Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”
John Rawls · Political philosophy · Modern · 1971
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a ban on a certain kind of trade: justice gives each person an inviolability that the welfare of society as a whole cannot override, so a loss of freedom for some is not repaired by a larger sum of advantages for others. A competing reading hears a claim that no public policy may ever inconvenience anyone. He is talking about the basic structure and about liberties of equal citizenship, which he says are not subject to the calculus of social interests. The sentence is in section 1, on the role of justice, immediately after the sentence, already in this library, that justice is the first virtue of institutions. Inviolability is the word that blocks the utilitarian sum. It is why his later original position is designed as it is. The person is not a site the total may spend.
Did John Rawls really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Rawls's own English, in the opening section of A Theory of Justice (1971), a few sentences after the claim that justice is the first virtue of social institutions. He draws the consequence that a loss of liberty for some is not made right by a greater good for others.
Where it comes from
A Theory of Justice, §1
Approximate date: 1971.
How to use it
A hospital trust that proposes to quiet a ward by permanently locking in the patient who complains, and calls the quiet a gain in welfare, crosses the line he draws, even if the numbers look kind. The sentence does not forbid a vaccine programme or a tax. It forbids making a person's basic standing a resource for the sum. A committee that cannot say what it would refuse to do to one resident for the sake of the rest has not yet met the sentence. Efficiency is not his first virtue. Justice is.
A mindset reading
When a plan justifies a harm by the size of the benefit, ask whether a person is being treated as inviolable or as a term in the addition. The habit will not answer every policy question. It will stop the slide from 'the numbers are better' to 'then it is just'. Rawls thinks those are different verdicts. Section 1 is where he says the second does not follow from the first.
Understand the philosophy
Section 1 sets the role of justice before the original position is built. The key claim is inviolability founded on justice. The first-virtue sentence is the theme. This sentence is the anti-utilitarian edge of it. The veil of ignorance, also in this library, is the later device for choosing principles that could honour that inviolability. Quoting the veil without this sentence makes the book look like a thought experiment with no moral stake.
- justice
- society
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a ban on a certain kind of trade: justice gives each person an inviolability that the welfare of society as a whole cannot override, so a loss of freedom for some is not repaired by a larger sum of advantages for others. A competing reading hears a claim that no public policy may ever inconvenience anyone. He is talking about the basic structure and about liberties of equal citizenship, which he says are not subject to the calculus of social interests. The sentence is in section 1, on the role of justice, immediately after the sentence, already in this library, that justice is the first virtue of institutions. Inviolability is the word that blocks the utilitarian sum. It is why his later original position is designed as it is. The person is not a site the total may spend.
Did John Rawls really say this?
Well attested. Rawls's own English, in the opening section of A Theory of Justice (1971), a few sentences after the claim that justice is the first virtue of social institutions. He draws the consequence that a loss of liberty for some is not made right by a greater good for others.
Which work is it in?
A Theory of Justice, §1 Approximate date: 1971.