ABSTRACT
ANSWER The problem of what ought to be the principles of social justice – basic to ethics and jurisprudence – is subjected to a detailed analysis by Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971). An elaborate, systematic argument emerges in which Rawls provided an alternative to earlier doctrines of justice as conceived by utilitarians such as Bentham, for whom a ‘just system’ required legal institutions directed at the creation of ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. Rawls’s approach is epitomised in the statement: ‘Justice is fairness.’ His theory is, without doubt, a radical alternative to utilitarian justice; whether it is credible is less certain.
