Fraternity and its interpretation according to John Rawls' difference principle
Liberty; equality; fraternity; difference principle.
This research investigates to what extent the difference principle considers the idea of fraternity as a political category in the philosophy of John Rawls. To do so, we analyze his works A Theory of Justice (1971) and, in a complementary way Political Liberalism (1993). For Rawls, to think of fraternity as a political conception is feasible if it is imagined as an ideal that meets the requirements of the difference principle. From this perspective, the inequalities allowed by just institutions only happen if they contribute to the well-being of persons who are less fortunate, and in this sense, they seem to meet the demands of fraternity. Therefore, to shed light on this understanding, we organize the text into three chapters, besides the introduction and the final remarks. The first chapter regards the theoretical framework of the theory of justice as fairness and some of its main concepts. The second chapter introduces distributive justice as in A Theory of Justice, as well as some criticisms by communitarians to justice as fairness. Finally, the third chapter addresses the difference principle and its relation to the principle of fraternity, in addition to the analysis of the main institutions for a democratic equality and to some considerations on intergenerational justice and the social minimum.