The Social Safety Net: An Alternative to Rawl's Two Principles of Justice

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues for a view which he entitles "justice as fairness," according to which the principles of a just social organization are those which would be chosen by the members of society in an original position of fairness. Rawls's framing of this original position has had a great intuitive appeal, perhaps because it incorporates the ideals of rationality and impartiality that are central to our everyday understanding of justice. However, the principles which Rawls derives from this startingpoint appear to depart radically from many commonly held and intuit ive beliefs about jus t ice and the aims of social organizations.While I find Rawls's conception of the original position to be uniquely compelling, I believe that there is something to be said for a somewhat more conservative conception of justice. Rawls himself acknowledges the possible independence of the original position from the substantive principles which he endorses, pointing out that