Fairness, Principle of
Document Type
Encyclopedia Entry
Publication Date
2014
Editor(s)
Jon Mandle & David A. Reidy
ISBN
9781139026741
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
RAWLS’S THEORY OF justice primarily concerns the morality of institutions and secondarily the morality of conduct under them. A central theme of the latter is that “We are not to gain from the cooperative efforts of others without doing our fair share” (TJ 96.) This idea, its implications and Rawls’s terminology evolve as his theory of justice develops. In 1964 Rawls presented what he then called “the duty of fair play” as the ground of a widely applicable “moral obligation to obey the law” (CP 117–128), whereas in 1971 “the principle of fairness” is said to ground an obligation of obedience to law that applies to only a limited subset of citizens (TJ 308–312). These changes are related to Rawls’s distinguishing “obligations,” based on fairness and incurred by voluntary actions, from “natural duties,” which obtain independently of anyone’s voluntary acts (TJ 96).
Recommended Citation
David B. Lyons,
Fairness, Principle of
,
in
The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon
273
(Jon Mandle & David A. Reidy ed.,
2014).
Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139026741.074
