The justification system of John Rawls’s theory of justice

Keywords: John Rawls, justice as fairness, veil of ignorance, original position

English abstract: The paper considers a fundamental issue set against the backcloth of John Rawls’s theory of justice, namely the structure of its justification system. The issue is so significant, because justification fulfills a key role in the Rawlsian conception. J. Rawls offers a sophisticated system consisting of different arguments aimed at reaching full justification. In the author’s opinion, there are five elements that relate to each other: 1) original position with the idea of the veil of ignorance, 2) reflective equilibrium, 3) public reason, 4) overlapping consensus, and 5) fundamental constructivist ideas. The five above mentioned arguments seem to be based on four different argumentative strategies: 1) a coherentist strategy – referring to the general and internal coherence of the system; 2) a contractualist strategy – based on the notion of social contract; 3) a pragmatic strategy – referring to the connection with effective social practices; and 4) a constructivist strategy which is founded in the particular view of reasonableness. The justification system evolves from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism. However, though the system develops, it is always aimed at the same goal – to gather our considered beliefs and facts about a modern society into a coherent set of judgments which may claim to be valid.