The First Principle: The Liberty Principle
The first and most important principle states that every individual has an equal right to basic liberties, Rawls claiming "that certain rights and freedoms are more important or 'basic' than others". For example, Rawls believes that "personal property" – personal belongings, a home – constitutes a basic liberty, but an absolute right to unlimited private property is not. As basic liberties, they are inalienable: no government can amend, infringe or remove them from individuals.
In A Theory of Justice, Rawls articulates the Liberty Principle as the most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others; he later amended this in Political Liberalism, stating instead that "each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties" (emphasis added).
Read more about this topic: Justice As Fairness
Famous quotes containing the words liberty and/or principle:
“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”
—Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977)
“In case I conk out, this is provisionally what I have to do: I must clarify obscurities; I must make clearer definite ideas or dissociations. I must find a verbal formula to combat the rise of brutality—the principle of order versus the split atom.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)