Democratic Equality Argument

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls presents two principles of justice that regulate the basic institution of individuals within a society. Rawls believes that a rational individual would only choose to establish a society that conforms to the two principles. Specifically, Rawl concludes that his second principle of justice is the most plausible interpretation of justice. Rawls outlines three main interpretations of this idea of equality states- system of natural liberty, liberal equality, and democratic equality. Rawl argues for democratic equality in A Theory of Justice, a combination of the principle of fair equality of opportunity with the difference principle. The democratic equality argument concludes that the theory of justice is interpreted such that social and economic inequalities can be ameliorated in both natural and social conditions. I find this argument problematic because it ignores some morally arbitrary factors, leads to unjust distribution of wealth, and violates personal liberty.

The democratic equality argument is centered on the proposal for a society to exhibit distributions such as to maximize the endowment of the least well off sector of the society. Some social and natural primary goods include rights, liberties, opportunities and power, income and wealth, and self-worth. (Rawls p.607). Rawls introduces this concept by developing a social contract governed by a veil of ignorance. "The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural change or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain." (Rawls, p.600).

The Democratic equality argument assumes the first principle of the theory of justice to be established, such that each person has an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others (Rawls, 606). However, based on the principle described by democratic equality, Rawls is disregarding the ownership of oneself. By the assumption of fair equality of opportunity, Rawl is saying that we do not deserve our natural talents and should not be in an advantageous state. In order to attain a state of equality, we are forced to violate liberalism and give up our rights to self ownership. The principle of Self-Ownership stating that each of us has rights of private ownership over ourselves is also part of Nozick's theory. This is one of Nozick's first arguments against Rawl's premise for democratic equality.

The argument is an attempt to justify Rawl's second principle and find the best interpretation. The first premise of the argument states that any plausible theory accepts the vaguely worded principle of justice: social and economic inequalities must be (a) to everyone's advantage and (b) attached to positions that are open to all (Rawls, p.606). The democratic equality argument disambiguates the two parts of this principle to morally come up with the best combined interpretation to achieve the right system.

There are four possible interpretations to the principle, with the three main ones being the system of natural liberty, liberal equality, and democratic equality (Rawls, 65). All of the interpretations follow the principle of efficiency, resulting in a distribution such that there exists no alternative distribution to make some better off, and others worse off. This leads to the second premise of the democratic equality argument, which states that any interpretation that allows morally arbitrary factors to influence distribution isn't the best one. Some of these morally arbitrary factors include characters of the self such as social status, "Intuitively, the most obvious injustice of the system of natural liberty is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by [natural and social contingencies] so arbitrary from a moral point of view" (Rawls, p.72). In other words, social and natural conditions should have no bearing on the allocations of primary goods to individuals within a society.

The third premise of the democratic equality argument follows that, any interpretation that allows some morally arbitrary factors to influence some distribution, but not others is unstable, and not the best one. Through process of elimination, Rawls rejects system of natural liberty, in which only formal equality of liberty is guaranteed, and system of liberal equality, which only seeks to ameliorate differences in social conditions. Instead, Rawls adopts the absolute equality state, democratic equality, which accounts for both social and natural inequalities.

The democratic interpretation disambiguates the two senses of the second principle of the theory of justice. "Assuming the framework of institutions required by equal liberty and fair equality of opportunity, the higher expectations of those better situated are just if and only if they work as part of a scheme