La herencia igualitarista de John Rawls

Abstract

One of the indisputable achievements of John Rawls work has been the revitalisation of the concept of equality in the ethics and political philosophy of the last few years. He has removed it from the monopoly of the ideologies that have had better or worse luck throughout the entire twentieth century and returned it to the analytical and conceptual rigor of philosophy. Moreover, he has done so with the added virtue of harmonising the value of equality with the values of freedom and efficiency, which is an effort that is not always valued with sufficient understanding. There is no doubt about the influence of Rawls theory of justice on current egalitarian thinking that, in some way, has been, and is still being, built -following -or diverging from the wake opened by the philosopher from Harvard. In this article, I analyse the main debates that are going on about Rawlsian egalitarianism and I point out some possible future orientation. In the first place, I set out the two great egalitarian arguments in Rawls work stemming, respectively, from a person's moral conception and the moral arbitrariness of the individual' s social and natural contingencies. Afterwards, I explore the problems of both arguments insisting, on one hand, on the inadequacy of the Kantian moral personality as a foundation for an egalitarian theory and, on the other hand, on the inconsistency of luck egalitarianism as an egalitarian extension of Rawls theory. In third place, I demonstrate that the main egalitarian problem in Rawls work comes from the concept of equality and equity void of solidarity. I conclude, finally, that justice as fairness should be contrasted with justice as fraternity.