ABSTRACT
A Rawlsian analysis directly responds to both the anti-majoritarian and the elitism objections. The donative theory serves as a model for Rawlsian justice because the government failure component of the theory so nicely exemplifies the effect of imposing the "veil of ignorance"—the principal condition that characterizes the original position, from which the terms of the idealized social contract are generated. According to Nozick, any activity of government that goes beyond the role of a "minimal, nightwatchman state" violates the rights of its citizens. The minimal state is "limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on." Rawls and Nozick present very intricate versions of liberal moral theory, but even the most rudimentary form of liberalism supports the donative theory. A fundamental tenet common to all liberal theories of justice is that members of society are autonomous moral agents, each free to pursue his own notion of the good.
