ABSTRACT
There are three parts to Rawls’s complex argument for the principles of justice. In this chapter I focus on the first, which comprises arguments made from the original position (set forth in chapter 3 of A Theory of Justice). In the next chapter I discuss the second part of Rawls’s argument (set forth in TJ, Part II, “Institutions,” and elsewhere), which applies the principles of justice to social institutions (TJ, chs. 4-5) and individual duties and obligations (TJ, ch. 6). Then the third part of Rawls’s argument is discussed in the following chapter, regarding the “stability” of justice as fairness; this is designed to show that justice as fairness is compatible with human moral psychology, affirms the human good, and describes a feasible social world (all this in Part III of TJ, “Ends”).
