Analysis Of John Rawls 'Justice As Fairness In The Liberal Polity'

The Earth is currently facing detrimental environmental issues. These issues have been evident for decades; however, many people have continuously denied them to be problematic or even their existence entirely. While these critics have managed to get away with the rejection of these problems for many years, it is no longer deniable that the issue of environmental degradation is very real and in need of immediate action. Much of the population has come to understand this, and have executed a variety of modest attempts to increase environmental sustainability. However, these efforts have demonstrated to be of minimal effect in solving the large-scale issues directly causing the degradation. Pollution, global warming, deforestation, and a plethora …show more content…
Throughout the piece, “justice as fairness” serves as the basis for the liberal approach to citizenship:
Justice as fairness is intended as a political conception of justice. While a political conception of justice is, of course a moral conception… justice as fairness framed to apply to what I have called the ‘basic structure’ of a modern constitutional democracy. By this structure I mean such a society’s main political, social, and economic institutions, and how they fit together into one unified system of social cooperation.
In other words, Rawls believes that a democracy will most efficiently function when each citizen develops their own moral conception of justice and go on to agreeably pursue these conceptions through diverse plans of action. Rawls then goes on to describe what it means to be a citizen in his ideal democracy: “First, citizens are free in that they conceive of themselves and of one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good… they regard themselves as self-originating sources of valid claims… they are regarded as capable of taking responsibility for their ends.” What he means by all of this is that citizens must act by their own free will in order to pursue their perceptions of “the good,” but they should still be able to adjust these aspirations in lieu of justice and social cooperation. In short, Rawls argues …show more content…
This particular issue can only be solved through a singular; comprehensive effort as is laid out in the communitarian approach to citizenship. As Oldfield explains, a community is based on a sense of belonging to a group rather than physical proximity. Should citizens choose to view themselves as not only citizens of their towns and countries, but as citizens of the world and consequently create a global effort to fix the state of the Earth, there will be nothing standing in their way of doing just that. With this communal perspective, it will surely become autonomous for citizens to collectively support environmental sustainability through one strategic plan of action. This communitarian approach to citizenship ultimately results in prompt action regarding this issue without infringing on the individual rights and liberties of the