Nicolas de Condorcet as a forerunner of John Rawls

Abstract

John Rawls proposed two criteria for the delimitation of acceptable inequalities. The universal gain principle requires inequalities to be beneficial for all, and the difference principle requires them to be beneficial for the least advantaged. These principles are commonly believed to have originated in Rawls's work, but they were both clearly expressed in the writings of Nicolas de Condorcet. Contrary to Rawls, Condorcet did not imbed them in the framework of a social contract, but instead sought their foundations in natural rights. Whereas Rawls recommends us to find out what social arrangements rational reasoners would choose in a hypothetical pre-social situation, Condorcet proposes that we ask the underprivileged in our society whether or not they consider themselves to benefit from the prevailing social and economic inequalities. Thus, Condorcet's original version of the difference principle puts social inequalities to a different test than its latter-day, hypothetical version.

Javier de Lucas y Condorcet: tres ideas seminales

“…Se trata de dos ideas referidas a la democracia que han resultado ambas seminales: la paradoja de Condorcet y el teorema del jurado. La tercera, que solo recientemente ha sido considerada (Hansson 2022), es la de que en Condorcet no se halla únicamente un precedente de la idea de los derechos sociales, sino que también alberga una cuidadosa y detallada presentación y defensa del principio de la diferencia rawlsiano.…”

“…Esta idea está en el origen de las actuales concepciones epistémicas de la democracia. 8 En la cuarta sección, se mostrará, de la mano de Hansson (2022) como he apuntado, que el denominado principio de la diferencia de John Rawls, según el cual las desigualdades sólo están justificadas cuando 7 Los textos relevantes de Llull son tres, dos en latín y otro en catalán (un capítulo, el 24, de su obra muy conocida Blanquerna, escrito entre 1276 y 1283 en Montpellier, Llull (1982)), son reproducidos en Hägele, Puksheim (2001). En Barenstein (2013) aparecen en versión castellana.…”

John Stuart Mill and the Conflicts of Equality

“…Equality is an aspect or interpretation of justice, and conceptions of justice differ in what role they assign to equality(Mill 1861a: 243-244). 2 This is today conceived as a "Rawlsian" idea, but is was clearly expressed already by Nicolas de Condorcet, by whom Mill might have been inspired(Hansson 2022).…”