Exploring Political Thoughts: Comparing Rawls and Dworkin Theories

This essay provides a comparative analysis of the political theories of John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, focusing on Rawls' concept of overlapping consensus from "A Theory of Justice" and Dworkin's theory of law as integrity and equality of resources. The essay explores how both theorists, despite their shared democratic and liberal ideals, differ in their approaches to achieving a just society. It argues that Dworkin's framework, particularly his emphasis on equal distribution of resources and the 'envy-test', offers a more practical and enforceable means of establishing human rights compared to Rawls' reliance on naturally derived social norms and consensus. The essay concludes that while both theorists have significantly contributed to the understanding of justice and individual rights, Dworkin's theory builds upon and advances the ideas presented by Rawls, providing a more actionable path toward a fair and equitable society.

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POLITICAL THOUGHTS
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Overlapping consensus was an idea that was theorized by John Rawls in the book “A
theory of Justice”. The political term refers to the fact that though justice system and concept is
different in various regions and countries, there are some principles of justice that all these
different regions agree upon (Saward, 2018). Social norms, religious principles, political
ideology and other similar doctrines may fall in this overlapping consensus theory, where the
overall concept may be varying in different groups, there are some principles on which all these
groups agree upon. John Bordley Rawls, who was the proponent of this concept, was a political
thinker in United States of America. He was an advocate of democracy and liberal ideas. He was
an important contributor at Harvard University, and University of Oxford. His book “A Theory
of Justice” in 1971 has redefined the normative philosophy on politics. Normative philosophy in
politics describe those philosophies that distinguishes between right and wrong and moral and
immoral activities.
The book by John Rawls “A theory of Justice” attempts to explain justice in its various
forms, especially distributive justice, in which justice will be distributed equally among all the
sections of the society, even those who are in the brinks of social order (Buchanan, 2017).
The idea of overlapping consensus lies in the fact that there are some basic similarities of
the concept of morality, or goodness in all the societies. Therefore, it must be understood that
though the social groups in various regions of the world may be different according to overall
social customs and norms, but they would have some principles on which they agree upon.
Example of such overlapping consensus in terms of justice can be given by the example that
murder is considered a severe crime in all countries and cultures of the world, and most of the
countries reward capital punishment who commit a crime like murder. Therefore, even if a
country is secular, or is dominated by particular religion, death penalty is a crime in most of the

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countries worldwide. In case of religion one example of such overlapping consensus can be
given as follows. Though there are different customs, rituals and practices in various religions,
the overall principle of believing in the existence of a supreme creator God, and trying to connect
to him in various ways, is same across all religions. In case of social overlapping consensus, it
may be stated that though there are difference of social structures and norms in various parts of
the world, the institution of marriage prevails in all cultures. However, in this particular regard
the concept of overlapping consensus in the justice system is described and analyzed.
Ronald Myles Dworkin is an eminent jurist in the United States of America, and a thinker
and scholar of the Constitutional law of the United States. He was also a philosopher and
political thinker. He has substantial contribution to law and political philosophy of the country.
Dworkin in his book “Law’s Empire” has stated the theory of law as integrity, which have been
considered as one of the most impactful contemporary theories of the present times. He had
advocated “moral reading” of the laws and interpretivist approach to the Constitution of the
United States of America.
Dworkin has also worked extensively in describing what is equality and how equality can
be executed in real time. He has also authored a book called the “Sovereign Virtue” where he has
proposed the theory called the “equality of resources” (Waluchow & Sciaraffa, 2016). He
advocated that the individual abilities, talents of the person must not impact the resource
allocation in the society. Every person with whatever abilities he or she might be born must be
enjoying equal rights and resources from the state. His theories are engraved with the principle
that all the individuals are entitled to equal attention from the society and the social system must
be designed in a way that the structure enables the individuals to enjoy equal rights. Rights
according to Dworkin protect the fundamental values of the human beings from “collective

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political justification” (Dworkin, 2015). Dworkin had extensively researched on the relationship
between rights and utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is based on the idea that whatever actions
increases utility of anything must be followed. Any action when done may be producing some
pleasure and some pain, the “sum of all pleasure, minus the pain” is utility according to Jeremy
Bentham who was the proponent of the theory of utilitarianism.
I believe that the theory put forward by Dworkins is better equipped for
establishing human rights, in present day times. Dworkins theory has been suited for the
environment of a liberal democracy on the grounds that it gives importance on equal distribution
of resources and wealth, in spite of differences in abilities and understandings of the individuals
in a society. Rawls on the other hand uses the overlapping consensus as the basis of rights, and
overlapping consensus may or may not be present in a society, and there is no one decide or
ensure that there is such consensus. However, in applying the Dwarkin’s theory there is no need
of depending on social customs or practices, it has to be systematically applied by constitutional
reforms and legal actions.
Both the theories of Rawl and Dwarkin are based on the principles of democracy and
liberalism. Both of these theorists have argued favorably in establishing a society where
individual rights are ascertained and there is no scope of state interference into life of the
individuals in terms of their social activities. The theorists are like minded in stating that
individual liberty should be protected and social equality must be guaranteed. However, the
system of execution of Dworkin’s theory is more effective.
Dworkin had developed a test known as the “envy-test”, which he believes is the criterion
of just distribution of resources throughout the society. Simply this concept states that when a
person envies other person because the second person has received or accumulated much more

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resources than the first person, then it is to be believed that the social distribution system is not
just and well structured. A theoretical concept of initial auction was proposed in which all the
members of a particular society or community will be offered the equal amount of money, and
all the resources will be open for auction. the next thing that was needed to be done was to get
free market competition begin and continue in the same way for a considerable amount of time.
Though this system was not practically possible to be to be executed however the theory lets us
understand that the rights of the people are equal and everyone should have similar access to
resources. This is wonderful to see that the communist idea of equal distribution of wealth is
matched with free market to give rise to theory that would ensure a equal and just society.
Dworkin’s theory was better in a lot of ways then Rawl’s, it was as if the theory of Rawls was
taken forward by Dworkin. The idea of Rolls in his book a theory of justice about overlapping
consensus was quite practical but it was to be derived from Natural sources and not controlled by
external human interference. for example the social norms or religious principles or political
ideology that are same in various numbers of social structures are derived naturally and they
evolve naturally they are not imposed or manmade.
As conclusion it must be said that both Rawls and Dwarkin were phenomenally
successful in their Endeavour in researching about various means of establishing just and rightful
Society. In the book of theory of justice the concept of justice as fairness is one of the very
influential theories developed by Rawls, which suggests that the all the individuals or people in a
society if given equal and neutral situation then they will all agree on equal distribution of the
resources and wealth. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, or the philosopher Rousseau, all emphasized
on this natural tendency of men to establish the natural justice system. However, Dwarkin in his
book, “justice and hypothetical agreements” have not agreed that all men in such situation maybe

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agreeing to establish a society where all the wealth will be equally distributed. He has suggested
today must be a system a process that will ensure that the equal distribution happens from the
highest authority. Despite the fact that Rawls gives a legitimate contention to only dispersion of
products, thinkers Ronald Dworkin and Thomas Nagel bring up fascinating issues contradicting
his origination of distributive equity. Both Dworkin and Nagel have profound reservations about
the first position, which Dworkin portrays as "oblivious of interests past a picked few".

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References:
Buchanan, A. (2017). A critical introduction to Rawls’ theory of justice. In Distributive
Justice (pp. 175-211). Routledge.
DAS, J. K. (2016). Human rights law and practice. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..
Dworkin, R. (2015). How law is like literature. In Law and Literature (pp. 45-62). Routledge.
Saward, M. (2018). Rawls and deliberative democracy. In Democracy as public deliberation (pp.
112-130). Routledge.
Waluchow, W., & Sciaraffa, S. (Eds.). (2016). The Legacy of Ronald Dworkin. Oxford
University Press.