The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.
Use itGS4: critique utilitarianism; aggregate welfare ignores individual rights.
Quotes / Thinkers / John Rawls
Thinker · 13 quotes
John Rawls quotes for UPSC
13 sourced quotes by John Rawls on justice & rule of law, equality & social justice, ethics & morality, governance & administration, democracy & freedom, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
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Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.
Use itGS4: legislators and officials must serve public, not personal interest.
The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
Use itGS4: impartial policymaking; design rules without knowing your own position.
Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.
Use itGS2: constitution as fair procedure ensuring just outcomes.
In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage.
Use itEssay: society as cooperative venture for mutual benefit; intro to social contract.
It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.
Use itGS4: expediency vs justice; growth cannot justify deprivation of some.
Justice does not require that men must stand idly by while others destroy the basis of their existence.
Use itGS3/Essay: right of self-defence; justice permits resisting existential threats.
The suppression of liberty is always likely to be irrational.
Use itEssay on liberty: suppressing freedom rarely serves reason.
No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.
Use itGS2: justify affirmative action; nobody earns their birth or natural talents.
In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.
Use itGS2: fair equality of opportunity; social class must not limit prospects.
Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.
Use itGS2: difference principle to justify reservations and pro-poor welfare.
There is a divergence between private and social accounting that the market fails to register. One essential task of law and government is to institute the necessary conditions.
Use itGS3: externalities and market failure justify regulation, e.g., pollution.
The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.
Use itEssay on tolerance: the intolerant free-ride on liberal institutions.