Adrian-Paul Iliescu
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the premise that society is a stable system of
cooperation, a premise that constitutes one of the pillars of John Rawls’s theory of justice. The
working hypothesis is that, by resort to this premise, Rawls has committed a typical philosophical
error, that of ‘encapsulating’ a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon (society), into a simple,
one-dimensional, essential feature (cooperation). Various possible arguments for adopting and
defending this premise are analyzed, and shown to be unconvincing. It is argued that Rawls’s
theory fails to take properly into account essential social components like conflict and power, and
that it remains thus theoretically vulnerable from this point of view.
AnnalsUnibuc-2013-62-01Iliescu