Can Justice as Fairness Accommodate the Disabled?

Abstract

John Rawls's theory of justice has been faulted by some critics for the fact that its principles of justice are blind to the special status of those with chronic, and naturally caused, disabilities.1 Some of its friends, fur thermore, consider this not a drawback but an advantage, since it cor rectly treats disadvantages caused by social agency as more morally ur gent than those caused by nature.2 Rawls's theory is frequently (and understandably) taken as the leading example of liberal egalitarian theo ries of justice: if it gets issues about disability seriously wrong, things look bad for liberal egalitarianism. The purpose of this paper is to show that Rawls's theory can do more for the disabled than is sometimes thought and to show that this is an advantage, thus helping to vindicate liberal egalitarianism more generally. On the face of it, Rawls's theory is a weak candidate for dealing well with the disabled. The parties in Rawls's Original Position measure well being in terms of an index of social primary goods: liberties, opportuni ties, powers and prerogatives of office, and income and wealth. They select the Liberty Principle, which guarantees a set of basic liberties equally to all, and the Difference Principle, which says that opportunities must be equally distributed and that inequalities of income and wealth must benefit those who have the least income and wealth. Because rela