Can we say when the compensation of social differences has been just?

Abstract

I shall examine John Rawls’s thesis that in a just society in which there are differences between its members in relation to the primary goods that they enjoy, rational people will not be subject to excusable general envy. This investigation requires an analysis of the first premises of Rawls’s theories of social justice and political liberalism. According to Rawls, the ulfillment of the second principle of justice precludes rational people from feeling excusable general envy, because social inequalities will be compensated in a just way to the benefit of the least fortunate. But this raises the question of how much the status of the least advantaged should be improved so that situations of inequality are not unjust anymore.