JOHN RAWLS --- continued

                             TWO PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE 

   Suppose Rawls is right : The way to think about justice is to ask what principles we would choose in an original position of equality, behind a veil of ignorance. What principles would emerge ? 
   According to Rawls, we wouldn't chose utilitarianism. Behind the veil of ignorance, we don't know where we will wind up in society, but we do know that we will want to pursue our ends and be treated with respect. In case we turn out to be a member of an ethnic or religious minority, we don't want to be oppressed, even if this gives pleasure to the majority. Once the veil of ignorance rises and real life begins, we don't want to find ourselves as victims of religious persecution or racial discrimination. In order to protect against these dangers, we would reject utilitarianism and agree to a principle of equal basic liberties for all citizens, including the right to liberty of conscience and freedom of thought. And we would insist that this principle take priority over attempts to maximize the general welfare. We would not sacrifice our fundamental rights and liberties for social and economic benefits.
   What principle would we choose to govern social and economic inequalities ?  To guard against the risk of finding ourselves in crushing poverty, we might at first thought favor an equal distribution of income and wealth. But then it would occur to us that we could do better, even for those on the bottom. Suppose that by permitting certain inequalities, such as higher pay for doctors than for bus drivers, we could improve the situation of those who have the least --- by increasing access to health care for the poor. Allowing for this possibility, we would adopt what Rawls calls "the difference principle" : only those social and economic inequalities are permitted that work to the benefit of the least advantaged members of society. 
   Exactly how egalitarian is the difference principle ? It's hard to say, because the effect of pay differences depends on social and economic circumstances. Suppose higher pay for doctors led to more and better medical care in impoverished rural areas. In that case, the wage difference could be consistent with Rawls's principle. But suppose paying doctors more had no impact on health services in Appalacia, and simply produced more cosmetic surgeons in Beverly Hills. In that case, the wage difference would be hard to justify from Rawls's point of view. 
   What about the big earnings of Michael Jordan or the vast fortune of Bill Gates ? Could these inequalities be consistent with the difference principle ? Of course, Rawls's theory is not meant to assess the fairness of this or that person's salary. It is concerned with the basic structure of society, and the way it allocates rights and duties, income and wealth, power and opportunities. For Rawls, the question to ask is whether Gates's wealth arose as part of a system that, taken as a whole, works to the benefit of the least well off. For example, was it subject to a progressive tax system that taxed the rich to provide for the health, education, and welfare of the poor ? If so, and if this system made the poor better off than they would have been under a more strictly equal arrangement, then such inequalities could be consistent with the difference principle.
   Some people question whether the parties to the original position would choose the difference principle. How does Rawls know that, behind the veil of ignorance, people wouldn't be gamblers, willing to take their chances on a highly unequal society in hopes of landing on top ? Maybe some would even opt for a feudal society, willing to risk being a landless serf in the hopes of being a king.
   Rawls doesn't believe that people choosing principles to govern their fundamental life prospects would take such chances. Unless they knew themselves to be lovers of risk (a quality blocked from view by the veil of ignorance) , people would not make risky bets at high stakes. But Rawls's case for the difference principle doesn't rest entirely on the assumption that people in the original position would be risk averse. Underlying the device of the veil of ignorance is a moral argument that can be presented independent of the thought experiment. Its main idea is that the distribution of income and opportunity should not be based on factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. 

    THE ARGUMENT FROM MORAL ARBITRARINESS

    
   Rawls presents this argument by comparing several rival theories of justice, beginning with feudal aristocracy. These days, only a tiny percent of super rich Americans defends the justice of feudal aristocracies or caste systems. These systems are unfair, Rawls observes, because they distribute income, wealth, opportunity, and power according to the accident of birth. If you are born into nobility, you have rights and powers denied those born into serfdom. But the circumstances of your birth are no doing of yours. So it's unjust to make your life prospects depend on this arbitrary fact. 
   Market societies remedy this arbitrariness, at least to some degree. They open careers to those with the requisite talents and provide equality before the law. Citizens are assured equal basic liberties, and the distribution of income and wealth is determined by the free market. This system --- a free market with formal equality of opportunity --- corresponds to the libertarian theory of justice. It represents an improvement over feudal and caste societies, since it rejects fixed hierarchies of birth. Legally, it allows everyone to strive and to compete. In practice, however, opportunities may be far from equal.
   Those who have supportive families and a good education have obvious advantages over those who do not. Allowing everyone to enter the race is a good thing. But if the runners start from different starting points, the race is hardly fair.That is why, Rawls argues, the distribution of income and wealth that results from a free market with formal equality of opportunity cannot be considered just. The most obvious injustice of the libertarian system "is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by these factors so arbitrary from a moral point of view."
   One way of remedying this unfairness is to correct for social and economic disadvantage. A fair meritocracy attempts to do so by going beyond merely formal equality of opportunity. It removes obstacles to achievement by providing equal educational opportunities, so that those from poor families can compete on an equal basis with those from privileged backgrounds. It institutes Head Start programs, childhood nutrition and health care programs, education and job training programs ---whatever is needed to bring everyone, regardless of class or family background, to the same starting point. According to the meritocratic conception, the distribution of income and wealth that results from a free market is just, but only if everyone has the same opportunity to develop his or her talents. Only if everyone begins at the same starting line can it be said that the winners of the race deserve their rewards. 
   Rawls believes that the meritocratic conception corrects for certain morally arbitrary advantages, but still falls short of justice. For, even if you manage to bring everyone up to the same starting point, it is more or less predictable who will win the race --- the fastest runners. But being a fast runner is not wholly my own doing. It is morally contingent in the same way that coming from an affluent family is contingent. ""Even if it works to perfection in eliminating the influence of social contingencies," Rawls writes, the meritocratic system "still permits the distribution of wealth and income to be determined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents.
   If Rawls is right, even a free market operating in a society with equal educational opportunities does not produce a just distribution of income and wealth. The reason : "Distributive shares are decided by the outcome of the natural lottery ; and this outcome is arbitrary from a moral perspective. There is no more reason to permit the distribution of income and wealth to be settled by the distribution of natural assets than by historical and social fortune."
   Rawls concludes that the meritocratic conception of justice is flawed for the same reason(though to a lesser degree) as the libertarian conception. Both base distributive shares on factors that are morally arbitrary."Once we are troubled by the influence of either social contingencies or natural chance on the determination of the distributive shares, we are bound, on reflection, to be bothered by the influence of the other. From a moral standpoint the two seem equally arbitrary."
   Once we notice the moral arbitrariness that taints both libertarian and the meritocratic theories of justice, Rawls argues, we can't be satisfied short of a more egalitarian conception. But what could this conception be ? It is one thing to remedy unequal educational opportunities, but quite another to remedy unequal native endowments. If we are bothered by the fact that some runners are faster than others, don't we have to make the gifted runners wear lead shoes ? Some critics of egalitarianism believe that the only alternative to a meritocratic market society is a leveling equality that imposes handicaps on the talented.