E Pluribus Unum

Abstract

One tradition of liberal thought is committed to showing on the basis of an individualistic conception of what is good that it is reasonable for all persons to accept certain common principles. The most recent version of this enterprise is to be found in Professor John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. Rawls has to show that persons in the ‘original position’, with plans of life which will turn out to be different, though equally rational, when the ‘veil of ignorance’ has been lifted, nevertheless have reason to accept common principles of justice. One might have expected divergent views about the best principles of justice to adopt, considering that the rationality of choices is related to desires, and that parties in the original position may have different desires. Rawls meets this problem by introducing the ‘primary goods’: those things it is rational to want whatever else one wants. By employing this ‘thin’ theory of the good in the original position, Rawls attempts to show that the choices of all parties will converge upon his two principles of justice. Each individual's ‘full’ conception of the good may then be developed within the constraints imposed by the principles of justice.