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| Article |
| Playing Games with Justice: Rawls and the Maximin Rule |
| David Kaye |
| 6 Soc. Theory & Prac. 33 (1980) |
| Library Access |
|
Abstract: John Rawls, in arguing for a new conception of justice, as fairness, he has argued that in what he calls “the original position,†rationale, self-interested, non-envious men shrouded in a “veil of ignorance†would select for society’s conception of justice two governing principles: the “equal liberty principle†and the “difference principle.†In introducing these principles, Rawls introduces a term drawn from the realm of mathematical game theory – the maximin rule. This article focuses entirely on the connection between the conditions confronted by those in the original position and their putative use of the maximin rule for selecting substantive principles of justice. Granting arguendo the explanatory power of the contract model and conceding that adoption of the maximin rule by decision makers in the original position would yield Rawls’ two principles and nothing but these principles, this article argues that the original position does not necessarily warrant selection of the maximin rule over alternative decision rules. Additionally, it shows that even if further assumptions about the values of persons in the original position are introduced, the maximin rule is not necessarily the most appropriate to the decision problem, although it may then be the case that any decision rule would point to the principles Rawls advocates. In the end, the article does not so much argue that Rawls’ theory is dead wrong, but rather that in its pursuit of game theory it has ventured into a dead end. |
| 259 |
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