The Irish Times view on John Rawls: triumph in failure

The Covid-19 pandemic has provided us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reboot society. So it's no wonder the name John Rawls has been trending on social media. Not only was it the centenary of the political philosopher's birth last weekend but it's a half-century this year since the American liberal famously articulated the "original position", a vision of how human beings would design laws and institutions if they could start again from scratch.

Rawls asked us to consider what legal and political arrangements we would put in place if we stood behind a “veil of ignorance”, not knowing what gender, wealth-bracket, ethnicity or level of disability we had. Arguing that the logical thing to do would be to protect the most vulnerable – it could be you in that boat, after all – he arrived at two basic principles that he felt we’d be compelled to accept. The first confirmed everyone’s entitlement to equal basic freedoms. The second commanded that inequalities should be allowed only if they served to benefit those worst off in society and in circumstances where there was equality of opportunity.

It’s easy to see why Rawls (1921-2002) has been a darling of progressives. His defence of egalitarianism – pursued in his A Theory of Justice – has given succour to causes from the universal health care movement to Black Lives Matter. Detractors claim that the original position is rigged, that only risk-averse lefties would sign up to “justice as fairness”. More measured critics fear Rawls has become too dominant in moral philosophy. But this overlooks the fact that he is relevant exactly because he failed. His ideas have yet to win over the public in sufficient numbers, and today our political system remains largely based on what Rawls saw as a false choice between freedom and equality. The most profound failure is that even liberals have difficulty accepting the full force of his second principle of justice: It’s not enough to have fair competition; the losers must gain from the contest. Yes, it’s nice to see individuals winning against the odds but, to Rawlsians, it’s no substitute for us all succeeding.