Book - Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like
psychology Subjective experience: of freedom and being equal self-interest "Rawls transformed political philosophy, Chandler says. But his thought can be used to transform and reimagine 'progressive politics for the twenty-first century', too. After a half-decade of populist insurgency, the democratic world is at a 'crossroads', he contends, and we are in desperate need of new ideas to renovate a tattered social contract. That's where Rawls comes in." Derbyshire, p.9. | "Imagine being asked to cut a cake into five slices without knowing which slice you'll end up with. Rational self-interest dictates you'd cut slices of roughly equal size. Similarly, the participants in Rawl's thought experiment, behind the veil of ignorance, choose two fundamental principles of justice: a 'basic liberties principle', which says that every one has an equal claim to a suite of fundamental rights and liberties, obviously a precondition of liberal democracy; and a 'difference principle', according to which social and economic inequalities can only be justified to the extent that they benefit the worst off." p.9 trickle-down || 'drip' |
Society Social Justice Fairness Social contract |
Derbyshire, J. (2023) Justice, fairness and why Rawls still matters today. FT Weekend, Life&Arts, Books, 22-23 April. p.9.