Theoretical Sources of Rawls’s Justice as Fairness

Rawls regards the liberalism of Kant, Hegel and Mill as important ex- emplars in the history of the moral and political philosophy of liberalism of freedom. This paper seeks to demonstrate how Rawls draws on these three predecessors. Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness has three major components: the original position, the primacy of the basic structure of society, and two principles of justice. I argue that these three elements in Rawls’s theory have parallels in the theories of Kant, Hegel and Mill. Firstly, there are essential similarities between Rawls’s original position and Kant’s Categorical Imperative procedure: justificatory individual- ism, the Reasonable presupposes and subordinates the Rational, and the combination of moral and realistic considerations. Secondly, Hegel attributes primacy to the state due to the insufficiency of abstract right and morality compared to ethical life and the incompleteness of family and civil society compared to the political state. The special role of the basic structure of society in Rawls’s theory of justice draws from Hegel’s emphasis on political institutions in realizing freedom. Finally, Rawls’s two principles of justice as fairness have roughly the same substantive content as Mill’s principles of justice and liberty of the modern world.