ABSTRACT
John Rawls' book Justice as Fairness begins with practical, materialistic self-interest, which inevitably creates justice; justice, in turn, catalyzes cooperation, which helps to build an enduring society—or, regrettably, an inadequate form of justice may fail to do so. Rawls’ decades-long quest was to discover which form of the inevitable justice best creates and sustains a society. Justice as Fairness is Rawls’ ultimate explanation of his philosophy. For Rawls, a basic concept of justice, a justice that ensures property rights, logically works best within some form of “property-owning democracy”. Rawls views reasonable pluralism as a beneficial challenge to any concept of social justice, not simply his justice as fairness philosophy. Reasonable pluralism is inseparable from the property-owning democracies within which justice—and public relations—function: “There is no politically practicable way to eliminate this diversity except by the oppressive use of state power”.
