Man is a social being. But what kind of a society would he choose to live in if he did not know the position he could occupy within it? John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice provides the principles for constructing a fair and just society by imagining a reasonable person’s response to this question. Its most distinctive aspect is its use of notion of the ‘original position’ to arrive at conclusions about fairness and justice and how we should achieve them in our social institutions.
In order to show the morality in every work that done in our society; we have to hide ourselves behind the veil of ignorance. It also helps us to make a just society. Rawls’ way around this is to set up a thought experiment, a hypothetical situation in which all the facts about ourselves and our particular desires, are hidden from us a veil of ignorance. We have to imagine not knowing whether or not we have jobs, what sex we are, whether we have families, where we live, how intelligent we are optimists, pessimists or drug addicts. We know that there are basic goods required for almost any lifestyle, and these include certain freedoms, opportunity, income and self respect and this situation of ignorance about our places in society ‘the original position’. We need morality also to make a fair and just society. If we don’t have morality, it is difficult for us to hide ourselves behind veil of ignorance.
The main idea of liberty principle is that ‘Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.’ Everyone in the society should get the same right to basic liberties according to this principle. But when our actions threaten others’ liberties would state intervention be justified, since our liberty in this respect would not then be compatible with equal liberty for everyone else. And here also morality is important because it only can create a perfect sense of maintaining the principle as a...