Rawls, rationality, and responsibility: Why we should not treat our endowments as morally arbitrary

Abstract

John Rawls is primarily known for providing his own argument for how political institutions should be organised in A Theory of Justice. He argues that we should pick principles of justice only once we remove ourselves from the position we each hold in society today. Rawls argues that if each individual did not know their wealth, race, gender and so on when deciding how society should be organised, it would be rational for each individual to choose political institutions that maximised the position of the least advantaged. This essay aims to show that this would be an irrational decision to make, an argument supported by John Harsanyi. However, this essay also shows that Harsanyi’s theory is not totally convincing either. Both Rawls and Harsanyi ultimately fail to acknowledge that it is wrong to treat endowments as morally arbitrary. The qualities that define us today should not be treated as arbitrary, because this belittles individual responsibility and autonomy. Rather, we must consider the importance of a person’s choice to develop their own natural assets.