John Rawls, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Justice as fairness is, at its core, a political conception of justice — a moral conception, yes, but one worked out for a specific subject: the main political, social, and economic institutions of a modern constitutional democracy, and how they fit together into one unified system of social cooperation.1 That subject I call the basic structure of society.
Citizens are born into it and will normally spend their whole lives within its institutions; the basic structure profoundly influences their life-prospects, their social class of origin, their opportunities for education, and the distribution of social and economic advantages.2 The overarching idea from which everything else follows is that of society as a fair system of cooperation between free and equal persons.3
This is not an idea imported from metaphysics or from any one comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrine; it is an idea implicit in the public political culture of a democratic society, one that citizens already recognize when they reflect seriously on the terms of their association. From that starting point, the central question becomes: given that we regard citizens as free and equal, which principles of justice are most appropriate for the basic structure?4
To answer that question, I generalize and carry to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.5 The guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure are the object of an original agreement — not an agreement to enter a particular society or establish a particular government, but an agreement on the fundamental terms of social cooperation itself.
Those principles, once identified, regulate all further agreements and specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into.6 The original position, with its veil of ignorance, is the device of representation through which that agreement is modeled. It keeps track of all our assumptions and brings out their combined force by uniting them into one framework, so that we can see their implications more clearly.7
The principles that emerge from it apply to the basic structure — specifying basic rights and duties within the main institutions of society, and regulating those institutions over time so that the benefits produced by everyone's efforts are fairly acquired and divided from one generation to the next.8 One thing I did not stress sufficiently in A Theory of Justice — my 1971 work presenting the full systematic argument — is that justice as fairness is a political conception, not a metaphysical one.9
It does not claim to adjudicate among comprehensive moral or religious doctrines. It is freestanding: worked up from the fundamental idea of society as a fair system of cooperation, with the hope that it can win the support of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines held by citizens with genuinely different views of the good.10
justice as fairness is intended as a political conception of justice. While a political conception of justice is, of course, a moral conception, it is a moral conception worked out for a specific kind of subject, namely, for political, social, and economic institutions.18 Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical, p. 404
We suppose that citizens are born into society and will normally spend their whole lives within its basic institutions. The nature and role of the basic structure importantly influence social and economic inequalities and enter into determining the appropriate principles of justice.Justice as Fairness A Restatement, pp. 2–3
the overarching fundamental intuitive idea, within which other basic intuitive ideas are systematically connected, is that of society as a fair system of cooperation between free and equal persons.18 Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical, pp. 410–412
once we view a democratic society as a fair system of social cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal, what principles are most appropriate to it?Justice as Fairness A Restatement, pp. 2–3
My aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.A Theory of Justice, p. 10
the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement... These principles are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established.A Theory of Justice, p. 10
the original position serves to keep track of all our assumptions and to bring out their combined force by uniting them into one framework so that we can more easily see their implications.Justice as Fairness A Restatement, pp. 2–3
principles that specify basic rights and duties within the main institutions of society, and by regulating the institutions of background justice over time so that the benefits produced by everyone's efforts are fairly acquired and divided from one generation to the next.18 Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical, pp. 410–412
One thing I failed to say in A Theory of Justice, or failed to stress sufficiently, is that justice as fairness is intended as a political conception of justice.18 Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical, p. 404
justice as fairness works up a political conception from the fundamental idea of society as a fair system of social cooperation. The hope is that this conception with its account of primary goods can win the support of an overlapping consensus.Justice as Fairness A Restatement, pp. 15–16