Hayek And Rawl

A comparison of Hayek's and Rawls' versions og liberalism








The idea of free and equal moral persons is the idea of persons which underlies justice as fairness and political liberalism. Rawls argues in political Liberalism that citiens in a democratic society see themselves as free and equal persons. Rawls attempts to develop a conception ofjustice which best fits with this democratic self-conception and out considered convictions about justice. (Jonh Rawls, “Justice as Fairness”)
John Rawls (February 21, 1921 - November 24, 2002) was a Professor of Political Philosophy at Harvard University and author of A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism, and The Law of Peoples. Rawls's Contribution to Political and Moral PhilosophyRawls is noted for his contributions to liberal political philosophy. Liberty of conscience and freedom thought, freedom of association, equal political liberties, the rights and liberties that protect the integrity and freedom of the individual and the rights and liberties covered by the rule of law are the five basic liberties that Rawls consider to be fundamental.

A Theory of Justice is a workof political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 (for the translated editions) and 1999. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar device of the social contract. The resultant theory is known as "Justice as Fairness", from which Rawls derives his twoprinciples of justice: the liberty principle and the difference principle. Principles of justice are sought to guide the conduct of the parties. These parties are recognized to face moderate scarcity, and they are neither naturally altruistic nor purely egoistic. They have ends which they seek to advance, but prefer to advance them through cooperation with others on mutually acceptable terms. Rawlsoffers a model of a fair choice situation within which parties would hypothetically choose mutually acceptable principles of justice. 
Justice is sometimes said to be the first virtude of a society: ‘Each person, says John Rawl’s, possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the wealfare of society as a whole cannot override. Therefore in a right society the rights secured by justice arenot subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests’.
Rawl claims two principles of justice: the greatest liberty for each person and the distribution of economic goods. The first one refers to ‘basic liberties’ and claim that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a similar liberty to others; stipulate that every person is equallyentitled to a system of equal basic liberties. The main idea is that there are certain basic rights and freedoms of the individual person which are more important than others. The second one, claim that all social and economic inequalities are to be open to all under conditions of fair equiality of opportunity and to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society. The main ideaof equal opportunity is that social and economic inequalities should be evaluated in terms of how well off they leave the worst off. Rawls argues that his two principles of justice will create a just and stable society, if certain conditions about human nature, the enviorment, etc. , is fulfilled. Principles of justice apply to the ‘basic structure’ of society and do not indentify patterns ofproperty holdings. ‘How do we know the rules are okay?’ Rawl’s says that the basic rules of the game have broad distributive consequences and must be shown generally to benefit the least well-off class because everyone needs to have reason to comply with the rules of interaction if those rules are going to define a social order that is stable in right way.
If people are to live toguether they must...