According to Rawls, justice is a matter of fairness, and he identifies it as the first virtue of social institutions. In contrast to the conventional utilitarian and intuitionist notions of justice, he outlines his objective for a theory based on the social contract idea. When appealing against what he sees as the mainstream theory, Rawl claims that the utilitarian theory of justice does not directly care about how the distribution of the total amount of satisfaction among people functions (Sandel et al., 2009). This is true because utilitarianism does not take the distinction between people seriously. In this regard, it does not give enough consideration to either equality or freedom.
The Theory of Justice by John Rawls offers a unique, compelling viewpoint for making political assessments while drawing on past intellectuals. Justice theories of hypothetical consent are more persuasive and are more in line with Rawls’ theory of justice. While not impervious to scrutiny, his ideas and findings offer a compelling argument for liberal egalitarianism. His influence can be seen widely in public policy and philosophy, especially in accepting the necessity of distributional effect evaluations. In his works, Rawls offers the theory of justice as a conceptual basis for making choices. In his unique perspective on justice, Rawls also advocates for people to make political judgments based on fundamental moral principles. This demonstrates the values an impartial individual would select and how justice can help debunk incomplete, possibly unintentional preconceptions.
One of the questions to ask Rawls would be whether non-social goods and ills ought to be included in the distributional profiles that establish justice judgments, as well as whether it is possible to create the institutional order so that the distribution of social benefits and responsibilities is adapted to the distribution of non-social goods and ills. Another question would be his second concept of justice, which states that positions of authority and riches must be tied to those open to all people and benefit everyone. In light of this, how should one take these words from Rawls’ viewpoint, and why does he believe that less stringent readings would result in injustice? The other query is whether fair social mobility is a separate, supplementary condition of justice or whether it is exclusively based on the distributional profile. The final question would be whether a differentiation between various causal routes is pertinent to judging an institutional order’s justice.
I once entered into a contract with someone who wanted me to sell a building I had recently purchased, which would be one instance from my life that can substantially help illustrate the principles of justice offered by Rawls. The central claim of Rawls is that fundamental rights and responsibilities and the distribution of social benefits are ascertained by the principles of justice, which are the object of an initial agreement. As a result, those who engage in social cooperation choose these principles jointly in a specific instance. This was the situation since I had consented to sell my property, and the price was mutually agreed upon. It is similar to Rawls’ idea of a natural state in which pre-social but fully rational individuals agree on cooperative norms or in which pre-political beings with prior natural rights coincide on the structure of a political constitution. It also outlines the original stance, which Rawls views as a good starting point for a social contract, but that is primarily an alternative. In general, Rawls’ principle of justice maintains that the formation of society results from an agreement between individuals made for their mutual benefit, as was my case.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a multi-stakeholder system of corporate governance and target value based on the extension of fiduciary duties towards all of the firm’s partners. Compared to other theories of justice, the Rawls theory’s application to the social contract on CSR yields quite the incorrect conclusion. When Rawlsian notion of justice is added into CSR, it is frequently problematic for the impartial agreement to select the constitution with the most egalitarian solution among all the feasible alternative options in a way that is consistent with the need for self-sustainability. As a result, it is not possible to compare workable egalitarian solutions under different forms using the theory of Rawls on justice which is generally accepted.
The fact that the social contract’s chosen outcome is not a part of the set of impartial equilibria, notably the autonomous institution, compels the conclusion, which is not apparent from the requirement. In this case, efficiency, welfare maximization, and the decrease of overall transaction costs all come before fairness quite an unusual configuration. Intuitively, a Rawlsian redress principle is not the obvious solution to the legitimacy issue with ownership and control rights distributions in CSR. They unfairly disadvantage one party relative to other non-controlling stakeholders to offer an incentive to that party. It is uncommon for shareholders, executives, and the person in charge of making discretionary decisions within the organization to be explicitly bound by the Rawlsian principles of extended fiduciary duties and equitable balance among various stakeholders.
Reference
Sandel, M., Straus, F., & Giroux. (2009). Justice, What’s the Right Thing to Do? Web.