Xxxxx’ Principles as Requirements of Practical Reason. It is difficult to resist the temptation to draw numerous parallels between Rawlsian thought and natural law. Let us recall that for the natural law theorist, justice can be understood as the “concrete implications of the basic requirement of practical reasonableness that one is to favor and xxxxxx the common good of one’s communities.”9 In this way, Xxxxx’ definition – “the virtue of practice where there are assumed to be competing interests and conflicting {rights} claims…” – expresses the concrete implications of practical reasonableness in a world where scarcity exists and some rights must be exercised at the expense of others. Deliberation in the original position is an exercise of natural reason unadulterated by self-interest. Both of Xxxxx’ principles of justice are similarly compatible with a theory of human rights as an expression of the requirements of practical reasonableness. Xxxxx’ first principle of justice, “that each person has an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all,” is related to our previous discussion on the limitation of rights. It is the unfortunate case that not all rights 6 Xxxxx, “The Justification of Civil Disobedience,” Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice, ed. Xxxx Xxxxx (New York: Pegasus, 1969), 240-255, in Xxxx Xxxxx: Collected Papers, 178. 7 Ibid, 177. 8 Ibid. 9 Xxxx Xxxxxx, Natural Law, 164. can be realized, and the state must deliberate on right action regarding conflicting rights claims. Human rights express a “minimum standard of well-ordered political institutions for all peoples who belong,”10 a bottom-line of dignified treatment. To expand the strength of a right to be practically non-negotiable would be an exercise of futility. It suffices to say that “the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all” is markedly similar to the natural law specification of human rights that are only to be limited by the exercise of other rights. The point of Xxxxx’ second principle– that “inequalities are arbitrary unless it is reasonable to expect that they will work to everyone’s advantage” – is to secure a fair, but not necessarily equal, distribution of goods to individuals; it defines “what sort of inequalities are permissible.”11 For example, an individual that is born into a tremendously wealthy family does not merit his wealth based on anything other than his birth; he is an arbitrary product of nepotism. Unless societal mechanisms were in place to ensure that t...
