FEASIBILITY, STABILITY, AND APPLICABILITY IN JOHN RAWLS’S THEORY OF JUSTICE
VIABILIDADE, ESTABILIDADE E APLICABILIDADE
Keywords:
Applicability, Difference principle, Feasibility, John Rawls, Justice as fairness, StabilityAbstract
The article examines the conditions of feasibility, stability, and applicability of John Rawls’s justice as fairness. Drawing on Pablo Gilabert, it argues that feasibility should be conceived dynamically, incorporating the potential for institutional transformation and collective mobilization, without reducing normative theory to immediate practical constraints. It then analyzes stability as a criterion of normative validity, reconstructing Rawls’s shift from an approach grounded in the congruence between the right and the good to the model of overlapping consensus in contexts of reasonable pluralism. Stability is interpreted as the support of justice “for the right reasons,” namely, through the recognition of its legitimacy by free and equal citizens. Finally, the article discusses the applicability of ideal theory, emphasizing the role of the difference principle as a regulative standard both in well-ordered societies and in contexts of injustice. Charles Mills’s critique of Rawlsian theory as inapplicable to racially structured societies is contrasted with Samuel Freeman’s defense, which interprets ideal theory as a methodological device indispensable for evaluating injustices and guiding reforms. The article concludes that justice as fairness can be conceived as feasible, stable, and applicable, providing normative guidance even in societies marked by structural inequalities.
References
FREEMAN, S. “Rawls”. New York: Routledge, 2007a.
______. “Justice and the social contract: essays on rawlsian political philosophy”. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007b.
______. “Ideal theory and racial justice”. Seminário do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Lógica e Metafísica – PPGLM/UFRJ, 2022. Disponível em https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcDXvyLwqTw Acessado em 26 de Agosto de 2024.
______. “Original position”. In: ZALTA, E. N., NODELMAN, U. (eds.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University, 2023. Disponível em https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/original-position/ Acessado em 4 de Julho de 2024.
GAUS, G. “The order of public reason”. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
GILABERT, P. “Human dignity and social justice”. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
KRASNOFF, L. “Stability”. In: MANDLE, J., REIDY, D. A. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 804-810.
LADEN, A. S. “Difference principle”. In: MANDLE, J., REIDY, D. A. (eds.). 2015, pp. 211-216.
LAURENCE, B. “Agents of change: political philosophy in practice”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2021.
MANDLE, J., REIDY, D. A. (eds.). “The Cambridge Rawls lexicon”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
MILLS, C. W. “Black rights/ white wrongs: the critique of racial liberalism”. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
PETRONI, L. “O argumento da estabilidade no contratualismo de John Rawls”. Kriterion: Revista de Filosofia, Vol. 58, Nr. 136, pp. 139-161, 2017.
RAWLS, J. “A theory of justice”. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
______. “Justice as fairness: a restatement”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
______. “Political liberalism”. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
______. “Uma teoria da justiça”. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2016.
WEITHMAN, Paul J. “Why political liberalism? On John Rawls’s political turn”. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Revista Kriterion
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
