ABSTRACT
John Rawls has not recognized the need to relate the justice of social justice to that of other kinds. It is quite wrong to say that the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society. During much of modern moral philosophy, he says, the predominant systematic theory has been some form of utilitarianism. Rawls is most emphatic in insisting that his principles are arranged in order of precedence: This ordering means that a departure from the institutions of equal liberty required by the first principle cannot be justified, or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages. This grating insistence upon the institutions of equal liberty has caused Rawls to be derided in some circles as a bourgeois liberal. So it is worth noticing the ill-matching between the Rawls justice as fairness and classical utilitarianism.
