Justice as Fair Maximal Utility. Rationality vs. Reasonability in the Political Democratic Institutions
Justice as Fair Maximal Utility. Rationality vs. Reasonability in the Political Democratic Institutions

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I intend to analyze the possibility of social justice as fair maximal utility starting from two different perspectives about justice – justice as fairness (J. Rawls) and justice as social choice or mutual advantage (D. Gauthier). The thesis I defend and reconstruct here is that a co-operative solution can be implemented only in a democratic society where a certain kind of justice principles is applied. This solution, however, is not a solution, if we do not really understand the principles which are being involved in it or if we do not use a proper concept of justice. My proposal here could bring some light both upon this issue and on the logical clarification. In order to realize this, I take into account at least two problems: 1) the problem of compatibility between the announced concept and the existence of social inequalities; 2) Nozick’s objection concerning the compensation of inequalities involved by this kind of justice. I intend to analyze Rawls’ solution of compensatory beneficial in order to test whether it could be considered dangerous for the preservation of equidistance of the rules and, hence, for the justice as impartiality (the procedural justice), as Nozick claims in his work Anarchy, State and Utopia, the concept of reasonability which is used here as being complementary to the concept of rationality and useful for this matter.

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