The economic, political, and social frameworks that each society has—its laws, institutions, policies, etc.—result in different distributions of benefits and burdens across members of the society. These frameworks are the result of human political processes and they constantly change both across societies and within societies over time. The structure of these frameworks is important because the distributions of benefits and burdens resulting from them fundamentally affect people’s lives. Arguments about which frameworks and/or resulting distributions are morally preferable constitute the topic of distributive justice. Principles of distributive justice are therefore best thought of as providing moral guidance for the political processes and structures that affect the distribution of benefits and burdens in societies, and any principles which do offer this kind of moral guidance on distribution, regardless of the terminology they employ, should be considered principles of distributive justice.

e.8 Rawls now says that the primarygoods should not be viewed as all-purpose features of life plans, because this conception is insufficiently political. It is a philosophicalconception of what human flourishing requires in terms of its minimalessential

s." Rational contractors, deliberating behind a "veil of ignorance," agree toa scheme of justice prior to knowing how the scheme materially affectstheir individual interests or conceptions of moral or nonmoralgood(s).

According to the luck egalitarian, the aim of jus-tice as equality is to eliminate so far as is possible the impact on people’slives of bad luck that falls on them through no fault or choice of theirown. In the ideal luck egalitarian society, there are no inequalities inpeople’s life prospects except those that arise through processes of vol-untary choice or faulty conduct, for which the agents involved can rea-sonably be held responsible

The difference principle selectsseparated, it selects S2. Thus withothe least advantaged, the differencerule of social choice.

For, as he increases the uncertainty in the contract situationto fend off the problems that Wolff presented, Rawls makes the contract situa-tion more and more untypical of the actual practice situation. The contracteesknow that the 'veil of ignorance' will soon lift and that they will get informa-tion concerning their talents and their roles in the institutions and practices oftheir society

But if this is so, the contractees will certainly not decide upon a strategysuch as "no advantage to me is acceptable unless it is to the advantage of thoseworse off." For, while this may be reasonable in a situation of uncertainty, itis not reasonable in a situation with information. In the latter case, a rationalegoist will adopt a new strategy that will maximize his interests alo

lity. An egoist will not bind himself toa policy which does not promise to maximize his future expectations; so it isodd for Rawls to suggest that "they understand further that the principles pro-posed and acknowledged on this occasion are to be binding on future occasions.... They will be bound by it in future cases the circumstances of which areunknown.

The 'difference' principle is not sufficient either, since it gives no specifi-cation of the size of the inequality allowed in comparison with the amount ofthe advantage provided. Any inequality, no matter how great, would be justi-fied by any advantage, no matter how slight, to the badly off. Rawls does notcall this perfectly just, but he considers it 'just' all the sam

"Given the circumstances of the original position, it isrational for a man to choose as if he were designing a society in which hisenemy is to assign him his place. Thus, in particular, given the complete lackof knowledge . . . it is rational to be conservative and so to choose in accor-dance with an analogue of the maximin principle.... Moreover, it seems clearhow the principle of utility can be interpreted: it is the analogue of the La-placean principle for choice uncert

The second, or 'difference' principle is much too strong. It specifies thatinequalities are arbitrary unless they will work out to the advantage of therepresentative man. But this Pareto-inclusive rule prevents any redistributionwhich lowers the wealth of the rich from being considered just.