Rawls discusses in length the primary good in Section 15, Chapter 2 of his book. This is in response to Utilitarianism theory, which many known scholars have argued that it maximizes happiness (Rawls 78). Rawls disagrees with this theory as envisaged in this chapter of his book by arguing that it is impossible to measure happiness. He is therefore quick to point out that his theory of Justice and Fairness will not attempt to measure happiness by dividing it (Rawls 79). In its place, he suggests that the primary goods like political power should be divided in place of happiness.
The primary social and natural goods have been divided into three classes (Rawls 80). The first class is the Liberties and Basic rights which are social goods. These are freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights such as the Freedom of conscience, religion and speech. The other class of social goods comprises the non-basic rights mostly associated with the political positions in the society. Examples of this class include the power of a judge to sit and preside over cases or even the power to vote by a congress man. The last class of the primary natural goods is that of income of wealth.
According to Rawls’ theory on division, the primary goods should be divided and distributed to different principles. The first principle applies to the primary social goods belonging to the Bill of Rights category while the second principle belongs to the other two categories of the primary goods (Rawls 80). The primary goods are believed to be strongly associated to the welfare such that by dividing up the primary goods, it would mean integrating happiness without dividing it up. Further to this belief, the primary goods act as the utmost goals a rational man would want to achieve.
Natural and Social Contingencies
Rawls attempt to elaborate the distributive justice theory which he argues that the negotiators in the political associations should be viewed as conducting their business behind what he calls ‘veil of ignorance.’ (Rawls 118). This is because they lack knowledge of one’s life condition which includes talents, sex, race and other social and natural contingencies (Rawls 119). They tend to work on assumption the circumstance of justice facing the society yet they do not have the exact information on the laws and theories about political affairs and human social and economic principles (Rawls 120).
Rawls argues that equality in democracy only mitigates but can not take away what he calls moral arbitrariness. Rawls gives suggestions to principles that he seems will act as key determinants to equality (Rawls 121). Talents search would be a better way to judge people for job opportunities and not through irrelevant ways like courses undertaken or gender. This would serve as an equality principle in arbitration. Rawls is of the opinion that if class background is used, then public education would be the best form to eliminate inequality and its effects on class background and race (Rawls 121). It can further be argued that other social contingencies like class position can not serve as the only determinants of success in life. Other contingencies like natural contingencies like motivation in talents and skills can serve as a determinant of life success and even assume a fair share of equality (Rawls 122). Therefore, the requirements of the above principles of justice or negotiators rely on the condition of the veil of ignorance (Rawls 123).
Private and Public Ownership
Rawls attempt to define and differentiate between the existing and non-existing market economy to that of the private property in the production sector (Rawls 228). In his book, he argues that while the market economy is under judicial supervision, this is not the case with the private ownership. According to Rawls, a command economy is governed by the principle of liberty where one has freedom to work in whatever field they choose (Rawls 234). Therefore, it is for this reason that it can be said that both the private and public firms own the market economy. Rawls attempts to distinguish whether the economic production is geared towards the private ownership on one hand and the public goods on the other hand and how the private and public owned firms have been incorporated in the economy (Rawls 236). It has further been argued that a good can only be public and not private hence equality is applied when consuming the good. It also depends on one’s taste and desire for the type of good one want and not the justice.
The argument set forward is which of the two is favorable in the society to achieve justice (Rawls 244). Rawls tend to favor public ownership as opposed to private ownership for the reason being that a state that practice democracy in property ownership improves conditions that have been affected by issues such as inheritance, wealth and education policies to enable them compete in the economy market (Rawls 246).
References
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. USA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print