RAWLS. KANT AND JUSTICE.
John Rawl’s idea of justice is not ideally focused on helping individuals; instead, Rawls focuses on the general concepts of how criminal justice has to act and function in a democratic community. Rawls argues that the main concern for justice is fairness, where he uses two principles to illustrate his idea of justice. In the first principle, Rawl’s argues that one can engage in any activity so long as it does not infringe on the others’ rights. (Hare, p.145) In his second principle, he states that everyone should share in society’s wealth and also benefit from the distribution of wealth. That is, everyone ought to benefit from a good income and even access jobs that pay more.
The idea of Rawls justice ensures that the disadvantaged get neutralized, and everyone receives equal benefits of justice. On the other hand, Kant’s view of ethics is based on individual reasoning. The way a person reasons would determine how they ought to act. He emphasized that one must act in a way to treat humanity. An action is moral if one is happy when everyone is to perform the same action. (Widdows, p.56) Besides, people should act upon the principles that a community of rational people accepts as laws. He also added that we should treat people as ends to themselves rather than treating them as a means to personal ends.
For instance, when we look at a gang of people who have stolen goods in a shop. According to Rawl’s first principle, the group has acted against his idea of justice. This is because they violated the rights of other individuals and wrongly benefited from stealing goods from the shop. According to Kant’s idea of ethics, they also violated his view of ethics because they did not act in a way that expresses humanity. According to Rawls and Kant’s concept of justice in this situation of theft, justice gets served equally as the gang members did not act in a just and fairway. Both Kant and Rawls have a similarity in their idea of justice in that their main aim is not privileging oneself. (Budde, p.357) In Kant’s idea of ethics, one is expected to treat others always as ends in themselves and not as a means to one ends; whereas in Rawl’s concept of justice is one ought to recognize that other citizens matter as you do. The significant difference is that; Kant constructed a philosophical idea of justice that addressed the most fundamental questions (Widdows, p.56), whereas Rawls focused on a political theory that did not on an individual’s view on any issues.
Works Cited
Budde, Kerstin. “Rawls on Kant: Is Rawls a Kantian or Kant a Rawlsian?.” European Journal of Political Theory 6.3 (2007): 339-358.
Hare, Richard Mervyn. “Rawls’ theory of justice–I.” (1973): 144-155.
Widdows, Heather. Global ethics: An introduction. Routledge, 2014.