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John Rawls Utilitarianism

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Many philosophers throughout the years have tried to reach theories from which justice derived. Justice and its origins have always been one of the most interesting topics in political philosophy. As a result from this research, philosophers found out that the theories explaining justice were mainly divided into two groups: natural right theories and utilitarianism. I will focus my answer on the role of utilitarianism, using two very famous philosophers: John Rawls who is famous for defending the natural right theories as fundaments of justice and John Stuart Mill who is one of the most famous funders of utilitarianism. John Rawls was a defender of the natural right theories such as his idea of the “veil of ignorance”. I will begin by clarifying …show more content…

This is the reason why Rawls referred to the original position also as the “veil of ignorance”. Furthermore, from this idea of original position, Rawls developed the idea of “justice as fairness”. According to the author it is fair to decide the meaning of justice in the original position where men are ignorant, therefore they are not influenced by their proper envy. No one is jealous of the other, no one tries to steal other men’s properties for his own seek or the one of the whole society. Rawls’ aim was to not violate human rights, and with his theory, the violation of human rights is not possible due to the existence of the original position and the veil of ignorance. As a conclusion, Rawls was a strict defender of individual freedom, he believed people’s actions should be tolerated as much as possible. However he admitted that people’s actions that threaten other people’s rights should be punished. Furthermore he talks about liberty of conscience, here again he believes that it should be limited only if it is a danger for other …show more content…

The main confusion of utilitarianism is that it has several interpretations. One of them claims that individuals should act for the public utility in favor of their own benefits. This first interpretation is an egoistic one, because people act in favor of the community with the only aim to have their own profits afterwards. Even though Rawls and Mill’s theories present similarities, the fundaments of the theories are the exact opposite. Rawls natural right theory privileges human rights over any other duty, whereas Mill’s utilitarian theory favors society over individual and natural rights. Rawls critic is mainly directed to utilitarianism values, which is based on measuring people according to their thoughts and status instead of caring about their

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