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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2010
John Rawls' Difference Principle has been well known since his early papers on distributive justice, and has taken on renewed interest with the publication of A Theory of Justice. The principle is one I find attractive, but I am skeptical of the arguments heretofore put forward in its defence. Here I will outline an entirely different defence which, while it may yield Rawls' desired conclusion, leaves one with a rather different picture from his of the place of the Difference Principle in the theory of distributive justice.
1 To avoid having this essay run to an unacceptable length, I will assume the reader's familiarity with Rawls' positions, and the arguments for them.
2 Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971, p. 302.Google Scholar
3 The idea that the equality principle would be arrived at under the assumption of strict compliance was suggested to me by R.L. McGaw.
4 Obviously in practice the allocation would be handled by a government body of some sort.
5 Very crudely. A proper account would have to make reference to at least two matters: (a) whether the background institutions under which the criminal is living are reasonably just; and (b) a distinction must be made between cases where onés violation of a principle indicates that one does not acknowledge the principle seriously and those in which one violates, but continues to acknowledge, the principle, as when one murders in a fit of passion. But these refinements are not germane here.
