ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines that John Rawls' account of justice as fairness, and his tool of the difference principle in particular, is one way of giving an account of social justice in social policy based on the concept of effective agency. Rawls describes the basic structure as the arena in which the principles of justice can be used as a corrective instrument against natural inequalities. Following from the primacy of the first principle guaranteeing equal rights and liberties, the second principle aims to justify the existence of inequalities in the context of a theory of justice which responds to the fact of natural inequality. The chapter argues that reflective equilibrium is the mechanism which can make the regulatory notion of reasonableness and, therefore the liberal principle of legitimacy, have purchase. It also argues that policy should be tested in line with the liberal principle of legitimacy when it impacts on issues of basic justice and constitutional essentials.
