Rawls And Nozick Social Justice Essay

Social justice is an interesting philosophical examination, pensive thought in understanding how society would function with or without the concept of justice. Having read two works delving into the intricacies of social justice by Rawls and Robert Nozick, understanding the role of what societies are trying to achieve, as well as where they disagree on that point. By examining different accounts of social justice would not be complete without considering the works of Rawls and Robert Nozick's deliberations about the key differences in society, as well as how they view justice, and where their points diverge.
Rawls's difference principle is the reliance on fair equality of opportunity, meaning that by rearranging the basic structure of society, maximizes prospects for the least well off. What this theory is trying to achieve is essentially equal opportunity for all. Rawls thinks that justice should be in arrangement of fundamental social, political, and economic institutions, however, this ignores the main tenant of Robert Nozick’s “entitlement theory” where the process of distributive justice ignores how society has evolved to …show more content…
This theory diverges from Rawls distributive justice account from Rawls wanting equal opportunity for all, and Nozick thinking that justice should be dispersed based on the evaluation of the state of affairs to determine the outcome properly reflects what individuals did in the past. What brings Rawls’s account into conflict with Nozick, is the ignorance of Rawls theory of distributive justice which ignores how society has evolved to be the way it is now. Collectively that means that even though Rawls wants an equal distribution of justice for all, Nozick’s theory relies more on past action and patterns to accurately evaluate and determine that people receive what is entitled to