Balancing Equality and Liberty in Rawls’s Theory of Justice

This thesis examines the balance of equality and liberty in Rawls’s theory of justice. By analyzing the contents of his two principles of justice, this thesis supports his claim that the principles of justice adequately represent the values of equality and liberty.

The point that this thesis focuses on is the relationship between two principles of justice. According to Rawls, the relationship between them is created by priority rules. Rawls arranges two principles of justice in lexical order – the priority of the first principle over the second. This idea of priority rules does not provide an adequate standard to reconcile the values of equality and liberty because the priority rules emphasize liberty more than equality.

This results from Rawls’s position. That is, he attempts to compromise equality and liberty within a liberal’ view. Liberals do not have the intention to harmonize equality and liberty because the most important value for them is liberty. Thus, Rawls’s idea to balance equality and liberty has the same limit as liberals.