The day of reckoning

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

I've been looking for this passage in Rawls for a long time. It's cited at the beginning of chapter 8 in Roberto Alejandro's The Limits of Rawlsian Justice. Alejandro wields it against Rawls, as part of his case that justice-as-fairness is an "exhausted" conservative paradigm that does little but preserve the status quo. I read it as an acknowledgement of political, economic and historical contingency on Rawls's part, a statement that gives the lie to all those who accuse Rawls of idealistic abstraction. (Thanks Amazon's Search Inside!)

By way of comment, these principles and priority rules are no doubt incomplete. Other modifications will surely have to be made, but I shall not further complicate the statement of the principles. It suffices to observe that when we come to nonideal theory, the lexical ordering of the two principles, and the valuations that this ordering implies, suggest priority rules which seem to be reasonable enough in many cases. By various examples I have tried to illustrate how these rules can be used and to indicate their plausibility. Thus the ranking of the principles of justice in ideal theory reflects back and guides the application of these principles to nonideal situations. It identifies which limitations need to be dealt with first. In the more extreme and tangled instances of nonideal theory this priority of rules will no doubt fail; and indeed, we may he able to find no satisfactory answer at all. But we must try to postpone the day of reckoning as long as possible, and try to arrange society so that it never comes.

The passage is from the Revised Edition of A Theory of Justice, section 46, page 267; the emphasis is mine. For those who, like me, are far too enthusiastic about the Rawlsian minutiae, I have given the text of the original edition—with additions and deletions—below the fold.

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By way of comment, these principles and priority rules are no doubt incomplete. Other modifications will surely have to be made, but I shall not further complicate the statement of the principles. It suffices to observe that when we come to nonideal theory, we do not fall back straightway upon the general conception of justice. [t]he lexical ordering of the two principles, and the valuations that this ordering implies, suggest priority rules which seem to be reasonable enough in many cases. By various examples I have tried to illustrate how these rules can be used and to indicate their plausibility. Thus the ranking of the principles of justice in ideal theory reflects back and guides the application of these principles to nonideal situations. It identifies which limitations need to be dealt with first. The drawback of the general conception of justice is that it lacks the definite structure of the two principles in serial order. In more extreme and tangled instances of nonideal theory there may be no alternative to it. At some point th[is] priority of rules for nonideal cases will [no doubt] fail; and indeed, we may be able to find no satisfactory answer at all. But we must try to postpone the day of reckoning as long as possible, and try to arrange society so that it never comes.

A Theory of Justice (1971), section 46, page 303.