What should the perfect society be? How can it be produced? These questions bothered philosophers since the ancient times. Starting from Plato's suggestions about justice and perfect society in his Republic up to the works of contemporary philosophers, each possessed own benefits and flaws. Over the course of centuries until modern time, science developed tremendously as well as the relationships within society, civil rights, and other fields of thought did. One of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers. John Rawls, in 1971 introduced his Theory of Justice which offered his views on the issue. This strong and well-developed work contributed not only to the field of philosophy and general development of, though but also to politics. However, in 1974, Robert Nozick offered his critics to the Rawls’s view and added another perspective to the modern concept of justice. This essay will uncover, summarize, and analyze the works of these two brilliant philosophers as well as offer critics to Rawls's theory.
Essentially, Rawls’s Theory of Justice is a distributive theory of justice. This means that the aim and structure of his theory are to achieve the needed distribution of goods within society. In contrast to Rawls, Robert Nozick supports the theory of justice through acquisition or entitlement, thus, it is called the theory of justice in holdings. Such type of theory aims not for the final or end distribution but rather for the fair process of acquisition and transfer of holdings. In this account, the Rawls's theory is non-historical while Nozick’s theory is purely historical.
John Rawls's theory of justice stands on the following grounds – first of all, in society, the justice is above all else as truth is in knowledge. All other characteristics of social do not matter as long as they do not operate justly. The second ground of justice is that while all persons have the desire to live and the desire for more rather than less, the justice cannot require the freedom and life to be taken even for the greater good of the society as a whole. And the third foundation consists in that the injustice can be tolerable only to avoid greater injustice. Having established these groundworks, Rawls continues further by stating the principles of justice, their aim, and role. As he asserts, the society is a cooperative formation and therefore, it is grounded in how are the opposing individual interests of its members balanced, or the cooperation for the greatest mutual benefit. Thus, he affirms the principles of justice should be agreed to by all of the society's members. And so from this mutual agreement and the principles of justice all laws and social institutions should be developed. The two principles of justice using which the optimum structure of society's wealth distribution should be attained are the following: the basic rights and duties are assigned equally or almost equally among the society's members while the inequalities in wealth and power distribution are justified if the attainment of such inequalities brings forth the improvement of the less endowed ones’ situation. While Rawls makes a declaration that the unequal distribution at birth is by far the most insurmountable barrier that will exist in every even the most developed society, he claims that the situation can be made very proximal to equal. Considering all Rawls's claims, we can infer that the society in his understanding would not be a totally egalitarian but will be pretty close to it with a not so large gap between the fortunes of the wealthiest and the poorest.
Robert Nozick opposes Rawls's approach to forming the theory of justice in its essence – its type. While Rawls implies that the structure of society's wealth should be maintained the same, Nozick finds that such situation will be impossible. The theory he is offering debates not about the distribution of goods in society but in the way of their acquisition. In contrast to Rawls, Nozick does not make any claims about the equal initial distribution of rights and duties. He only tells about the just ways of acquiring and transferring goods. The main principles of justice according to Nozick are that the holdings must be acquired without the use of force, theft, or fraud. According to these principles, one is considered to be justly owning a holding if he either acquired it justly, acquired it from another person justly. The third claim finishing Nozick’s account of justice is the rectification of injustice which consists in getting back to original owners the holdings which were transferred or acquired unjustly. Nozick criticizes the distributive principles of justice because they are non-dynamic and assume that the distribution will never change. As he shows by his famous Wilt Chamberlain example, the actions completed in accordance with justice can eventually lead to the change of just distribution to a virtually unjust. He considers the theories based on the distributive principle inherently inconsistent because either this distribution will be ruined or it would require the use of force to sustain it.
While both of these theories possess flaws and are not perfect, the Nozick’s theory of justice is more adapt to the real world, in my opinion. Supporting Nozick’s criticism of the distributive theories, it should be added that such theories are much less practical than the historical ones. While the Nozick’s Will Chamberlain example can be overcome loosening the distribution’s margins, there are practical obstacles which cannot be overcome at least in the nearest future. Although theoretically Rawls’s theory can take place in a real society if the distribution it adheres to will be approximate, there is no way that the first most important step of equalizing or almost equalizing the initial rights and duties of a person which are given at birth is possible. Such a state can only be attained either by force or by cutting down the tree of today's society and planting a new one. This enterprise seems to be of little possibility to be accomplished because of several reasons. First of all, either the ones possessing much greater wealth should be deprived of it, or the whole population should be renewed and grown nearly out of nothing to compensate for the differences in wealth. While this condition can scarcely be satisfied in reality, the further requirements are also a question for debates. The whole concept of the static distribution in a society implies that this society is static in its structure, which is wrong. As we can see from the history of the world, the structure of the societies is dynamic first of all because of the change of the Earth's population. As long as there is not equal birth rate in all of the classes of the society, the static distribution of wealth in society cannot be attained. The theory of justice presented by Rawls is based on strong and morally right claims, but it lacks the connection to reality. Such model can virtually come true but only in the case when the structure of the society will become static, or the population of the Earth will come to its sustainable optimum. Also, as long aы the economical inequalities between the countries exist, there will always be the migration of population from the less to the more economically developed and, therefore, possessing more wealth countries. While such migration will take place, the structure of society will inevitably change causing the wealth distribution to change. The inequalities will be reduced or totally destroyed only when the political and economical barriers between countries will fall, or a global Earth-wide country will be created. Only then, the Rawls's model of justice and the model of society will have a possibility to actually take place. Generally, this theory is has a strong moral basis and implies wonderful social structure but it is too far from practice making it only the subject for theoretical study. There is one more important inference that should be made from the comparison of these theories of justice. While Robert Nozick accounts for injustice in terms of its rectification, Rawls presupposes the nearly equal distribution of holdings in society and does not offer a way to compensate for the previous injustice which is a sign that he does not account for the human nature. Not only the distribution of wealth in society is dynamic, but it also depends not on the official model of justice but the level of moral development of the population. Rawls presupposes that his theory of justice will be agreed to by all of the society's members and from there the just social institutions will be produced. This approach is too idealistic since, in reality, not all of the society’s members will agree to it but even will want to cooperate. And while they did not adopt the social justice they should be either expelled from such society or be allowed to live on their own. Will this be just?
Robert Nozick’s and John Rawls’s theories approach the concepts of justice from the different side, and while Rawls offers a model which is structured better than the Nozick’s, it lacks the dynamic aspect which is essential to our world. Robert Nozick in his work offered a strong criticism which eventually makes the distributive justice models non-viable, at least in the first proximity. Although, such objections can be overcome by adding slight adjustments to the Rawls's model, the practical obstacles in the path of the Rawls's theory are by far unbridgeable in the nearest future.
References
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, And Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Print.
Rawls, John. A Theory Of Justice. Revised Edition, Harvard University Press, 1999 [1971]. Print.
