in this video we're going to look at John rawl's theory of distributive justice specifically what's known as the difference principle now Rawls is probably the most influential political philosopher in the past 100 years at least and we're reading an excerpt from his Landmark book a theory of justice for all this theory of distributive justice is the most widely discussed since it appeared over 50 years ago now now Rosa's theory is an equality based theory of distributive justice his main idea is that the essence of justice is fairness as he puts it the principles of Justice are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as this quote illustrates Rawls is in the social contract tradition of political philosophy that also includes Thomas Hobbes John Locke John Jacques Rousseau and Emmanuel Kant Rawls asks us to conduct a thought experiment in order to help us determine what we would agree to in an initial position of equality he asks us to imagine ourselves in what he calls the original position now it's important to clarify that he doesn't think that this is a position that anyone has actually ever been in or could be in but by imagining ourselves in the original position it helps us to think about what principles we would all agree to if nobody had the ability to skew things in their own favor or unfairly manipulate others so in this original position everyone is behind what Rawls calls a veil of ignorance that is no one knows his own place in the society no one even knows their own social class their own natural abilities their own intelligence level their own strength level they don't you don't even know what sex you are what race you are or even your own conception of what a good life is you don't know your own psychological traits now why is all that important well it's important because it makes it impossible for you to privilege your own group your own interests your own advantages at the expense of others because you wouldn't even know what group or interests are yours and so you wouldn't be able to tilt the tables in your favor and that's why according to Rawls the original position is a fair situation in which to agree on social Arrangements so what principles would we all agree on if we were actually in the original position that's the question and Ross says that first of all we would all agree to a principle of equal rights that is we would agree that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties that are compatible with a similar scheme of Liberties for others this first principle is not really a principle of distributive justice in particular it's about political justice so for example he thinks we would all agree to confer on each other the right say to free speech or freedom of religion or free association to the widest possible extent until our exercise of Liberties begin to impinge upon and violate the same Liberties for other people all right so so far like I said that's about political justice but Rawls also says additionally that we would all agree to a second principle of justice that does involve socioeconomic matters and according to this principle social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both a reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage in B attached to positions and offices that are open to all now let's look at both parts of that principle starting with the second part the second part requires formal equal opportunity social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are attached to positions and offices that are open to all anyone can compete for them now that's fairly uncontroversial at least for most modern Americans it's the first part of his principle that is more Innovative and controversial the first part which is known as the difference principle says that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage now if the inequalities are arranged so that they are to everyone's advantage that means that they must be to the advantage of those who are least well off in other words the difference principle entails that a distribution is just if it maximally benefits the least advantaged class in society because they're part of everyone and that it seems will require an extensive redistribution of wealth from the most wealthy to those less well-off in order to explain what the difference principle is going to require I'm going to use some vastly oversimplified charts of different economic models as a disclaimer I know that this isn't actually how economies work exactly or what the charts would really look like um it's just to illustrate the point in any case let's consider first of all a totally free market situation where there is no attempt to enforce any kind of equality other than equal formal opportunity there's no redistribution of wealth that kind of scenario I plausibly is likely to result in vast inequalities of wealth such as this shown here and I've got four cartoony Representative members of society it's a simple Society it's only got four people in it note that the poorest member of society ghani in this picture only has say one dollar where the richest member Richie has seven now let's consider a situation in which the government redistributes wealth so that everyone has the same amount now Donnie is doing a little bit better than he was before under the free market but because there's no reward for hard work and Innovation the whole economy is severely depressed and nobody is doing very well because if you start making more money then your neighbors is going to be taken away from you so why bother but now thirdly let's consider a situation in which there isn't enforced equality but rather only small only a smaller percentage of Richie's wealth is taken away and redistributed to Donnie in this case there's more wealth in the society overall than in the last scenario because we have it totally disincentivized industry and Enterprise Richie still gets to keep a lot of his profits and make more money than us but it also means that there's more wealth available for Donnie so this is the kind of arrangement which maximally benefits Donnie the least well-off member of society and that is the kind of arrangement that satisfies the difference principle that's the kind of scenario that rolls as principle endorses and envisions so that's Rawls and in our next video we will look at Robert nozek for a very different View