“Fundamental rights and duties”
Rawls writes, “For us the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties to determine the division of advantages from social cooperation. By major institutions I understand the political constitution and the principal economic and social arrangements.”
Justice is designed to ensure the existence of legal mechanisms to protect individuals’ fundamental rights. Institutions ensure that people are not denied such rights which are crucial for them to enjoy liberty. The absence of legal institutions upholding justice would result in anarchy that would destabilize fundamental rights.
Acceptability
Rawls elucidates, “Conceptions of justice are to be ranked by their acceptability to persons so circumstanced. Understood in this way the question of justification is settled by working out a problem of deliberation: we have to ascertain which principles it would be rational to adopt given the contractual situation. This connects the theory of justice with the theory of rational choice.”
Individuals must accept the ideas of justice for them to be applicable. The framework on the principles of justice is dependent on the rationality. Accordingly, society members would not be expected to embrace principles which they deem repressive and unjust. Acceptability is influential in the attainment of justice.
Intuition
Rawls writes, “Intuitionist theories, then, have two features: first: they consist of a plurality of the first principles which may conflict to give contrary directives in particular types of cases: and second, they include no explicit method, no priority rules, for weighing these principles against one another: we are simply to strike a balance by intuition, by what seems to us most nearly right.”
Intuition is useful when assessing the merits of principles. This quality varies among individuals; but it helps in deciding on the correctness of a decision. Intuition complements laws that govern justice by aiding the process of arriving at decisions.
Institution
Rawl expounds, “In saying that an institution, and therefore the basic structure of society is a public system of rules, I mean that everyone engaged in it knows what he would know if these rules and his participation in the activity they define were the result of an agreement. A person taking part in an institution knows what the rules demand of him and of the others.”
Institutions operate based on rules that govern the dispensation of justice, and the structures provided by such institutions ensure that all parties involved in the pursuance of justice are protected. Rules and institutions cannot be separated because they are intertwined.
Weights
Rawl elucidates, “The assignment of weights is an essential and not a minor part of a conception of justice. If we cannot explain how these weights are to be determined by reasonable ethical criteria, the means of rational discussion have come to an end.” Weights contribute to rationality by aiding in the ranking of factors that shape justice. Indeed, the especially weighty factors are prioritized in the course of dispensing justice. Weights distinguish the factors that are more important so that they are given more consideration.
