“Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a

whole cannot override. Therefore, in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to
political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.” JOHN RAWLS

According to John Rawls, a good society is characterized by a number of virtues. Justice is the
first virtue of a good society. Justice is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a good
society. The basic aim of Rawls was to provide a philosophy of justice which could be an
alternative to the utilitarian principle of justice. This was a result of his personal conviction that
the principle of utility was not able to solve the problems of common individuals, relating to the
distribution of fruits of the state despite the fact that it was supported by the majority of social
and political theorists at that time. For this, he advocated a combination of ‘equality’ and
‘difference’ principles in his scheme of establishing a doctrine which could serve as a basis for
distribution of benefits and burdens among individuals, arising out of human co-operation.
Utilitarians, according to him, try to look upon the society as individuals writ large. On the
contrary, his philosophy looks upon individuals as a society writ large. In teleological theories,
the ‘good’ is defined independently of ‘right’ and then ‘right’ is defined as that which maximizes
the good. The principle of utility in its classical form defines good as satisfaction of desires or
satisfaction of rational desires. The striking feature of utilitarian view of justice is that it does not
matter how the sum of satisfaction is distributed among the individuals any more than it matters
how one man distributes his satisfaction over time. The correct distribution in either case is that
which yields maximum fulfillment. After elaborating and criticizing the concept of classical
utilitarianism, Rawls explains certain major differences between the principle of justice – justice
as fairness – which would be chosen by individuals in the environment of freedom and
impartiality, and utilitarianism which he treats as the most important of the existing principles.
Rawls asserts that justice denies that the loss of freedom for someone is made right by greater
good secured by the other. The reasoning which balances the gains and losses of different
persons as if they were one person is excluded. Therefore, in a just society the basic liberties are
taken for granted and the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the
calculus of social interests. Justice as fairness attempts to account for common sense conviction
concerning the priority of justice by showing that they are the consequences of the principle
which would be chosen in the original position.