and
- (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity."
As mentioned previously, Rawls awards the Fair Equality of Opportunity Principle lexical priority over the Difference Principle: a society cannot arrange inequalities to maximise the share of the least advantaged whilst not allowing access to certain offices or positions.
Read more about this topic: Justice As Fairness
Famous quotes containing the words equality and/or principle:
“It is the nature of our desires to be boundless, and many live only to gratify them. But for this purpose the first object is, not so much to establish an equality of fortune, as to prevent those who are of a good disposition from desiring more than their own, and those who are of a bad one from being able to acquire it; and this may be done if they are kept in an inferior station, and not exposed to injustice.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.”
—Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)